Opera "Lohengrin": content, video, interesting facts, history

R. Wagner opera "Lohengrin"

Richard Wagner, interested in medieval legends and Germanic myths, wrote the opera "Lohengrin", in which he connected various legends about the knight of the Grail. This unknown hero always appeared in shining armor on a boat drawn by a swan to protect the innocent.

Summary of the opera Wagner "Lohengrin" and a lot of interesting facts about this work, read on our page.

Summary

The events of the opera "Lohengrin" tell about the time of the reign of Henry the Bird-catcher in the XII century. At the center of the plot is the story of Princess Elsa and her brother Gottfried, who disappeared in a mysterious way. To protect the girl from Friedrich Telramund, who called her brother's killer and refused to marry her, a hero in armor appears. A mysterious knight defends the honor of a lady, wins a duel and soon marries her. But not everything is so simple, there is one condition - Elsa should not ask who he is and where he came from.

Alas, the princess did not keep her promise and tried to find out from the knight who he really is. In the end, the hero is revealed to everyone that he is a knight of the Grail - Lohengrin, endowed with great power. However, now he can not remain among the people, and the spell of Gottfried, turned by an evil witch into a swan, he disappears. Elsa has no choice but to mourn her fate.

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Interesting Facts

• Who does not know the "Wedding Choir" of Act III? This work is often heard at wedding ceremonies, not only in the cinema, but also in life.
• Curiously, the Wedding Choir is never performed at Jewish weddings, since the composer is considered to be anti-Semitic.
• The performance of the opera lasts for 3.5 hours, so often directors are forced to remove some episodes from the score.
• Ludwig II of Bavaria very much appreciated Wagner's work and was so admired by the opera "Lohengrin" and the main character that he built his famous castle "Neuschwanstein" inspired by this musical masterpiece. So the castle can rightly be considered a monument to the composer and his music.

• Despite the fact that events are taken from the legend, you can set the exact time of what is happening. The fact is that at the beginning of the introductory speech from Act I, King Henry the Bird-eaters reports that 10 years expired, for which a peace treaty was concluded with the Hungarians in 923.
• As always, Wagner first created the literary part of the opera, then the music. And at first he wrote down the text in prose, and only then he created verses.
• The composer began writing libretto in 1845, the score was completed in 1848. However, the author could not attend the premiere of the opera, as he was hiding outside the country. The performance was staged by his friend. F. Liszt in 1850 in Weimar. Richard Wagner himself was able to see his masterpiece for the first time only eleven years later.
• Initially acquainted with the legend in Paris, Wagner was not impressed. The plot seemed to him rather confusing and not suitable for the German spirit. Only in 1945, the legend of the knight was suddenly remembered by him, and the composer himself told friends that the image of Lohengrin in shining armor appeared before him. A little later, the author had the idea to create a play for this plot.

• The first performance of the opera did not show it in all its glory. Of course, there were only five first violins in the orchestra and six second ones, with such a plan it is simply unthinkable. Only after some time, viewers were able to appreciate the magnificent music of Wagner and the equally beautiful embodiment of the medieval legend of the mysterious knight Lohengrin.
• In Russia, the premiere took place in 1868 at the Mariinsky Theater, and in Britain, the Royal Opera House presented Lohengrin in 1875 in Italian.
• The asteroids Ortrud and Elsa, discovered in 1904 and 1878, are named after the heroines of the opera.
• The best-known passage "Lohengrin" is the "Wedding Choir" from the last act, which is still performed during many ceremonial weddings.

Music

The musical part of the play is distinguished by an extraordinary lyricism, which is usually called spiritualized. To characterize the main characters, Wagner is very widely used in this opera system of leitmotifs, and the composer himself has not used this term. Along with this, he applies and leit tembra. So, Elsa is accompanied by woodwind instruments, the theme of evil is transmitted by the cellos and bassoons, while the sublime theme of the Grail is by strings. The most remarkable thing is that these themes are not only contrasted, but also interpenetrate, and are also able to influence each other.

Musical researchers note that in this opera Wagner sought to show the emotional state of the characters, as well as to describe psychological conflicts. Moreover, this imbalance between internal and external becomes a distinctive feature of the Wagner style.

