# Let's talk Lohengrin!



## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

My recent viewing/listening pairing of the Kaufmann Lohengrin video and the classic Solti audio recording with Domingo and Norman has solidified Lohengrin as my favorite Wagner opera, bumping down Gotterdammerung by just a hair.

I read somewhere that Lohengrin is Wagner's most "lyrical" opera, and I find that to be true. I probably would have come around to Wagner on the whole a lot earlier had I started with Lohengrin and Dutchman rather than Tristan and Parsifal. Because they fit a more familiar idiom and are somewhat less lengthy! The singing is, well, singing rather than the talk-shouting of some Wagner opera recordings.

While I really like the character of Isolde: a fierce Irish healer (appeals to my medical side), the love story of Lohengrin and Else I can get on board with more than the strident passion of Tristan und Isolde. I feel I can relate to it on a personal level actually. The sheltered innocence of Elsa and her intent to give herself over completely to her knight, had that pesky Ortrund not gotten in the way. I married my first love, started our relationship when I was only 16. Even as she lets her doubts unravel their chance at happiness, it reminds me of the clumsy uncertainty of self in these young relationships. That Elsa not only doubted her knight, but herSELF. She did not trust herself to be able to handle the mature task of trust neccessary for an adult relationship. Though I learned to navigate the waters more successfully than that of Elsa, the uncertainty and doubt in her character resonated with me as I watched Harteros and Kaufmann acting out the weddng night scene. And saw my husband in Lohengrin's reassurance of her.

Anyway....that's why I like Lohengrin!!!
I'll be checking out a second video from the library. The first opera for me to look into multiple video recordings. And I have the highly regarded Jess Thomas Lohengrin winging its way to me as we speak!!

Hear ye hear ye Lohengrin fans!!!:tiphat:


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Something I like with Lohengrin is that it is a rather fast paced opera.
I think for those that only have heard Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner and think it is fantastic I would recommend Lohengrin to start with. It is the perfect opera for those who like the pompous side of Wagner.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Oh, I love it so much! I made a, what is it called, study to become a B.A.? on its libretto. (For M.A., I went for Das Rheingold and Die Walküre.) I tend to think of it as almost completely symbolic and philosophical. Lohengrin and Elsa are idea(l)s to me, not real people as such. It's viscerally moving. When I saw it the first time, and Elsa desperately called for a champion, I had to restrain myself from jumping up from my seat and yelling ICH WILL FÜR DICH KAMPFEN!!!


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Sloe said:


> Something I like with Lohengrin is that it is a rather fast paced opera.
> I think for those that only have heard Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner and think it is fantastic I would recommend Lohengrin to start with. It is the perfect opera for those who like the pompous side of Wagner.


That's very interesting, your perspective. For the longest time I HATED the Ride of the Valkyries! The music between the two seems so different to me


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Sonata said:


> That's very interesting, your perspective. For the longest time I HATED the Ride of the Valkyries! The music between the two seems so different to me


That is how I feel. I have listened to Lohengrin and also the Ring a lot of times and that is my reaction to it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Xaltotun said:


> Oh, I love it so much! I made a, what is it called, study to become a B.A.? on its libretto. (For M.A., I went for Das Rheingold and Die Walküre.) I tend to think of it as almost completely symbolic and philosophical. Lohengrin and Elsa are idea(l)s to me, not real people as such. It's viscerally moving. When I saw it the first time, and Elsa desperately called for a champion, I had to restrain myself from jumping up from my seat and yelling ICH WILL FÜR DICH KAMPFEN!!!


Of all Wagner's protagonists, I find Elsa and Lohengrin the least compelling. Ortrud and Telramund have more human complexity and just plain pizzazz. I see Lohengrin as symbolizing the pathos of an idealist (and an artist, if we take him as one of Wagner's self-portraits) who longs for a place in a far-from-ideal world, and finds that others can't recognize, believe in, or be loyal to the beauty and truth he wants to bring to them. The story is his tragedy more than Elsa's: Lohengrins are few, Elsas a dime a dozen. Still, he's uncharacteristically stiff and cardboardy for Wagner, which I find reflected in some of the foursquareness of the rhythm in the set pieces (a habit carried over from _Dutchman_ and _Tannhauser_ which Wagner cured himself of in the _Ring_). Outside of that, the music is fairy-tale gorgeous and the prelude is one of the high points of Romantic music.

(Just so you know, Xaltotun, if you've a mind to rescue a damsel in distress, she probably won't be interested unless you drive a swan. Preferably a convertible.)


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Whenever _Lohengrin_ is mentioned, I can't help remembering the story about Leo Slezak who, when discovering that the swan had already gone on stage without him, was clearly heard from the wings: „Bitt schön, Sie da, wann geht der nächste Schwan?" ("Excuse me, when does the next swan leave?")


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> Whenever _Lohengrin_ is mentioned, I can't help remembering the story about Leo Slezak who, when discovering that the swan had already gone on stage without him, was clearly heard from the wings: „Bitt schön, Sie da, wann geht der nächste Schwan?" ("Excuse me, when does the next swan leave?")


Leo Slezak was a great tenor. This recording is probably his most famous:






And here's "In fernem Land":






Speaking of Leo Slezak, his son Walter Slezak was a well-known movie actor (see Hitchcock's _Lifeboat_), and Walter's daughter Erika Slezak was a star of the long-running TV soap "One Life to Live."


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

My first Lohengrin is this one, which I enjoyed immensely. Waltraud Meier makes a very convincing Ortrund.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Florestan said:


> My first Lohengrin is this one, which I enjoyed immensely. Waltraud Meier makes a very convincing Ortrund.


I have this as well. Meier is electrifying. At present I'm working my way through the Rafael Kubelik recording.

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=56862


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Steber as Elsa makes my heartbeat raising any day of the week.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Florestan said:


> My first Lohengrin is this one, which I enjoyed immensely. Waltraud Meier makes a very convincing Ortrund.


Yes yes yes............Ortrud is the dark puppetmaster that makes an iconic role for the right singer with the dramatic talents, Waltraud was our modern day reference for this role

The 71 Kubelik mentioned above is noteable for a young Gwyneth Jones making waves in the Wagner world as a thrilling Ortrud in great voice at that time, she went on to star at Bayreuth later in the 1970s.........

Of course the great Ortruds of 1950-60s can never be forgotten, even the mighty swan knight would have 2nd thoughts of engaging this supremely sinister one.........


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I want Elsa to live


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Itullian said:


> I want Elsa to live


It's so sad that you couldn't have been there to tell her how much you cared. Wagner could have rewritten the ending and had her cry, "So that's how it is? Well go make love to your rubber ducky! I want Itullian!"


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Itullian said:


> I want Elsa to live


The last couple minutes of Lohengrin do get confusing, when the swan drawn boat appears and Lohengrin prepares to leave he sings "Mein lieber Schwan" and tells the swan if only Elsa had been his bride for one year the swan would change form (and become her lost brother Gottfried) through the power of the holy grail........

Ortrud steps forward to brag that she cast the spell that changed Gottfried into the swan, and now he will remain so since Lohengrin is forced to depart before one year.......as she invokes the power of her pagan gods

The powerful dove of the grail then magically appears over the swan and empowers Lohengrin through prayer to overcome the spell immediately and bring forth Gottfried proclaiming him Duke of Brabant. The white dove then guides the boat with Lohengrin back to mystical castle monsalvat......

Elsa at first estatic to see her brother alive but then cannot bear to see her beloved husband leaving and has the last line of the opera "My husband! My husband!" as he fades off in the distance she cannot bear the heartache and dies in her brothers arms

*Yes there is some sympathy for Elsa*, yet she is so weak of character and fatally passive that even with happiness she always wanted she cannot avoid dwelling on the one small thing that would take it all away, a trainwreck that we cannot stop watching, masterfully manipulated and controlled by the powerful Ortrud

Wagner must have been fascinated by greek and roman mythology when gods came down and had romantic affairs or children with humans bad things usually would soon happen......the walsungs in the ring do not fare well for instance


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I found this interesting excerpt concerning the ending of Lohengrin in Wagner's _Mein Leben:_

Serious reflection aroused some deeper reservations about the nature of the tragic material itself, as suggested delicately and thoughtfully to me by Franck. He considered the punishment of Elsa by Lohengrin's departure unseemly: he understood perfectly well that it was precisely the most characteristic element in the legend that was expressed in this highly poetic event, but he doubted whether it did full justice to the sense of tragedy when allowance was also made for dramatic realism. He would have preferred to see Lohengrin die before our eyes as a result of Elsa's betrayal. At any rate, as this did not seem permissable, he wanted to see him riveted to the spot by some powerful motivating force and prevented from leaving.

As I naturally wouldn't even think of such a thing, I nevertheless began considering whether the cruel seperation could not be eliminated, while still retaining Lohengrin's indispensable departure for distant realms. I tried to find a means of permitting Elsa to depart with him, to do some sort of penance which would require her too to withdraw from the world; this struck my friends as more hopeful. While I was languishing in uncertainty about this, I gave my poem to Frau von Lüttichau for perusal and for consideration of the objections Franck had raised. In a little note expressing her delight with my poem, she stated flatly on this particular matter that Franck had to be utterly devoid of poetic sense if he thought Lohengrin could end in any other way than my text depicted, thus Lohengrin remained the way it had been.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

> I gave my poem to Frau von Lüttichau for perusal and for consideration of the objections Franck had raised. In a little note expressing her delight with my poem, she stated flatly on this particular matter that *Franck had to be utterly devoid of poetic sense if he thought Lohengrin could end in any other way than my text depicted*, thus Lohengrin remained the way it had been.


That is a great FYI tidbit to fill in the backstory of Lohengrin composition, we have to remember the context of is creation when the romantic movement was all the rage in art and literature mid 1800s, to die for love or heartbreak was the ultimate expression.......


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> That is a great FYI tidbit to fill in the backstory of Lohengrin composition, we have to remember the context of is creation when the romantic movement was all the rage in art and literature mid 1800s, to die for love was the ultimate expression.......


My I suggest a different view of Elsa's death? Although the story begins with Elsa's problem of having to prove her innocence, and the central plot device of the story is Elsa's inablity to understand and believe in the very thing that saves her, the opera is called "Lohengrin," and I think it's Lohengrin's problem with which Wagner identifies. That problem is the tragic quest of the visionary - the visionary artist, Wagner-as-Lohengrin, married to the uncomprehending Minna Planer - to find true understanding and love in a world of ordinary people. Tragedy was Wagner's metier because that impossible quest was his deepest unfulfilled longing in life, and he depicts it again and again in the symbolic deaths which end his operas, until he finds a new vision of fulfillment in _Parsifal_ (with_ Meistersinger_ being a comedy and thus an exception).

I think Elsa really exists only as a dream of _Lohengrin_, every bit as much as he materializes in her dreams. She represents something which Wagner longed for but found unattainable, and she dies because Lohengrin's dream dies - until he dreams of love again and hopes once more for perfect faith in what he is and appears to be.


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## kineno (Jan 24, 2015)

Itullian said:


> I want Elsa to live


In this production, she lives...not only that, she and Ortrud become friends :-o 
https://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Lohen...84414&sr=8-1&keywords=Lohengrin+DVD+Schneider


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

kineno said:


> In this production, she lives...not only that, *she and Ortrud become friends* :-o
> https://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Lohen...84414&sr=8-1&keywords=Lohengrin+DVD+Schneider


Interesting, but the part about she and Ortrud becoming friends is very strange. Anyway, I just ordered the DVD. I liked Frey in Meistersinger and think he would make a great Lohengrin. The rest of the cast looks pretty good too.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> I think Elsa really exists only as a dream of _Lohengrin_, every bit as much as he materializes in her dreams. She represents something which Wagner longed for but found unattainable, and she dies because Lohengrin's dream dies - until he dreams of love again and hopes once more for perfect faith in what he is and appears to be.


It does initially seem strange that Lohengrin would offer to marry and stay with Elsa, since his divine mission of grail as protector of the unjustly accused is not over and there are others who need his help......but yes I see the emotional conflict you describe of Lohengrin wanting to just he happy settle down and be accepted as a normal person vs the hero on call to save all those in need at the sacrifice of his personal happiness, Elsa is the fantasy object of his ideal happy life he longs for but seems destined to never obtain......perhaps she only exists in Lohengrins dreams

As you say seems Wagner was sympathetic to Lohengrin since his own troubled life can be seen to face similar symbolic issues......and finally reaching a fulfillment and acceptance with his final opera of Parsifal


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

???

Elsa dies? I'm so confused. They didn't make that very obvious. I don't remember seeing her die in the Kaufmann/Harteros production. How did I miss this!


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Sonata said:


> ???
> 
> Elsa dies? I'm so confused. They didn't make that very obvious. I don't remember seeing her die in the Kaufmann/Harteros production. How did I miss this!


She usually falls down in the end it is a bit difficult to understand that she dies. You have to read about the opera to know that she dies.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Sonata said:


> ???
> 
> Elsa dies? I'm so confused. They didn't make that very obvious. I don't remember seeing her die in the Kaufmann/Harteros production. How did I miss this!


There are many artistic "liberties" in the reggie inspired Kaufmann Lohnegrin finale.......notice that Lohengrin seems to die (not return to monsalvat after transforming swan to Gottfried) and Ortrud kills herself by slitting wrist, Elsa reaches out to touch brother Gottfried's outstretched hand and collapses dead........a very tragic conclusion all around!

Ortrud's proclamation at 59:00


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Thinking about it again, I did finish watching this morning before work; I had just about twenty minutes left. My son was up with me, I was tired, just trying to get it done before I had to get ready so I suppose I wasn't watching as closely as I could have been anyway...


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Of all Wagner's protagonists, I find Elsa and Lohengrin the least compelling. Ortrud and Telramund have more human complexity and just plain pizzazz. I see Lohengrin as symbolizing the pathos of an idealist (and an artist, if we take him as one of Wagner's self-portraits) who longs for a place in a far-from-ideal world, and finds that others can't recognize, believe in, or be loyal to the beauty and truth he wants to bring to them. The story is his tragedy more than Elsa's: Lohengrins are few, Elsas a dime a dozen. Still, he's uncharacteristically stiff and cardboardy for Wagner, which I find reflected in some of the foursquareness of the rhythm in the set pieces (a habit carried over from _Dutchman_ and _Tannhauser_ which Wagner cured himself of in the _Ring_). Outside of that, the music is fairy-tale gorgeous and the prelude is one of the high points of Romantic music.
> 
> (Just so you know, Xaltotun, if you've a mind to rescue a damsel in distress, she probably won't be interested unless you drive a swan. Preferably a convertible.)


My interpretation of the character of Lohengrin is similar to yours! But I see Elsa as a symbol of the Volk, or rather, she is the Volk, the actual German people (this way, she really _is_ "dime a dozen"!), but with the best realized qualities. (So she's not the Volk-spirit with all its potential, but the best of the actual; Lohengrin, the artist, is the potential, the real Volk-spirit, who longs to be actualized.) A lot of this comes from _Oper und Drama_, I'm one of the nutheads who takes that one seriously!

Moreover, you are spot on about the damsels and convertible swans; when it comes to true fairy-tale rescues, only ideas can rescue damsels. Unless you are pagans and she's your lost twin sister, that is. There is good discussion of this in a book called _Richard Wagner and the Centrality of Love_, by Barry Emslie if I recall correctly.


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## kineno (Jan 24, 2015)

Florestan said:


> Interesting, but the part about she and Ortrud becoming friends is very strange. Anyway, I just ordered the DVD. I liked Frey in Meistersinger and think he would make a great Lohengrin. The rest of the cast looks pretty good too.


And despite the altered ending, it really is quite a wonderful production, in my opinion. Certainly one of my favorite Lohengrins on video.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Xaltotun said:


> My interpretation of the character of Lohengrin is similar to yours! But I see Elsa as a symbol of the Volk, or rather, she is the Volk, the actual German people (this way, she really _is_ "dime a dozen"!), but with the best realized qualities. (So she's not the Volk-spirit with all its potential, but the best of the actual; Lohengrin, the artist, is the potential, the real Volk-spirit, who longs to be actualized.) A lot of this comes from _Oper und Drama_, I'm one of the nutheads who takes that one seriously!
> 
> Moreover, you are spot on about the damsels and convertible swans; when it comes to true fairy-tale rescues, only ideas can rescue damsels. Unless you are pagans and she's your lost twin sister, that is. There is good discussion of this in a book called _Richard Wagner and the Centrality of Love_, by Barry Emslie if I recall correctly.


You're saying that Wagner (Lohengrin) comes down from Montsalvat to infuse the true _Volkgeist_ into the German people (Elsa) who have lost their way but long to be restored to true _Volk_-consciousness? Hmmmm.....

It's always tempting to read Wagner's ideological and personal preoccupations into his work. Sometimes he put them there intentionally, seemingly as an invitation to us to search for leitmotifs from his life by which to interpret his operas. I'm always very circumspect regarding this temptation. The meaning of "Germanness" certainly did preoccupy him, and was subject to change over time, like most of his philosophical notions. Is your view of Lohengrin and Elsa supported by anything Wagner said about the opera?

Emslie's book presently goes for three-fourths of a hundred dollars plus postage on Amazon, so I won't be buying it. Perhaps the gist of it is well-encapsulated in this conversation, from The Wagner Journal, with Mark Berry.

http://www.thewagnerjournal.co.uk/wagnerandanti-se.html

Emslie comes across as smarmily condescending, calling those who don't accept his conclusions "flat-earthers" and mocking even Berry with sarcastic blandishments. His arrogant tone (exacerbated by occasional mock-humility) does not make me want to read his book. In the conversation with Berry he makes an upside-down argument for finding anti-semitism in the operas, insisting basically that it must be there by implication: since the operas' protagonists are archetypally German, and since, for Wagner, the opposite of German was Jewish, the antagonistic elements in his plots must represent Jewishness. I'm not sure how many logical fallacies that theory contains, but it has at least the merit of not being as crude as those that attribute to Wagner's villains physical and behavioral traits that supposedly embody racial stereotypes. Of course, Jews have been branded with practically every negative characteristic imaginable, so it isn't hard to find something "semitic" in almost any character you can name, including (unfortunately for the semite-spotters) Wotan. Berry finds the operas more universal in their focus, and so do I.

As a further nail in his coffin, Emslie speaks admiringly of Robert Gutman, whose unscholarly, repugnant, and downright unhinged ideas about _Parsifal_ may have done more than anything to pervert Wagner criticism since their publication in 1968.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Sloe said:


> She usually falls down in the end it is a bit difficult to understand that she dies. You have to read about the opera to know that she dies.


Well then, if we prefer she not die, we can pretend she only fainted.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Florestan said:


> Well then, if we prefer she not die, we can pretend she only fainted.


Or, as in the Monty Python parrot skit, is merely stunned.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Florestan said:


> Well then, if we prefer she not die, we can pretend she only fainted.


I like that idea. 

I want Kundry to be forgiven and live too.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Itullian said:


> I like that idea.
> 
> I want Kundry to be forgiven and live too.


Great! I foresee a tend toward revised endings in regietheater, with everyone living happily ever after.

The Dutchman should marry Senta and have little Dutch-Norwegian sailors, naming Erik as godfather. Elisabeth's prayers should move the Pope to forgive Tannhauser, and she should promise to marry him if he'd go into couples therapy. Brangaene should man up and tell King Mark right away about switching the drinks, and then be so impressed with his kind nature that she marries him herself. Gunther should break down at the hunting camp and confess about the forgetting potion, Siegfried should forgive him, and they should tie Hagen to a tree and go off to find Brunnhilde. There'd be no Gotterdammerung, but with Christianity about to take over Europe it wouldn't matter.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

What's wrong with happy endings?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Itullian said:


> What's wrong with happy endings?


What's the point of all the grand drama and all the agonies the characters go through, if "they lived happily ever after"? Happy endings certainly have the right to exist - just not here.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> What's the point of all the grand drama and all the agonies the characters go through, if "they lived happily ever after"? Happy endings certainly have the right to exist - just not here.


Lots ofta drama have characters Thatcher gods through agonies and have happy endings. Tog make a drama interesting there must be a problem that can be solved or they are just doomed.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> What's the point of all the grand drama and all the agonies the characters go through, if "they lived happily ever after"? Happy endings certainly have the right to exist - just not here.


Florestan and Leonore go though agonies and grand drama and live happily ever after in Fidelio.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Great! I foresee a tend toward revised endings in regietheater, with everyone living happily ever after.
> 
> The Dutchman should marry Senta and have little Dutch-Norwegian sailors, naming Erik as godfather. Elisabeth's prayers should move the Pope to forgive Tannhauser, and she should promise to marry him if he'd go into couples therapy. Brangaene should man up and *tell King Mark right away about switching the drinks, and then be so impressed with his kind nature that she marries him herself.* Gunther should break down at the hunting camp and confess about the forgetting potion, Siegfried should forgive him, and they should tie Hagen to a tree and go off to find Brunnhilde. There'd be no Gotterdammerung, but with Christianity about to take over Europe it wouldn't matter.


With a title like "Twilight of the Gods" that's gotta stay sad. But the highlighted portion certainly sounds like an interesting alternative!

That said...a lot of the sadness in these operas serves a purpose to the drama. I don't see that it "adds" anything to Lohengrin to have Elsa die.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Sloe said:


> Thatcher gods .


Autocorrect can be a real problem sometimes. I meant. Characters goes.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

kineno said:


> In this production, she lives...not only that, she and Ortrud become friends :-o
> https://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Lohen...84414&sr=8-1&keywords=Lohengrin+DVD+Schneider


Thanks to this post (above) I am enjoying the above linked Lohengrin right now and just purchased my third Lohengrin DVD:


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I'm on a roll now. Just ordered another:


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## kineno (Jan 24, 2015)

Florestan said:


> Thanks to this post (above) I am enjoying the above linked Lohengrin right now and just purchased my third Lohengrin DVD:


This Abbado performance is the most traditional Lohengrin staging available.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I also have Frey/Studer and I have the one with Waltraud Meier. What do you think of this one? Or do I have enough traditional Lohengrin's now.


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## kineno (Jan 24, 2015)

Florestan said:


> I also have Frey/Studer and I have the one with Waltraud Meier. What do you think of this one? Or do I have enough traditional Lohengrin's now.


It's decent, though by this time a Peter Hofmann was starting to have vocal problems. He's consistently flat. I do enjoy Leonie Rysanek's Ortrud; at the end, she does her famous scream!


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Itullian said:


> I like that idea.
> 
> I want Kundry to be forgiven and live too.


Several productions already include it (at least Kundry does not fall to the floor lifeless). Check out the two Bayreuth videos - Stein and Sinopoli.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

kineno said:


> It's decent, though by this time a Peter Hofmann was starting to have vocal problems. He's consistently flat. I do enjoy Leonie Rysanek's Ortrud; at the end, she does her famous scream!


In scoping the You Tube clips I did not feel compelled to get this even though at the time there was an Ebay offering for around $11 shipped. I think I am in pretty good shape for Lohengrin with 4 DVDs. Am into the second one with Frey/Studer and really loving it. Maybe another someday, we'll see.


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## kineno (Jan 24, 2015)

Florestan said:


> In scoping the You Tube clips I did not feel compelled to get this even though at the time there was an Ebay offering for around $11 shipped. I think I am in pretty good shape for Lohengrin with 4 DVDs. Am into the second one with Frey/Studer and really loving it. Maybe another someday, we'll see.


I agree; you're in good shape with what you have.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Like most of Wagner's operas, Lohengrin has a rather implausible story. I mean, why shouldn't she know his name? Come on, she's his wife! Of course, no more implausible than a lot of other operas, of course. The music has a beauty that Wagner perhaps only equalled in Parsifal. Yes taken as an opera I like it. The problem is, as with the vast majority of Wagner's characters, I just can't believe in them in the way I can believe in Figaro, Susanna, Don Elvira. Perhaps it has to do with Mozart's exceptional way of painting characters.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Like most of Wagner's operas, Lohengrin has a rather implausible story. *I mean, why shouldn't she know his name?* Come on, she's his wife! Of course, no more implausible than a lot of other operas, of course. The music has a beauty that Wagner perhaps only equalled in Parsifal. Yes taken as an opera I like it. The problem is, as with the vast majority of Wagner's characters, I just can't believe in them in the way I can believe in Figaro, Susanna, Don Elvira. Perhaps it has to do with Mozart's exceptional way of painting characters.


Name and origin. But such a simple request and she went into the marriage knowing this. She could have given him a pet name and left it at that. But curiosity killed the cat.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Like most of Wagner's operas, Lohengrin has a rather implausible story. I mean, why shouldn't she know his name? Come on, she's his wife! Of course, no more implausible than a lot of other operas, of course. The music has a beauty that Wagner perhaps only equalled in Parsifal. Yes taken as an opera I like it. The problem is, as with the vast majority of Wagner's characters, I just can't believe in them in the way I can believe in Figaro, Susanna, Don Elvira. Perhaps it has to do with Mozart's exceptional way of painting characters.


It's a fairy tale, David. It's pretty implausible for Rumplestilskin to spin straw into gold too. Wagner wasn't interested in the inner life of Elsa and Lohengrin any more than we are interested in the inner life of Jack before he climbed the beanstalk. Wagner was interested in folklore and myths, not character.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

howlingfantods said:


> It's a fairy tale, David. It's pretty implausible for Rumplestilskin to spin straw into gold too. Wagner wasn't interested in the inner life of Elsa and Lohengrin any more than we are interested in the inner life of Jack before he climbed the beanstalk. Wagner was interested in folklore and myths, not character.


But I think their inner lives show fourth in this. For example, Elsa obviously is naive and insecure and quickly succumbs to the bad counsel of Ortrud.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

howlingfantods said:


> It's a fairy tale, David. It's pretty implausible for Rumplestilskin to spin straw into gold too. Wagner wasn't interested in the inner life of Elsa and Lohengrin any more than we are interested in the inner life of Jack before he climbed the beanstalk. Wagner was interested in folklore and myths, not character.


I realise that and that's why my appreciation of Wagner can only be largely musical. Mozart was interested in characters - that's what makes his operas so alive and vivid - he paints characters with the music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Wagner is _profoundly_ interested in human character - but his personages are not (in the main) individuals as found in everyday life but concentrated embodiments or symbolic representations of aspects of human nature. The various personages in a Wagner opera, in their relationships to one another, enact some of the most basic inner dramas of the human psyche and, accordingly, some of the most typical and important dramas of human society. This is not so different from the dramatic method of ancient Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, although the shifting of the weight of expression from words to music enables Wagner to explore the psychology of character with shades of feeling and meaning which even Shakespeare can touch upon only in his most eloquent poetry. Calling Wagner's musico-dramatic drama deficient in the portrayal of character, or calling it mere fairy tale, are equally misunderstandings.

As far as Lohengrin is concerned, the key to the story's meaning lies precisely in the importance of Elsa not doubting - not questioning - him. The withholding of his name and origin is not something superficial. We cannot have a love in which we cannot believe what we see, or in which nothing we do is enough to inspire real understanding and acceptance. Wagner's poetic imagination is right on target, as it usually is. Relevant here is something I said in an earlier post in this thread:

_'Although the story begins with Elsa's problem of having to prove her innocence, and the central plot device of the story is Elsa's inablity to understand and believe in the very thing that saves her, the opera is called "Lohengrin," and I think it's Lohengrin's problem with which Wagner identifies. That problem is the tragic quest of the visionary - the visionary artist, Wagner-as-Lohengrin, married to the uncomprehending Minna Planer - to find true understanding and love in a world of ordinary people. Tragedy was Wagner's metier because that impossible quest was his deepest unfulfilled longing in life, and he depicts it again and again in the symbolic deaths which end his operas, until he finds a new vision of fulfillment in Parsifal (with Meistersinger being a comedy and thus an exception). I think Elsa really exists only as a dream of Lohengrin, every bit as much as he materializes in her dreams. She represents something which Wagner longed for but found unattainable, and she dies because Lohengrin's dream dies - until he dreams of love again and hopes once more for perfect faith in what he is and appears to be.'_

Wagner makes the actors in this symbolic tale individuals and gives them individual emotional lives, but he pares them down to essentials and subordinates them to the overarching theme of the story. Wagner's aesthetic approach is romantic symbolism, not realism; we are not to think of Elsa as knitting by the fire, walking her dog, or voting in the upcoming election. In the context of a mythical story, she and her knight in shining armor have meaning primarily in relation to each other; I think they are, on the deepest level, projections of each other's needs. But this is "unreal" only in a superficial sense. The truth is that the necessity of understanding and trust are fundamental realities of any relationship, that the tragedy of relationships is the difficulty - too often the impossibility - of attaining and preserving these things, and that it is precisely our inevitable tendency to view others not objectively, as they are, but subjectively, in terms of our needs, that undermines our efforts to find love. The quest for love of Lohengrin and Elsa, and its undermining by the forces of confusion and doubt (as represented by Ortrud and Telramund) is, while not "realistic," intensely real.

All of Wagner's stories are explorations of human realities, and are "implausible" only to the literal-minded.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner is _profoundly_ interested in human character - but his personages are not (in the main) individuals as found in everyday life but concentrated embodiments or symbolic representations of aspects of human nature.


Right - he's interested in character but not in the novelistic or short story sense of "let's meet and explore an interesting individual who we see change through time and incident". He's interested in archetype, myth.

It's perfectly valid to say you prefer more modern literary forms to the pre-novel epic and myth, but pretty silly to attribute this to Mozart's superiority in portraying character to Wagner as opposed to Da Ponte's goals and aims versus Wagner's. If anything, I'd say Wagner's leitmotif method makes character and motivation far more related to the musical composition than Mozart's method of writing very pretty songs for his characters to sing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

howlingfantods said:


> Right - he's interested in character but not in the novelistic or short story sense of "let's meet and explore an interesting individual who we see change through time and incident". He's interested in archetype, myth.
> 
> It's perfectly valid to say you prefer more modern literary forms to the pre-novel epic and myth, but pretty silly to attribute this to Mozart's superiority in portraying character to Wagner as opposed to Da Ponte's goals and aims versus Wagner's. If anything, I'd say Wagner's leitmotif method makes character and motivation far more related to the musical composition than Mozart's method of writing very pretty songs for his characters to sing.


I do think you're underestimating Mozart's skill at characterization, given the sensibility of his time and its musical idiom, which he expanded considerably in pursuit of dramatic truth. Mozart's characters may be mainly stock types defined largely by their social roles, but Mozart's genius lies in his ability to give them, by means of music, an emotional reality beyond what they require - or, in some cases, simply to write such beautiful music that we ask no more of them (in this respect _Cosi fan tutte_ comes to mind). The music can be appropriate to such characters and situations without being very specific in its psychological penetration, and we need to credit Mozart for the exceptional psychological depth he does achieve.

Wagner's characters, by and large, are not stock types but are imaginative creations which require, and receive, very specific musical portrayal which only the resources of 19th-century harmony and orchestration, and a poetic imagination capable of exploiting them, make possible. It's impossible to imagine, in 18th-century drama, the dour, weary Dutchman trembling at the possibility of a transforming love, the melancholy, stoic Tristan in his lacerating self-analysis, the nervous, scheming Mime trying unsuccessfully to murder Siegfried, or the impulsive child of nature Parsifal confronting suffering and coming to moral consciousness and nobility. And it would have been impossible for an 18th-century composer, even one of Mozart's genius, to find precise musical expression for such characters' unique personalities and inner struggles.

I think those who say that Mozart's characters are more "real" than Wagner's, and that we don't meet the latter in "real life," are wrong. Such characters are all around us, but life in society requires that they wear masks which forbid us access to the inner processes which move and direct them, even unbeknownst to themselves. Wagner strips the mask from the human face, in an artistic premonition of depth psychology which is still unsurpassed. He doesn't give us characters to identify with; he gives us characters who identify and express, with unsparing vividness and even violence, the secret and not always admirable inner life of humanity. I suspect that many are uncomfortable with Wagner precisely because his characters, and specifically their music, violate our sense of what is proper (or tolerable) to express. Clara Schumann, after attending Tristan und Isolde, called it "the most disgusting thing I have seen or heard in my entire life."

I believe Clara understood the opera quite well. She simply wasn't ready to confront the anarchic force of passion. And Wagner's music ensures that even we, accustomed to constant conversation about sex, will remain exquisitely uncomfortable even as we willingly immerse ourselves in "das Wunderreich der Nacht."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> *Wagner is profoundly interested in human character - but his personages are not (in the main) individuals as found in everyday life but concentrated embodiments or symbolic representations of aspects of human nature. *The various personages in a Wagner opera, in their relationships to one another, enact some of the most basic inner dramas of the human psyche and, accordingly, some of the most typical and important dramas of human society. This is not so different from the dramatic method of ancient Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, although the shifting of the weight of expression from words to music enables Wagner to explore the psychology of character with shades of feeling and meaning which even Shakespeare can touch upon only in his most eloquent poetry. Calling Wagner's musico-dramatic drama deficient in the portrayal of character, or calling it mere fairy tale, are equally misunderstandings.
> 
> As far as Lohengrin is concerned, the key to the story's meaning lies precisely in the importance of Elsa not doubting - not questioning - him. The withholding of his name and origin is not something superficial. We cannot have a love in which we cannot believe what we see, or in which nothing we do is enough to inspire real understanding and acceptance. Wagner's poetic imagination is right on target, as it usually is. Relevant here is something I said in an earlier post in this thread:
> 
> ...


