Why I Love ‘Lohengrin’
We regret that an incomplete version of this article was incorrectly published previously.
When I went to the Bayreuth Festival in 1990, as recipient of a Wagner Society Bursary, the first notes I heard in that wondrous temple to Richard Wagner’s music were the ethereal opening chords of his early masterpiece, ‘Lohengrin’. As I sat in the darkness of that great auditorium, with the unseen orchestra beneath the huge stage, those high string chords brought tears to my eyes, as I marvelled at the thought that I was actually here, in Bayreuth, after all those years when it seemed almost like Valhalla itself, a magical far away place of heavenly beauty. I still recall those moments with a vividness unlike any other!
The idea of an opera based on the legend of the knight and the swan came to Wagner when he was in Paris in 1841, but the main work on the libretto occurred in Marienbad in Bohemia in 1845. Wagner’s doctor had sent him to the spa town for a complete rest, as he was exhausted from his duties as Kapellmeister at the Royal Dresden Court, but he was overwhelmed by thoughts of his new opera. Marienbad had developed as a spa in the late 18th century, due to its over 100 mineral springs, rich in carbon dioxide, which were said to cure a wide range of ailments, and Wagner and his wife Minna had planned to enjoy a few weeks of complete relaxation in this little German-speaking town in the Kaiserwald. An interesting aside tells us that Marienbad was also popular as a spa among European rabbis of the Hasidic sect of the Jewish faith, but presumably Wagner, with his famously anti-Semitic views, must have kept away from contact with such folk!
As light reading for his period in Marienbad, Wagner had taken a copy of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s mediaeval poem, ‘Parzival’, and an anonymous epic of the same era, ‘Lohengrin’. The story goes that the composer, soaking one day in the warm waters of the spa baths, became so excited by his meditations on the Holy Grail, that he leapt out of the water, quickly dressed, and rushed to his room to put pen to paper on his original draft of the Lohengrin libretto. Poetic licence may be allowed in the tale, but what is certain is that the prose draft was complete by August 1845, that work on the score commenced in 1846, that the vocal score was finished by August 1847 and the full score by April 1848. Unfortunately, Wagner’s involvement in politics, and in particular, the revolutions of 1848 and 1849, specifically the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849, meant that the first production, in Weimar, on 28th August 1850 (Goethe, the most famous son of Weimar, was born that day in 1749), conducted by Franz Liszt, went ahead without the composer, who had fled to Zurich! Indeed, it was not until 1871, in Vienna, that Wagner heard ‘Lohengrin’ for the first time.
Like many composers whose portraits we are used to seeing in old or relatively old age, it is often difficult to imagine Wagner as a young man, but at only 37, he was a restless and volatile figure, deeply involved in revolutionary politics, full of ideas about all sorts of things, poetry, philosophy, history, mythology, humanism, theology, and supremely self-confident. It’s terribly easy to think of him as an oversexed, anti-Semitic megalomaniac (which he was) but it’s important also to understand how hugely energetic he was, and how unbelievably influential he was, even this early in his life. He had lived in Riga and Paris, as well as Leipzig and Dresden, and had visited London.
This, then, was the person who composed ‘Lohengrin’, married since 1836 to the similarly volatile actress Minna Planer, a match which could be described as stormy and tempestuous! They had met in 1834 at Bad Lauchstädt, near Halle, where she was playing with the Magdeburg Theatre Company, and his pursuit of the actress and the various shenanigans which occurred before they married is a tale in itself. Apparently they argued fiercely during the wedding ceremony, causing some distress to the minister performing the ceremony. Interestingly, I have been to the theatre at Bad Lauchstädt, as it is used for many performances in the Halle Festival. It is a well-preserved little jewel of a theatre, built under the direction of the great writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, when he was director of the Weimar Court Theatre, for use in summer seasons. I never sang there but went to a couple of shows, although, at the time, I had no knowledge of either the Goethe or Wagner connections. It occurs to me now that it is possible that the idea of having his own theatre built for his operas may have planted itself in Wagner’s mind after seeing Minna in Goethe’s theatre.
