The Flying Dutchman

With The Flying Dutchman, the controversial theatre maker Milo Rau deals with the work and cosmos of Richard Wagner for the first time — and uses the romantic opera as a starting point for a journey into the political depths of the Federal Republic of Germany. At the center is the cursed sailor, who can only find redemption through the loyalty of a woman — and finds an obsessively determined ally in Senta. Based on Wagner's ideological preoccupation with Ahasuerus, the figure of the eternally wandering Jew, his anti-Semitism and redemption cult, Rau focuses on the long post-war history of guilt, memory and the search for reconciliation. What does it mean to love Wagner after the Shoah? Is there redemption for Wagner, redemption from German guilt? Based on the figure of the unsolved Dutchman, the production explores these questions like a road movie through German culture and history after 1945 and the emotionally charged German-Israeli relations up to the present day. The Dutchman appears as a national metaphor: as a figure who repeatedly fails to overcome her own story. In doing so, Rau dares to step into painful areas of discourse — without promising tolerable answers. With documentary-cinematic narrative and the means of musical theatre, the score becomes a space for thought about reception and responsibility. Musically speaking, Wagner's ghost opera meets the energetic reading of the young conductor Giedrė Šlekytė, who is making her Wagner debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with this production. Tomasz Konieczny plays this new Dutchman with great role experience; at his side, Aušrinė Stundytė, internationally acclaimed for her radical female figures, is designing Senta for the first time.

Romantic opera in three acts Music and poetry by Richard Wagner Prologue and text before the third act by Milo Rau, Sarah von Schwarze and Shlomi Moto Wagner First performance on January 2, 1843 in Dresden Premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on October 24, 2026