Vibrant and Wild

Wagner's 'Flying Dutchman'
enthralls GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Der fliegende Holländer is Richard Wagner's most performed opera in Italy. I counted eighty-five different productions since 1877. The main reasons are that a) even though it is named 'a Romantic opera in three acts', it follows, by and large, standard melodramatic numbers (aria, duet, trio, concertato, major choral intervention; and b) it is less costly to stage than most Wagnerian operas. This year, Wagner's birth bicentenary, four of the major opera houses have it in their programs...

RICHARD WAGNER

FLYING DUTCHMAN

GERMANY

NETHERLANDS

NAPLES

ITALY