Disagree. Wagner's characters are not real life characters as Mozart's are. We can identify with Mozart's characters in the main which is something I certainly cannot do with Wagner. I don't believe Wagner understood human nature in the way Mozart did. He rather made cyphers for his own philosophical views through the characters. Now this is, of course, a valid thing to do, but it is something which prevents me identifying with the characters in the same way as I identify with Mozart's or indeed Verdi's. To say such is literal mindedness is frankly displaying your own preferences rather than seeing someone else's point of view.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

howlingfantods said:


> Right - he's interested in character but not in the novelistic or short story sense of "let's meet and explore an interesting individual who we see change through time and incident". He's interested in archetype, myth.
> 
> It's perfectly valid to say you prefer more modern literary forms to the pre-novel epic and myth, but pretty silly to attribute this to Mozart's superiority in portraying character to Wagner as opposed to Da Ponte's goals and aims versus Wagner's. If anything, I'd say Wagner's leitmotif method makes character and motivation far more related to the musical composition than *Mozart's method of writing very pretty songs for his characters to sing.*


Sorry, when you hear the Mozart / da Ponte operas and refer to them in such a fashion then I frankly wonder what you are hearing!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Disagree. Wagner's characters are not real life characters as Mozart's are. We can identify with Mozart's characters in the main which is something I certainly cannot do with Wagner. *I don't believe Wagner understood human nature in the way Mozart did. He rather made cyphers for his own philosophical views through the characters. *Now this is, of course, a valid thing to do, but it is something which prevents me identifying with the characters in the same way as I identify with Mozart's or indeed Verdi's. To say such is literal mindedness is frankly displaying your own preferences rather than seeing someone else's point of view.


I see your point of view perfectly. I even paraphrased it and discussed the relevant differences. But by calling Wagner's characters "cyphers," intended only to express philosophical views, you show that you don't really "get" Wagner. You merely find his artistic approach, or what you conceive to be his approach, unsympathetic - a reaction to which you are of course entitled.

Obviously, the sexual predator Don Giovanni and the self-righteous whiner Donna Elvira look more like the people we know and read about than the dwarf Alberich and the valkyrie Brunnhilde do, and the class intrigues and marital problems of the Almaviva household are easier to "identify" with than the loss of psychological innocence and the soul-corroding and world-destroying curse of power which brings the gods to ruin. But it wasn't Wagner's intention to put our friends and coworkers on the stage. It wasn't Shakespeare's or Sophocles' either. Do we "identify" with Lear, Lady Macbeth, Caliban or Oedipus? Who cares? That sort of "identifying" is not the point. What these characters ask us to do is to experience at peak intensity fundamental elements of human nature and experience which everyday life may not evoke or even permit - or may disguise or rationalize beyond recognition - but which control our actions whether or not we are aware of them - and sometimes precisely _because_ we are not aware of them.

It is quite possible to "identify" with Klingsor, Sieglinde, Tannhauser, Wotan or even the extraordinary Kundry (whom Leonie Rysanek called "all women"), but to do so requires an imaginative act on our part, an ability and desire to look beneath the incidents and accidents of our lives and the identities we cling fast to in negotiating the mundane world. Identifying with Figaro, Fiordiligi, Cherubino, Leporello or Donna Anna (or most operatic characters) requires of us nothing out the ordinary - hardly more than the recognition of human behaviors and feelings with which we are more than familiar, and the ability and desire to be entertained. But some of us find that sort of entertainment less interesting, thought-provoking, and moving than the exploration and intensification of archetypal feelings and motivations embodied in less realistic forms of drama.

Poetry and music are arts preeminently suited to expressing things which lie below the level of common awareness - things we know, but are not necessarily aware, and possibly do not wish to be aware, that we know. Wagner did not so much set stories to music as create, virtually without precedent, a form of drama whose narrative and imagery are inspired and guided by the domain of unconscious life, the peculiar (though not exclusive) expressive domain of music and poetry. How deeply we are willing or able to enter this occult yet terribly real domain will greatly determine our ability to"identify" with his characters and understand what they are saying to and about us.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

DavidA said:


> Sorry, when you hear the Mozart / da Ponte operas and refer to them in such a fashion then I frankly wonder what you are hearing!


No doubt I'm wrong. I freely admit that my lack of interest in Mozart makes my opinions about his music unreliable for people who may be interested in exploring Mozart.

Note though that unlike some, I don't simultaneously fail to appreciate a major figure while still claiming that my opinions of his failings is sufficient reason to objectively rank my favorite composers over him, nor do I go into Mozart threads and hold myself out as an expert in which recordings to listen to for exploring this composer I don't really appreciate.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Finished listening to the Swarowsky Lohengrin. Very nice. I was unfamiliar with most of the cast with the exception of the Ortrud of Ruth Hesse. None of them are A list but all of them are serviceable B list singers. Swarowsky is excellent and the orchestra, made up mainly of Czech players who had fled in '68, are excellent. The recording acoustic is rather nice and spacious. The singers are slightly more prominent than usual but not obtrusively so. The Act 1 prelude is as good as I have ever heard and while this won't replace Kempe or Kubelik it won't disappoint anyone who chances to hear it.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Barbebleu said:


> Finished listening to the Swarowsky Lohengrin. Very nice. I was unfamiliar with most of the cast with the exception of the Ortrud of Ruth Hesse. None of them are A list but all of them are serviceable B list singers. Swarowsky is excellent and the orchestra, made up mainly of Czech players who had fled in '68, are excellent. The recording acoustic is rather nice and spacious. The singers are slightly more prominent than usual but not obtrusively so. The Act 1 prelude is as good as I have ever heard and while this won't replace Kempe or Kubelik it won't disappoint anyone who chances to hear it.


That is remarkable. All the reviews I have read said that there is unevenness because of the occupation and border opening and closing singers were leaving and being replaced before they finished and that mainly affected Lohengrin which was recorded after the Ring. I am glad to hear it is such a good performance and so, if I ever see it at a reasonable price, should jump on it.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I would be interested to read opinions about the recently released concert performance of Lohengrin with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/05/wagner-lohengrin-cd-review-perfectly-paced-drama-from-mark-elder-the-concertgebouw


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## jflatter (Mar 31, 2010)

Becca said:


> I would be interested to read opinions about the recently released concert performance of Lohengrin with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/apr/05/wagner-lohengrin-cd-review-perfectly-paced-drama-from-mark-elder-the-concertgebouw


I will have a listen on Spotify. Previously I have found Elder to be very slow paced in Wagner. I have the Gotterdammerung and it really dragged. I think he was a pupil of Goodall, so that may explain a lot.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

jflatter said:


> I will have a listen on Spotify. Previously I have found Elder to be very slow paced in Wagner. I have the Gotterdammerung and it really dragged. I think he was a pupil of Goodall, so that may explain a lot.


