Opera-Lohengrin

The first Wagner Opera we attended was Siegfried.  It was okay.  Partial to Italian or French operas, we wanted to expand our horizons so to speak and attend another Wagner opera.

First, let me give you a brief synopsis on the opera, then recap what we actually saw.  Lohengrin is a fantasy, fairy tale story about romance and miracles.  King Henry arrives in Brabent to expel Hungarians from his realm, but also judge accusations about the disappearance of the young Duke Gottfried.  Count Telramund is the Duke’s guardian and accuses the Duke’s sister, Elsa of murdering her brother.  Elsa proclaims her innocence and trusts in God to send her a knight to champion her innocence.  On the river, a knight in shining armour appears on a boat drawn by a swan, to accept the challenge.  One thing he asks is that she never asks him his name.  He challenges Count Telramund and defeats him.  The knight then asks Elsa to marry him, but again, she is not to ask him ever, for his name. 

Ortrud is a witch and companion to Count Telramund who are both exiled while wedding preparations for the knight and Elsa are underway.  Ortrud casts suspicions in Elsa’s mind about the knight’s secretive manner.  During their wedding night, Elsa is begging for the knight’s name, when Telramund and 4 henchmen try to assassinate the knight.  During the fight, Telramund is killed.  Saddened by the events, the knight decides to reveal himself to Elsa and the King.  He is Lohengrin the Knight of the Holy Grail.   He has to return to his duties but wanted to stay long enough to marry Elsa. 

Ortrud then appears saying that she cursed young Duke Gottfried, turning him into a swan.  Lohengrin prays and the swan turns back into the Duke.  A dove leads Lohengrin back to his castle.  As he departs, Elsa is so distraught, she collapses and dies. 

So how does this compare to what we saw?  Instead of taking place in the time of knights and castles, the opera is set during World War I.  The set is a bombed out building used as a field hospital.  In a tent, we can see backlit shadows of a doctor sawing the leg from a wounded soldier who eventually dies.  The scene progresses and Elsa is asking for a champion to help proclaim her innocence.  The dead soldier from behind the tent, raises from the dead.  He comes out and in place of his amputated leg is a prosthetic, shaped like a knight’s armour.  At the end of the opera when he supposed to float back to his castle, he instead walks back to the tent, lays down and dies.  Elsa still dies too.

I preferred the romantic, fairy tale version. It best fits the original intent of the opera with fantasy and magic.  The version we saw was doubly tragic.  It was long, but we did find the opera to be more enjoyable than Siegfried.  We also discovered surprisingly, the most well known aria from this opera is the Bridal Chorus, most commonly played at today’s weddings.