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 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 Maedchen"), 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! traefft ihr das Schiff im Meere an"), in which she tells the story of the Flying Dutchman, and anticipates her own destiny.  The song is full of intense feelings and is characterized by a motive which frequently recurs in the opera, and is the key to the whole work.  A duet follows between Eric and Senta, the melodious