like "Rienzi," it met with failure both in Dresden
and Berlin; but its merits were recognized by Spohr, who encouraged
him to persevere in the course he had marked out.

The plot of the opera is very simple. A Norwegian vessel, commanded by
Daland, compelled by stress of weather, enters a port not far from her
destination. At the same time a mysterious vessel, with red sails and
black hull, commanded by the wandering Flying Dutchman, who is
destined to sail the seas without rest until he finds a maiden who
will be faithful until death, puts into the same port. The two
captains meet, and Daland invites the stranger to his home. The two at
last progress so rapidly in mutual favor that a marriage is agreed
upon between the stranger and Senta, Daland's daughter. The latter is
a dreamy, imaginative girl, who, though she has an accepted lover,
Eric, is so fascinated with the legend of the stranger that she
becomes convinced she is destined to save him from perdition. When he
arrives with her father she recognizes him at once, and vows eternal
constancy to him. In the last act, however, Eric appears and
reproaches Senta with her faithlessness. The stranger overhears them,
and concludes that as she has been recreant to her former lover, so
too she will be untrue to him. He decides to leave her; for if he
should remain, her penalty would be eternal death. As his mysterious
vessel sails away Senta rushes to a cliff, and crying out that her
life will be the price of his release, hurls herself into the sea,
vowing to be constant to him even in death. The phantom vessel sinks,
the sea grows calm, and in the distance the two figures are seen
rising in the sunlight never to be parted.

The overture characterizes the persons and situations of the drama,
and introduces the motives which Wagner ever after used so
freely,--among them the curse resting upon the Dutchman, the restless
motion of the sea, the message of the Angel of Mercy personified in
Senta, the personification of the Dutchman, and the song of Daland's
crew. The first act opens with an introduction representing a storm,
and a characteristic sailors' chorus, followed by an exquisite
love-song for tenor ("Mit Gewitter und Sturm"), and a grand scena of
the Dutchman ("Die Frist ist um"), which lead up to a melodious duet
between the Dutchman and Daland. The act closes with the sailors'
chorus as the two vessels sail away.

After a brief instrumental prelude, the second act o