Set sail on a stormy voyage

The opera offers the perfect introduction to the music of Richard Wagner.

For those who have followed Opera North’s Ring, The Flying Dutchman is simultaneously an unmissable encore, and a prelude to the company’s six complete Ring cycles in 2016, which will include a return to the Royal Centre.

All performances are conducted by the Company’s Music Director Richard Farnes, increasingly recognised as one of today’s leading Wagner conductors following the award-winning Ring.

Peter Mumford also returns to Opera North to create an atmospheric and dramatic concert staging with immersive visuals and projections, together with costume design by Fotini Dimou.

The myth of the Dutchman, doomed to wander the seas eternally unless he finds redemption through love, has fascinated artists for centuries.

From the tale of a phantom ship, a satanic curse, and a love more powerful than death itself, Wagner constructed a thrillingly taut music-drama that grips from the first storm-tossed notes of the famous overture to the work’s transcendent final moments.

Casting for The Flying Dutchman features some of the best international Wagnerians in a generation, many of whom are also part of Opera North’s Ring.

Alwyn Mellor sings Senta, having performed Sieglinde (Die Walküre) and Brünnhilde (Götterdämmerung) for Opera North, roles she will return to sing in the Company’s 2016 Ring. She has also recently sung Brünnhilde for Den Nye Opera, Oper Leipzig, Seattle Opera, and Paris Opera, among others, and Isolde for Washington National Opera and Opéra national de Bordeaux.

Hungarian baritone Béla Perencz (Wotan Die Walküre; The Wanderer Siegfried) sings the title role of the Dutchman. In addition to Opera North’s Ring, Perencz has also sung the title role in Macbeth for the Company and is a regular principal artist with the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest.

Written in 1843, this will be a dramatic performance for concert halls, sung in German with English titles.

Call the box office for ticket details on 0115 9895555.