Popular arias and numbers:

Entry - listen

Wedding Choir - Listen

Elsa's arioso "Euch lüften, die mein Klagen" - listen

Aria - Lohengrin Farewell "Mein lieber Schwan ..." - listen

History of creation

"Lohengrin" is one of the significant romantic operas in the history of music, which Wagner created relying on medieval novels. It reveals the mysterious story of Lohengrin, who was the knight of the Holy Grail, the son of Parsifal. A special sign is the fact that the knight arrives in a boat driven by Swan. The composer met this legend about Lohengrin in 1841, and a few years later in 1845 made a sketch of the text when he rested at a resort in Mariánské Lázně.

For the first time this knight is found in the poem "Parsifal", written by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach. Parsifal is the guardian of the holy relic of the Grail, and Lohengrin is his successor. The poem claims that this order is guarded by the order of the Templars. The researchers noticed that Eschenbach combined two legends in his work: the holy Grail and the Knight Cygnus. At the beginning of the XIX century, historians paid close attention to these legends, and the most famous researchers of fairy tales - the Grimm brothers published in the publication: "The Knight of the Swan", "Lohengrin in Brabant". Actually, thanks to this, interest in the old legend arose again and a brilliant composer paid attention to it.

Wagner argued that in the plot he was attracted to the embodied ideas of striving for happiness, as well as for sincere love. It is worth noting that the forced loneliness of the Grail Knight reminded Wagner of his own fate. This is the path of an artist who has to convey to people the high ideals of truth and beauty, but they do not always accept him enthusiastically, and often he is forced to meet with human envy and malice.

Having developed his own libretto, in the spring of 1846 the author began to compose the music of the opera. So, in the summer of this year, he developed a scheme for the future work, and in April 1848 the score was completed. The composer understood that European theaters would not agree to stage opera in German. He even began to translate the libretto into English to perform it in London, but did not finish the job. For the first time in this city, the audience heard his performance only twenty years later, and it was performed in Italian.

Productions

The long-awaited premiere of the opera "Lohengrin" was delayed for two years. Wagner was looking for a theater where one could stage a play. The fact is that it complicated the whole beginning of the May 1849 revolution. Wagner was accused of participating in revolutionary activities and expelled from the country. However, thanks to the help Franz LisztThe performance was staged in 1850 in Weimar. The rehearsals lasted about three months and had to spend a lot of money financially for the production. The composer could not be present in the hall, because he was still in another country. The audience took the show very cool, in many respects it was due to the incomplete orchestra. After the production, Liszt told Wagner in detail about how it all went and the composer was extremely unhappy. He was angry that the presentation lasted more than four hours, because in his opinion, this meant that Liszt everywhere slowed down the pace too much. However, after 11 years, when he himself heard his opera for the first time in orchestral performance, and not piano, Wagner was forced to admit that he was in vain at his friend, because he was right. As part of the Bayreuth festival, this performance was performed in 1894.

For the first time, the Russian public was able to get acquainted with the composer’s opera only in 1873 in St. Petersburg. Moreover, it was included in a specially organized program consisting of two parts and in one of them it was performed "Boris GodunovMussorgsky. In Moscow, it was performed in 1881.

Among the modern productions, the work of the group of the Danish Royal Opera, which presented its version of the performance on the stage of the New Opera in Moscow, is worth noting. Director Casper Holten and artist Steffen Aarfing have long been recognized as true experts in Wagner art. The Russian premiere of Lohengrin, which successfully passed in 2008, was recognized by critics of one of the best Wagnerian productions. An interesting idea was that Lohengrin was the only character who was dressed in a modern suit (a classic suit with a tie), apparently a hint that this knight is from the future. Yes, and Friedrich knight does not kill with a sword, but with a pistol.

The Bayreuth premiere of the 2010 performance turned out to be quite contradictory. The production was done by Hans Neuenfels, the conductor was Andris Nelsons. The director tried to move away from the classical model and presented to the public a very unusual and vivid performance. Of particular interest and a lot of questions caused the public to appear on the scene of rats, he was even jokingly nicknamed for this "rat performance".

"Lohengrin"it is considered to be one of the most perfect operas of the genius composer, in which the spiritual world of the characters, their uneasy experiences and emotions are very vividly revealed. The clash of two forces, good and evil, is very vividly shown. This work is truly valued by real professionals and music lovers, attracts not only the mysterious legend of the medieval knight, but also the incredible style of the composer, unique to him.

We are pleased to offer opera singers and a symphony orchestra to perform arias and excerpts from the opera "Lohengrin" at your event.