THE PERFECT introduction to the music of Richard Wagner will be staged with a production of The Flying Dutchman in Leeds.

Opera North will perform the work this Summer following the company's four triumphant instalments of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in successive years, in concert halls across the country. For those who have followed Opera North’s Ring, The Flying Dutchman is being billed as an unmissable encore, and a prelude to the company’s six complete Ring cycles in 2016.

All performances are conducted by Music Director Richard Farnes. Peter Mumford also returns to Opera North to create an atmospheric and dramatic concert staging with immersive visuals and projections, together with costume design by Fotini Dimou.

The myth of the Dutchman, doomed to wander the seas eternally unless he finds redemption through love, has fascinated artists for centuries. From the tale of a phantom ship, a satanic curse, and a love more powerful than death itself, Wagner constructed a thrillingly taut music-drama that grips from the first storm-tossed notes of the famous overture to the work’s transcendent final moments.

Opera North say casting for The Flying Dutchman features some of the best international Wagnerians in a generation, many of whom are also part of Opera North’s Ring. Alwyn Mellor sings Senta, having performed Sieglinde (Die Walküre) and Brünnhilde (Götterdämmerung) for Opera North, roles she will return to sing in the 2016 Ring. She has also recently sung Brünnhilde for Den Nye Opera, Oper Leipzig, Seattle Opera, and Paris Opera, among others, and Isolde for Washington National Opera and Opéra national de Bordeaux.

Hungarian baritone Béla Perencz (Wotan Die Walküre; The Wanderer Siegfried) sings the title role of the Dutchman. In addition to Opera North’s Ring, Perencz has also sung the title role in Macbeth for the company and is a regular principal artist with the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest.

Estonian tenor Mati Turi (title role Siegfried; Siegfried Götterdämmerung) sings Erik. He has previously taken the title roles in Parsifal and Tannhäuser in Chemnitz and Tallinn respectively, as well as Siegfried in Enschede and Longborough. Swedish bass Mats Almgren (Fafner Siegfried; Hagen Götterdämmerung) returns to sing Daland, Welsh mezzo Ceri Williams sings May, and Mark Le Brocq is the Steersman. They are joined on stage by the critically-acclaimed orchestra and chorus of Opera North.

The Flying Dutchman opens at Leeds Town Hall on Saturday, June 27 before touring to Sage Gateshead, Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall and the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham.