In his autobiography Mein Leben, Wagner wrote about his composition of The Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Holländer). With the passage of time, his telling took on some romantic overtones, but the facts are essentially as he described them.
He recounts his horrendous experiences on his voyage from Riga to London, recalling how the sailors on board the Thetis told him the story of the phantom ship. This is possible, for there were trip from Riga to London, recalling how the sailors on board the Thetis told him the story of the phantom ship. This is possible, for there were many such tales at the time. He probably already knew some of the stories and had undoubtedly read Heine's version for he wrote:
...it was the conception of how this Ahaseurus of the ocean might be redeemed, which Heine had taken from a Dutch play on the same theme*, that gave me just what I needed to adapt the material as an operatic subject....The figure of the 'Flying Dutchman' is a mythic-poetic creation of the folk....We encounter the figure in the bright, cheerful Hellenic work in the guise of Odysseus and his wanderings, and his longing for homeland.
Certainly, as a man unused to the sea, his trials during that voyage made a deep impression on him and added color to his retelling of the tale. He also says that the Dutchman is a synthesis of the Wandering Jew and Odysseus and that Senta is no longer the domestic paragon that was Penelope but the woman of the future.
While in Paris in 1840, he wrote a scenario (in French) for a one-act opera (Le Hollandais volant), as a possible curtain-raiser for a ballet. The resulting story was, like Heine's, set on the Scottish coast and none of the characters had a name. He sent it to the famous French playwright and librettist Eugène Scribe in the hopes he would write a libretto based on the scenario but never received a response. He then asked the composer Meyerbeer to act as an intermediary in presenting it to the director of the Paris Opera. He claimed in Mein Leben that they eventually accepted it but insisted the music be written by someone else, giving him 500 francs for the rights (July 1841). This story has been challenged, but recent evidence has been found to show it is essentially true. He later claimed that a French opera, Le vaisseau fantôme, used his original scenario, but the story was much closer to other tales and the used the names of the characters of Sir Walter Scott's novel, The Pirate, which was well-known at the time. In the event, the French opera was a disaster. Meanwhile, he had already written a one-act, three scene, German version of the libretto (May 1841) in which he changed the locale from Scotland to Norway.
Wagner always considered himself an outsider and strongly identified with the Dutchman. He wrote:
Alas, I have lived for a long while in strange lands, and it often seems to me that in my fabulous homesickness I am like the Flying Dutchman and his shipmates, who are constantly tossed on the cold waves....I trust...the Flying Dutchman's fate will not be mine, to wit, his letters were usually addressed to persons at home who had died long since.**
He also wrote that his longing for Germany while in Paris was like: "the longing of my Flying Dutchman for a woman...the redeeming woman whose features I beheld as yet indistinctly".
Wagner sent the score of The Flying Dutchman to the Munich Court Theatre but was told that it was not suitable for Germany. It was finally accepted for production at the Berlin Court Opera, and he decided it was time to return to his home country. However, when Wagner arrived in Berlin he found the management had changed. Although the new director was the same man who had refused the opera for Munich, he was obliged to fulfil the commitments of his predecessor, and the Berlin opening was delayed so that the first performance could be in Dresden (January 2, 1843). It was hastily put together, using sets borrowed from three other operas and a ballet. It was not a success, lasting for only four performances, each with a smaller audience than the previous one. Except for the Senta of Schröder-Devrient, the cast was weak and even she was not at her best. She was distracted by personal love problems and learning music was difficult and time-consuming for her. Moreover, she could not stand to look at the fat stilted actor playing the Dutchman.
Performances in Kassel and Riga followed and the opera finally appeared in Berlin in 1844, with Wagner conducting. The audience was enthusiastic but the reviews were not kind.
The Flying Dutchman did not appear in Munich until 1864 as the first of the 'model' productions with 'modern' equipment which King Ludwig promised Wagner. The composer directed and conducted it, adding new stage directions and restoring cuts which had been made at other places. The Dutchman's ship first appeared as a small ship upstage and reappeared in a larger one downstage. However, the waves did not work properly and the apotheosis of Senta and the Dutchman was achieved with laughable model figures.
Wagner attempted further revisions but died before he could complete them. He later wrote that this opera was the true beginning of his career:
...that Flying Dutchman who arose so often from the swamps and billows of my life and drew me to him with such resistless might....From here begins my career as a poet, and my farewell to the mere concocter of opera texts....I was driven to strike out for myself as an artist, a path as yet not pointed me by any outward experience.
It is ironic that his first great opera, one of his most accessible and one most often performed today, was not a success in his lifetime.
*The play never existed. It was Heine's invention.
** The letters are a theme in many of the stories which is alluded to in Act III of The Flying Dutchman when the Norwegian sailors are trying to arouse those on the Dutchman's ship.
Habt ihr keine Breif', keine Auftag' für's Land? Unsren Urgrossvätern wir bringen's zur Hand!
(Have you no letters, no messages for the shore? We will hand them over to our great-grandfathers!)