I'm sure that he worked with Goodall in his early years as music director of the English National Orchestra but I think that his main mentor had been Edward Downes.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

At 3h30m it is a few minutes faster than Kempe, Barenboim, Abbado or Bychkov and 15mins slower than the '62 Bayreuth/Sawallisch (cuts??).


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Becca said:


> At 3h30m it is a few minutes faster than Kempe, Barenboim, Abbado or Bychkov and 15mins slower than the '62 Bayreuth/Sawallisch (cuts??).


No cuts other than the In Fernem Land cut that everyone but Barenboim, Bychkov and Leinsdorf has. Sawallisch comes from the dramatic and swift school of Wagner conducting, it's not unusual for his recordings to be on the quicker end.


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

Wagner called Lohengin, "my saddest work". What do you suppose that means?


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Because though many of his other operas have late deaths of major characters, they are part of a redemption or otherwise hopeful ending.

_Lohengrin_ ends with the return of Gottfried, but this does not mean peace for Elsa as her new husband, god's warrior-knight, has had to leave. That is, the opera shows us the dangers of not unconditionally accepting god without any contrasting positive story. It is entirely about punishment - for those that revere other gods, and those that don't accept the Christian god enough.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I would have said it deals more with faith and unconditional love which Elsa lacked.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I think that's another way of putting what I was getting after.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mountmccabe said:


> I think that's another way of putting what I was getting after.


Except that Wagner was never an advocate for the Christian god - or any other god - and I don't see Elsa's death as punishment.

I suspect that Wagner identified with Lohengrin as a visionary coming into a world that could never truly understand or accept him, even though it might acclaim his accomplishments, and that the failure of love, a theme further dramatized in the _Ring_, _Tristan_, and _Meistersinger_ (remember Wagner/Sachs), was for him life's greatest tragedy.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Elsa's death is very frustrating for me. I don't mind character deaths in general, I just really don't feel that there was any improvement or meaning in the opera that was conveyed more deeply by her death. Most of the other Wagner deaths, yes. Other than that, it's still my favorite Wagner opera (well....I think. Gotterdammerung is surging close)


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Sonata said:


> *Elsa's death is very frustrating for me.* I don't mind character deaths in general, I just really don't feel that there was any improvement or meaning in the opera that was conveyed more deeply by her death. Most of the other Wagner deaths, yes. Other than that, it's still my favorite Wagner opera (well....I think. Gotterdammerung is surging close)


Duck had a good explanation of this for me.......Wagner had sent a letter to one of his female muses asking her if he should change the ending to Lohengrin regarding Elsa's death and she said no it was absolutely great as is.....

We need to remember the social context when opera was performed, the height of the romantic arts movement, is was a noble goal, a sign of true love to die of a broken heart as Elsa did when calling out to her husband as he is leaving for monsalvat, today for us taking things literally in a different time can seem extreme


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> Duck had a good explanation of this for me.......Wagner had sent a letter to one of his female muses asking her if he should change the ending to Lohengrin regarding Elsa's death and she said no it was absolutely great as is.....
> 
> We need to remember the social context when opera was performed, the height of the romantic arts movement, is was a noble goal, a sign of true love to die of a broken heart as Elsa did when calling out to her husband as he is leaving for monsalvat, today for us taking things literally in a different time can seem extreme


As DarkAngel mentions, even Wagner questioned Elsa's death, but was persuaded that it was right.

The opera is called "Lohengrin," and so we may assume that its events are to be understood most profoundly from the point of view of the Swan Knight descended from ethereal regions of truth and light in search of terra firma and the warmth of human love. Elsa was Lohengrin's dream as much as Lohengrin was Elsa's. But when Elsa fails the test of faith in him, Lohengrin's dream dies absolutely, and so Elsa cannot live on and end her days in a convent any more than Isolde can. Deaths in Wagner are always symbolic of something, and understanding them is key to understanding the dramas they conclude.

Kundry's death has also been questioned by many, and some contemporary productions eliminate it. A topic for another day!


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

What's the _one_ recording to have? The all around best?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

ma7730 said:


> What's the _one_ recording to have? The all around best?


Look at this:

http://www.talkclassical.com/48167-favorite-recording-lohengrin-poll.html


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

Pugg said:


> Look at this:
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/48167-favorite-recording-lohengrin-poll.html


Thanks, I didn't see that!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

ma7730 said:


> Thanks, I didn't see that!


No problem, we also have this one:
http://www.talkclassical.com/38696-winners-thread-2015-talk.html
Will take a bit off browsing but it must be in there.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

*Bayreuth 2010 & the Rat Lab by Hans Neuenfels*






Should I open the pandora box? I am really enjoying this modern staging (not so much with the performers). Currently watching for the first time, combined with the Traditional Abbado/Domingo DVD on YouTube. I'm still a newbie but the increased amount of actions and inner messages within the controversial Hans Neuenfels production keep my eyes open.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Granate said:


> Should I open the pandora box? I am really enjoying this modern staging (not so much with the performers). Currently watching for the first time, combined with the Traditional Abbado/Domingo DVD on YouTube. I'm still a newbie but the increased amount of actions and inner messages within the controversial Hans Neuenfels production keep my eyes open.


Ah. The "Rodent Lohengrin." Too bad Wagner forgot to include both words in the title. It kept _my_ eyes open too - in astonished horror. 

That particular Pandora's box was opened on some thread or other a year or so ago, which you can probably find if you search a bit. You want to open it again, eh?

Rats!


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I am sure in one of our last discussions I mentioned how much I enjoy the Neuenfels staging as theatrically engaging and sensitive to the music. I find Georg Zeppenfeld's weaker Heinrich well drawn and Petra Lang's thrilling Ortud a stand out.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Granate said:


> Should I open the pandora box? I am really enjoying this modern staging (not so much with the performers). Currently watching for the first time, combined with the Traditional Abbado/Domingo DVD on YouTube. I'm still a newbie but the increased amount of actions and inner messages within the controversial Hans Neuenfels production keep my eyes open.


Oh ya, it's fascinating. If only it had anything to do with Wagner.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It was a memorable production. Who can forget the cartoon during the prelude of pink rodents killing each other (so "sensitive to the music"), or all those arrows sticking out of Elsa's torso (she's being accused of bad things and it hurts soooooooo bad), or those nifty yellow rat pajamas (awwwww! they're so cuuuuuute!)... 

