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 opens in Daland's
home, where the melancholy Senta sits surrounded by her companions,
who are spinning. To the whirring accompaniment of the violins they
sing a very realistic spinning song ("Summ' und brumm du gutes
Mädchen"), interrupted at intervals by the laughter of the girls as
they rally Senta upon her melancholy looks. Senta replies with a weird
and exquisitely melodious ballad ("Johohae! träfft ihr das Schiff im
Meere an"), in which she tells the story of the Flying Dutchman, and