It was while fleeing from Riga by sea that Richard Wagner encountered the terrible storm that was the central inspiration for his opera Der Fliegende Holländer. And since Wagner had been music director at Riga's opera house, a post which Andris Nelsons held at the equivalent age, there was a neat logic about this concert performance with Nelsons's City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra forces.

The story of the accursed sailor condemned to sail the oceans in seven-year cycles is depicted most evocatively of all in the orchestral writing, and Nelsons' ability to conjure the most vivid of soundscapes from the CBSO suggested the satanic turbulence of the sea and of the Dutchman's tormented soul. In the title role, James Rutherford bore himself with great dignity as one mortally wounded yet railing against his fate: in the richest part of his baritone range the sense of deep existential pain was expressed most movingly. As Senta, the woman whose love represents the only hope of breaking his cycle of suffering, Jennifer Wilson was less convincing. Making entrances like a vessel in full sail, she sometimes did succeed in conveying the obsessive nature of her character's love for the Dutchman, but the tone was uneven, and too often wayward in pitch. Only at the end, when Senta makes the supreme sacrifice that represents his salvation, did Wilson properly hit the heights, lasering through the orchestra with impunity.

Alastair Miles was a very fine Daland, his bass voice flexible and resonant, making credible the old seafarer's mix of compassion and more manipulative qualities. Arnold Bezuyen's Erik may have been spurned, but he need not shout. Nicky Spence's Steersman was vocally impressive, if too obvious in his acting. But it was Nelsons' closing orchestral sequence, symbolising the redemptive quality of love, with its gloriously voiced last chord, that etched itself deep in the memory.

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