The Flying Dutchman is Wagner’s fourth opera, but the first he considered a keeper. Conductor Valery Gergiev always brings a ferocious edge to the tempest-tossed score. The towering Sir Bryn Terfel was to have starred, but because he is now out with a broken foot, the title role of the gloomy antihero has been reassigned to Evgeny Nikitin, no marquee name though a Gergiev regular of time-tested mettle. Will this be his breakout moment? The balance of the cast is prime. François Girard, most musicianly of filmmakers, directs. —M.G.
Der Fliegende Holländer, by Richard Wagner
Metropolitan Opera
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023, USA
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