In the beginning…

A few years ago, I visited my ancestral homeland of Croatia; specifically Dubrovnik and the beautiful Dalmatian Coast. Doing volunteer work with Bosnian War Orphans brought me to the only port city in land-locked Bosnia-Hercegovina, Neum. This was where the seeds of “The Flying Dutchman - The Musical” were sown.

Early one morning, still suffering jet lag, I ventured down the hillside from our lodgings to the little fishing port in search of coffee. I quickly learned the only folks awake that early were the local fishermen. I also learned that in Dalmatia, there is no such thing as coffee “to-go”. Staring out at the Adriatic, sipping my coffee, trying to count the thousands of islands in my view, I thought I heard a sound coming off the water; a soft, almost ghostly, humming sound. It was so faint that I could hardly be sure it was real. But it persisted for a few minutes and became melodic, so I was sure I wasn’t dreaming. I tucked away the sense memory and thought no more about it – for about three months that is. At that time, while visiting the Croatian coast town of Biograd, I encountered the sound once again – this time on a TV screen in a seaside bar. The sound was more developed but unmistakably the same. It was sung by a 10 person, all-male, accapella group called Klapa Cambi. The sound sent shivers up my spine. It was quite simply the most beautiful, haunting sound I’d ever heard. I quickly learned that Klapa was the music of the Dalmatian sailors and that it dates back hundreds if not thousands of years. I went back to the hotel and sat at the piano in the hotel bar for hours trying to re-create that sound. Six songs flowed out in one sitting; the basis for the Flying Dutchman, and that’s specifically why choral music plays such a big part in the show. In fact, the three men’s choruses were the first songs completed. They came out that day largely the way they sound today with virtually no re-writing of the music or the lyrics - pure products of the sea. That feeling - the sounds of the sea, the smells of the seaside - are all evoked in the blended voices of the sailors and fishermen in the musical. And while I have moved the setting from sunny Croatia to foggy Scotland, those same sites, sounds and smells of the sea are all there in colors and textures of the score.

On the plane home I sketched out a very rough first draft of the story, which was originally conceived of as a song-cycle or an oratorio. But Fate would step in once again; this time in the person of playwright Terrence McNally, whom I had the pleasure of sitting next to in the Texaco-Chevron Box at the Metropolitan Opera during a performance of Wagner’s “Gutterdammerung.” The performance had the dubious distinction of being the last ever Texaco-Chevron Radio Broadcast and apparently Mr. McNally was to be a guest during the intermission of the broadcast. While waiting for the opera to begin, I had a brief but pleasant chat with him about his then off-Broadway production of “The Lazarus Papers,” the state of Broadway in general, and the sudden preponderance of operas that had crept onto Broadway in one form or another (Madama Butterfly: M. Butterfly and Miss Saigon; La Boheme: Baz Lurhman’s La Boheme and Rent; and Elton John’s Aida). I joked that no one’s ever tried a Wagner opera on Broadway and he just smiled and laughed: “Good Luck!”

And the rest is history… The songs and the story that were to become a song-cycle became the score and book for “The Flying Dutchman – The Musical.” Unlike so many other “updates” of classic works, I’ve tried to keep a period feel, sound and look forth the Dutchman, both in terms of the score and the book. I’ve consciously shied away from many modern musical conventions in order to try and transport the audience to another time and place. This is a gamble as the prevailing wisdom on Broadway is that modern audiences won’t tolerate an “old-fashioned” show anymore. But the overwhelmingly positive responses from test audiences at the readings have told us other wise, so we’ll see! It’s all still very much a work in progress, but I hope you enjoy it!