Apologia for Erik

"Poor Erik," Franz Liszt sighed, "one has to pity him."¹ In every sense, Erik is the "other man" in the story of Der fliegende Holländer — the hunter, Senta's erstwhile childhood friend, her nominal fiancé, and the proverbial fall guy. From his very first entrance onward, he serves as a foil to the Flying Dutchman. And in a final twist of the opera's narrative logic, unlike Senta and the Dutchman, Erik's character is fated to survive the end of the opera. As if to add insult to injury, not only does the main purpose of Erik's existence consist of his failure to woo and to die, but critics have also long complained that Erik's role is moreover dramatically and musically unrewarding.²

This is not to say, however, that Erik's role in the opera is irrelevant: on the contrary, he is instrumental in concluding the drama. The opera's dénouement, we remember, is preceded by Erik's urgent plea to Senta and his reminder of their love. She is taken aback by his reproaches: "What? I should have pledged eternal fidelity to you?" (Wie? Ew'ge Treue hätt' ich dir gelobt? ), to which he answers with a showpiece cavatina — oddly placed at this late stage in the drama. The Dutchman overhears these exchanges, which precipitate his departure and in turn lead to Senta's redemptive self-sacrifice that concludes the opera.³

Erik's claim that Senta had sworn eternal fidelity to him is a bold assertion, whereas what he sings in his cavatina in support of this claim is not particularly convincing. As he relates in his song, he feels entitled to her love on the basis of two situations, which are in themselves rather questionable: first, he picked a mountain flower for Senta, taking great risks in the process. And second, Senta's father entrusted her to Erik's care when he had to sail abroad. Erik has an unfortunate tendency, it seems, to confuse Senta's love with his own expectations of her. It is on this basis that he interprets these signs of affection as tokens of her love. One can only hope that Erik aims to make his mellifluous singing speak louder than his words in this attempt to remind Senta of any pledges she may or may not have made to him.

At second glance, however, Erik's expectations are perhaps not quite as ill-founded as this short interchange alone might suggest. In fact, as we learn earlier during the spinning scene, there is more to Senta's relationship with Erik. As the girls tease Senta, we find out that Erik is her "sweetheart"; they have a relationship of which everyone is aware. We also learn that Erik is not like the other lads in town: he is a hunter, not a sailor like everybody else, which sets him apart from the rest of the Norwegian village. At the same time, the girls speculate, on a somewhat raunchy note, that he is a wild man in more than one sense.