The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner

One of the most romantic of all literary figures is The Wanderer. He’s -- and it’s nearly always a man -- he’s the the restless one; dissatisfied, disaffected. He never stays in one place for long -- always roaming, always searching. He can’t really say what he’s searching for, but he won’t stop until he finds it. He feels like an alien in his own country -- or he would if he even HAD a country. And maybe it’s just a plot device, but did you ever notice how most of these wanderers never do seem to find what they’re after?

In a way, it’s not surprising that we Americans, in our literature and entertainment, have become attached to the Wanderer. We first learn about that mythology in grade school. We’re taught that the country was settled by Puritans who felt like aliens in their own land, and wandered here in search of the freedom to believe as they chose. Some of THEM wandered off to settle elsewhere, and soon there were 13 colonies. Later, Lewis and Clark wandered all over the place, and more than tripled the size of an infant nation. Early American lore is filled with legendary wanderers, people who grew restless whenever they could see the smoke from someone else’s chimney. Some of the legends were real people, like Daniel Boone and Kit Carson; others were pure invention, like James Fennnimore Cooper’s Deerslayer.

Sometimes, those real-life wanderers felt so alienated by land that they took to the sea. There they added to their list of adventures, and to the mythology of the wanderer as well. They left stories of pitched naval battles, and tales of looting, lechery, and buried treasure. And let’s not forget the crew of Melville’s Pequad, locked in mortal combat with a great white whale, a sort of preternatural wanderer.

And that brings us to this week’s opera, which may present us with the ultimate wanderer - and he’s also found on the high seas. He’s he mysterious captain of the ghost ship in Wagner’s THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, and his legend is old enough to be an ancestor of all the lost souls we’ve just mentioned. The Dutchman wasn’t trying to become a wanderer. All he wanted was to ride out a storm, and he swore to make it around the Cape of Good Hope, no matter what. Unfortunately, the devil heard him, and swore an oath of his own. He cursed the Dutchman to sail through an eternal storm, resting just once every seven years, and resting only if he finds a woman who’ll break the cycle by being faithful to him “even unto death.” Sounds like a longshot, but Wagner finds a way to pull it off, and the Dutchman finally does put an end to the Wanderer’s travels.

This week on At the Opera, Lou Santacroce discusses Wagner’s Wanderer with Will Berger, author of Wagner Without Fear. We’ll also hear about The Flying Dutchman for kids from Sharukh Husain, author of The Barefoot Book of Stories from the Opera. Then stay tuned for Houston Grand Opera’s production of the Dutchman, on NPR World of Opera with Steve Curwood.

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