After the success of his third completed opera 'Rienzi', Wagner turned to putting a topic to music which he had come across in Heinrich Heine's 'Schnabelewopski' fragment a few years before. 'The Flying Dutchman' for the first time implemented a topic that determined the character of Wagner's compositions until his last music drama 'Parsifal': the idea of salvation. 'The Flying Dutchman' is at the same time the composer's first step from the number opera toward the through-composed music drama.A...