Images to last a lifetime.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> It was a memorable production. Who can forget the cartoon during the prelude of pink rodents killing each other (so "sensitive to the music"), or all those arrows sticking out of Elsa's torso (she's being accused of bad things and it hurts soooooooo bad), or those nifty yellow rat pajamas (awwwww! they're so cuuuuuute!)...
> 
> Images to last a lifetime.


If I never see it in my lifetime it will be too soon!


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

This talk is all very well but nobody has mentioned the Act III trumpets yet. One of the great theatrical moments in all opera as trumpets ring out from all corners of the theatre. Even if you're in the gods you might suddenly find a trumpeter is standing next to you. The moment the trumpet call moves into a main theme in the orchestra is magical... and absolutely has to be experienced live.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

I've been watching some bits of the video streaming of the 2018 Lohengrin on Youtube. It looks like way more Regietheatre than the people's first impression. Like a criticism to the fairytale elements of Wagner's libretto for the vulnerability of Elsa and the uncritical heroism of Lohengrin who's commitment would be to "save" and "marry" a princess in distress without counting on her "changing her opinion about a man she has just met".






*Paragraph cut out because on second thought, it would be quite hypocritical. Viva Hans Neuenfels!*


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## interestedin (Jan 10, 2016)




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## SenaJurinac (Nov 29, 2017)

Here you can see also the latest production from Brussels - Theatre de la Monnaie, directed by Olivier Py

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/082264-000-A/olivier-py-inszeniert-lohengrin/


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

interestedin said:


>


I must confess this his why I don't visit opera houses (and theatres too sometimes, for that matter) as it is very expensive and you might be faced with these awful productions which are akin to a bad dream. With a cinema broadcast you have at least not shelled out a lot of money for a seat, hotel bills, travel, etc. and then been wretchedly disappointed.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Granate said:


> Should I open the pandora box? I am really enjoying this modern staging (not so much with the performers). Currently watching for the first time, combined with the Traditional Abbado/Domingo DVD on YouTube. I'm still a newbie but the increased amount of actions and inner messages within the controversial Hans Neuenfels production keep my eyes open.


And this is even worse. Makes Tom and Jerry look like a work of art! Hopeless! :lol:


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> It was a memorable production. Who can forget the cartoon during the prelude of pink rodents killing each other (so "sensitive to the music"), or all those arrows sticking out of Elsa's torso (she's being accused of bad things and it hurts soooooooo bad), or those nifty yellow rat pajamas (awwwww! they're so cuuuuuute!)...
> 
> Images to last a lifetime.


The timeless modern production of Wagner brothers from 1951-1960s is looking better and better as time passes by and new productions fail to deliver, the singers and music take center stage.....


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DarkAngel said:


> The timeless modern production of Wagner brothers from 1951-1960s is looking better and better as time passes by and modern productions fail to deliver, the singers and music take center stage.....


_Lohengrin_ is Wagner's most dreamily Romantic score, and it seems that contemporary directors just can't stand it and have to let us know that they know that it's all adolescent hooey (wink wink). You can tell that Wieland Wagner was listening to the music and willing to take the drama on its own terms, letting us modern cynics make of it what we will.


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

DarkAngel said:


> The timeless modern production of Wagner brothers from 1951-1960s is looking better and better as time passes by and modern productions fail to deliver, the singers and music take center stage.....


Stunning! What I wouldn't give to have this production back to Bayreuth! I'd beg, borrow or steal my way in order to get a ticket!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

DarkAngel said:


> The timeless modern production of Wagner brothers from 1951-1960s is looking better and better as time passes by and modern productions fail to deliver, the singers and music take center stage.....


A pity none of Wieland's productions were filmed in colour. We get a vague idea from black and white excerpts but apparently it was his use of colour that made them special


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

DarkAngel said:


> The timeless modern production of Wagner brothers from 1951-1960s is looking better and better as time passes by and new productions fail to deliver, the singers and music take center stage.....


Is this the one that looks like a mediaeval Book of Hours, with the characters in a series of arches like Gothic windows?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Looks like a very interesting production. A shame it does not have English subtitles. Is this one out on DVD?



interestedin said:


>


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Looks like a very interesting production. A shame it does not have English subtitles. Is this one out on DVD?


It will be on DVD next year (last month the 2017 Meistersinger was released), but isn't it time to talk about this production? Everyone is enthusiastic with the old-school Wieland Wagner. My personal problem with this 2018 production is that for being regietheatre is not strikingly different to Wagner's libretto. Like the current Parsifal, it's Lohengrin with a lot of twists and not Lohengrin so upside-down it's amusing.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)




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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

^^

Glossy, mediaeval, filled with red and brown... certainly one of the most eye-pleasing productions in decades that is put on DVD. *It's just the use of the warm colours that makes it seem too Verdian for me.* Or could do for Parsifal perfectly... The bits I've heard show Beczala much fresher in voice for me, but do people like Netrebko's Elsa?

Is it just a Wagner or Nietschze wish to bathe the opera in cold colours or an inside belief in 20th Century productions?


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

^^^Me thinks you're being a bit picky here.
This is a beautiful production with an excellent Lohengrin.
And great conducting.
And great picture and sound.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I have about 5 Lohengrin on DVD but can't remember which ones. I only watched maybe 2 of them so far. I have a big unwatched DVD opera pile and not much time to watch.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I left Bayreuth a few days ago and am now in Pesaro for Rossini. I've only now had time to write up my thoughts on Lohengrin. Musically it was very strong and as someone else said this is possibly the best cast you could assemble today. Konieczny and Meier expressed the ferocious drama of their roles without sacrificing tonal accuracy other than where necessary to serve the emotional states of the characters. I actually felt that Meier was holding back (perhaps saving herself for the final performance), but she was still over and above any other mezzo singing the role today.

Harteros has too dark a sound for Elsa, but once used to that her singing convinced me due to her musicallity and expression. My one reservation about the singing was that Beczala was strained in a couple of high passages, but the rest of the time combined heft with a lightness of touch that worked well in the title role. 

Chorus and orchestra were wonderful and Thielemann knows what he is doing in the Bayreuth pit. (There were a few moments that reached Nirvana!)

The production was interesting. The director had chosen two painters as set and costume designers in order to approach the opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk and this paid off. There was no grunge here and the blue monochrome aesthetic was beautiful to behold. Warmth was added in act two with some orange brought in and this colour was used more as the opera progressed. In the first two acts the stage directions were traditional and told the story more or less as in the libretto. The third act then took a couple of tangential twists which I couldn't follow, but perhaps these would become clear on a second viewing.

All in all this was a wonderful Lohengrin and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the best I ever see of this opera.


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