Victorian Opera Premieres FLYING DUTCHMAN 3-D Event on V-Day Tonight

Fetch your 3D glasses, Victorian Opera's ground-breaking 3D production of Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman opens on Valentine's Day. Take a glimpse here!

Presented in partnership with the Australian Youth Orchestra, West Australian Opera and Deakin Motion.Lab, The Flying Dutchman will be performed at the historic Palais Theatre in St Kilda - a venue more recently known for rock gigs, but once a mainstay of the city's opera landscape during the 1970s.

In the largest production staged at The Palais in several decades, significant work has been undertaken to re-install the orchestra pit according to the building's original designs. The theatre's first four rows have been removed to accommodate the 83-piece Australian Youth Orchestra.

In a move to bring this 19th century work into the digital age and a world first for a full-length opera, 3D scenery developed by Deakin Motion.Lab will be used to recreate The Flying Dutchman ghost ship and the seas on which it sails. Audiences will experience this Wagnerian masterpiece through 3D glasses.

Serving as inspiration for Disney's The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, The Flying Dutchman is the tale of a captain who made a deal with the devil. Doomed to sail the seas until the end of time, he is only able to come ashore once every seven years in the hope of finding love and breaking the terrible curse.

Taking the helm of the world's most famous ghost ship will be seasoned Dutchman performer Oskar Hillebrandt as the cursed captain; a German baritone, he has sung the role over 400 times and performed it with the Vienna, Hamburg and Berlin state operas, as well as Deutsche Opera.

He will be joined by celebrated soprano Lori Phillips as Senta, who has performed the role several times in the States, most notably in her debut role at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Conducted by Victorian Opera's own Artistic Director Richard Mills, and directed by Roger Hodgman (director of 2013's Green Room award-winning Nixon in China), The Flying Dutchman will be one of Australia's most anticipated operatic events in 2015.

"Both the Palais and the Australian Youth Orchestra are national treasures; one is the theatre with the best acoustics for opera in the country, the other is an important ambassador for Australian culture."

-- Richard Mills, Artistic Director, Victorian Opera

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The Flying Dutchman

14, 17, 19 February 2015, 7:30pm

The Palais Theatre

Tickets from $50-$110. VOyage 30 and under for $30

Bookings 136 100 or online at ticketmaster.com.au