
The Flying Dutchman
Condemned and sailing the stormy seas.
Every seven years, an ill-fated sea captain gets a chance at redemption. He needs a bride to break the curse. Can he find a woman pure of heart or will he roam the seas eternally?
David Alden delivers a new production of The Flying Dutchman to Santa Fe Opera audiences for the first time in 35 years. This Dutchman promises to be a dark, turbulent and dangerous voyage for the condemned sailor.
Synopsis
-
Act I
The Norwegian Captain Daland’s ship is sheltering in a coastal cove during a storm. Daland sends his crew to rest, leaving the watch to a sleepy Steersman. A ghostly ship appears in the harbor, and its captain goes ashore – as he would have it, thrown there by a sea that refuses to wreck him. The Flying Dutchman is doomed to live forever. He can try to break the curse once every seven years by going ashore to seek a woman who would be faithful to him unto death. Daland sees the Dutchman go and, following him ashore, questions him. Hearing his tale and seeing the riches of his ship, he agrees to bring him home to woo his daughter. The storm subsides.
-
Act II
Senta and her friends are at work spinning. The girls tease her for being so absorbed in the Dutchman’s portrait, and then ask her to sing his ballad. She jumps up and declares that hers will be the love that breaks the curse and saves him. Her suitor Erik (a hunter, not a sailor) entering with news of the sailors’ homecoming, asks Senta to plead his case with her father. She is evasive, preferring to sympathize with the picture she studies. Then he tells Senta about a dream in which he saw her father coming ashore with a ghastly stranger, and Senta embracing the stranger and sailing away with him. She avows that that is what she must do. He rushes away in despair. Daland enters and presents the Dutchman as Senta’s bridegroom. She is transfixed. The Dutchman is equally moved by the meeting. Daland is delighted that Senta has accepted the stranger’s request.
-
Act III
Two ships are seen and a sailor’s song is heard. Daland’s crew tries to get the crew of the Dutchman to join their merrymaking, but there is no answer. The Norwegian crew begins to taunt the Dutch crew, and they finally appear and sing as bluish flames run up their sails. Daland’s sailors are terrified. Erik and Senta come out of the house. He reminds her of how she had received and encouraged his love. Now he is afraid she is possessed. The Dutchman, overhearing, bids Senta farewell, for he believes he is unloved. Erik and others try to hold her back from following the Dutchman, who proclaims his identity and puts out to sea. Senta breaks away and rushes to the cliff’s edge, calling out that she knows who he is and she will be faithful unto death. She casts herself into the sea. The ship sinks, the sea rises and the forms of Senta and the Dutchman float upward in the light.
Artists
Nicholas Brownlee
Hometown: Mobile, AL
2023 Season:
Dutchman, The Flying Dutchman
SFO Debut:
First Soldier, Salome, 2015
Santa Fe Opera Apprentice: 2014, 2015
Past Seasons:
Kurwenal, Tristan und Isolde, 2022
Figaro, The Marriage of Figaro, 2021
Bottom, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2021
Elza van den Heever
Hometown: Johannesburg, South Africa
2023 Season:
Senta, The Flying Dutchman
SFO Debut:
Donna Anna, Don Giovanni, 2009
Past Seasons:
Alcina, Alcina, 2017
Richard Trey Smagur
Hometown: Clarkesville, GA
2023 Season:
Erik, The Flying Dutchman
SFO Debut:
Prince Guidon, The Golden Cockerel, 2017
Santa Fe Opera Apprentice: 2017
Past Seasons:
Števa Burja, Jenůfa, 2019
Morris Robinson
Bille Bruley
Hometown: Montgomery, TX
2023 Season:
Steersman, The Flying Dutchman
Past Seasons:
Benjamin, The Thirteenth Child, 2019 (SFO Debut)
Santa Fe Opera Apprentice: 2018, 2019
Gretchen Krupp
Hometown: Woodbridge, VA
2023 Season:
Mary, The Flying Dutchman (SFO Debut)
Pelléas et Mélisande
Rusalka
Santa Fe Opera Apprentice: 2022, 2023
Past Seasons:
Carmen, 2022
Falstaff, 2022
M. Butterfly, 2022
Thomas Guggeis
Alden Gatt
Hometown:
2023 Season:
The Flying Dutchman (August 25) (SFO Debut)
David Alden
Hometown: New York, NY
2023 Season:
The Flying Dutchman
SFO Debut:
Turn of the Screw, 1983
Past Seasons:
Jenůfa, 2019
Alcina, 2017
Maometto II, 2012
Radamisto, 2008
Judith, 1990
Paul Steinberg
Hometown: New York, NY
2023 Season:
The Flying Dutchman
SFO Debut:
Cosí fan tutte, 1977
Constance Hoffman
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
2023 Season:
The Flying Dutchman
SFO Debut:
The Tales of Hoffmann, 2010
Duane Schuler
Hometown: Elkhart Lake, WI
2023 Season:
The Flying Dutchman
SFO Debut:
Madame Butterfly, 1996
Past Seasons:
Carmen, 2022
The Marriage of Figaro, 2021
Jenůfa, 2019
Candide, 2018
The Italian Girl in Algiers, 2018
Die Fledermaus, 2017
Don Pasquale, 2014
Fidelio, 2014
The Marriage of Figaro, 2013
La donna del Lago, 2013
La traviata, 2013
Tosca, 2012
Maometto II, 2012
King Roger, 2012
La traviata, 2009
The Letter, 2009
Alceste, 2009
Falstaff, 2008
The Marriage of Figaro, 2008
Così fan tutte, 2007
Platée, 2007
Carmen, 2006
Cinderella, 2006
Salome, 2006
The Tempest, 2006
Turandot, 2005
The Barber of Seville, 2005
Lucio Silla, 2005
Don Giovanni, 2004
Simon Boccanegra, 2004
Susanne Sheston
Hometown: Salt Lake City, UT
SFO Debut:
2008 Season
Past Seasons:
2022 Season
2021 Season
2019 Season
2018 Season
2017 Season
2016 Season
2015 Season
2014 Season
2013 Season
2012 Season
2011 Season
2010 Season
2009 Season
Maxine Braham
Hometown: London, United Kingdom
2023 Season:
The Flying Dutchman
SFO Debut:
Jenůfa, 2019