Friends Fortnight: Sea Pictures and Wagner's Flying Dutchman

This talk is part of our series of events for Friends Fortnight 2025, exclusively for Friends of the Gallery. Choose an in-person or online ticket at the link above.

The sea's moods and mysteries have long fascinated, creating mixed reactions of fear, curiosity, elation and sense of mystery. Richard Wagner's 1843 opera The Flying Dutchman is many-layered, like all his work, drawing on his own experience at sea, the story of a legendary sea-wanderer, and a frisson of ghosts onstage, while echoing the political disruption of the period and dislocation of his own early career. A tragic solution to his cursed wanderer is the only outcome. The sea, in all its moods, is key to the narrative and sound leitmotifs recur.

This talk is with Adrian Le Harivel (former Curator of British Art at the National Gallery of Ireland) who has long brought art and music together. It will place Wagner's opera in a broader artistic and musical context over three centuries, timed just before the Irish National Opera put on their first performance of Wagner's opera at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in March. 

How to take part

• This screening is part of Friends Fortnight 2025, a two-week festival of inspiring events for Friends of the Gallery. Certain events are available to the general public, however to experience the full festival you must become a Friend of the National Gallery of Ireland. Anyone can become a Friend in minutes, online, over the phone, or in person in the Gallery. Become a member of the Friends today!
• Booking is required for all onsite events.
• Friends will also receive a special 15% discount in the Gallery Shop for the duration of the festival!