Wagner’s fascination with mythological and other-worldly stories was evident from very early on. ‘The Flying Dutchman’ explored the legend of the Dutch sea captain, endlessly searching for centuries for the faithful woman who would end his torment of eternal wandering, after cursing God, and ‘Tannhäuser’, in which an aristocratic poet is seduced by the goddess Venus and cursed for ever by his godly companions, until redeemed by a loyal woman.
His penchant for a historical setting for a legendary story was brought to new heights by the brilliant juxtaposition of the historical King Henry the Fowler of Saxony in his defensive war against the marauding Magyars in the Dark Ages, the ongoing battle between Christianity and the Pagan Norse gods, and the legend of the knights of the Holy Grail. All this is packed into ‘Lohengrin’, along with the finest music Wagner had yet composed.
Who was Henry the Fowler? Heinrich I (der Vogler) (876-936 AD) was Duke of Saxony and then King of East Francia, a pivotal figure in Germanic history, seen as the first monarch to attempt to unify the various German tribes who were left behind after the fall of the Roman Empire in the Fifth century. His victory against the Magyars at the Battle of Riade in 933 was considered the most important achievement of his reign, consolidating his position as the founder of the Ottonian dynasty, a Saxon ruling the Franks. Henry was supposedly given the sobriquet because he was a keen hunter of birds, and was checking his nets the day he was announced as King of the East Francia (ie Germany). Wagner used this little known character as the figurehead for his attempts to unite the multiple German dukes and small rulers into a coherent whole, a German Empire which would dominate central Europe.
The second strand of the Lohengrin story involves the attempt by the evil sorceress Ortrud (the mezzo in the opera), to corrupt the innocent young daughter of the Duke of Brabant, Elsa. As a witch and upholder of the old pagan Norse gods, Ortrud is depicted as a purely malevolent figure in the story, hoodwinking her husband Telramund into believing that Elsa is herself a murderer (of her brother Gottfried of Brabant), and goading Elsa into asking the one question of Lohengrin that she is categorically forbidden to ask, the truth of whence he came. In this way, Ortrud represents the last vestiges of the old religion, a final attempt to hold back the tide of Christianity that, represented by Lohengrin and the pure knights of the Grail, was poised to sweep away the power of the old Norse gods, Odin and Thor. This Lady Macbeth figure is the most interesting character in the opera, with fabulous music, and it is clear that Wagner was himself fascinated by her.
By pitting her against the pure and spotless knight of the Grail, Lohengrin, the son of Parzival, the central part of the story takes on epic proportions, and turns what could be a fairy tale conflict into a veritable clash of civilizations, a life or death contest for the soul of Elsa.
Friedrich von Telramund (the baritone, naturally) has been goaded by his wife, Ortrud, to claim that Elsa has murdered her brother, Gottfried. He challenges Elsa in public when Henry the Fowler has arrived in Brabant, seeking aid in his wars against the Magyars. In response to the challenge, Elsa confides, in a trance-like state, that she will be supported in her cause by a mysterious knight of whom she has dreamed. Given the unlikely nature of this defence, Telramund is gleefully confident that his claim will be upheld, only for a commotion to arise as indeed a knight in shining armour sails into the harbour, on a boat drawn by a huge swan. Astonishingly, this is the very knight dreamed of by Elsa, and he announces that he is here to defend her honour. Cue amazement!
Now it must be said that Elsa is the opposite of what we would call a modern woman, something of an airhead dreamer who floats through the opera, expecting a strong man to save her reputation, and whose only independent move in the whole story is to ask the one question she has been forbidden to ask, but she has some wonderful music to sing, and I suppose her prime function is to provide motivation for all the other characters to act.
The central figure of Lohengrin appears frequently in mediaeval poetry, most significantly for this opera in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s epic from around 1210, ‘Parzival.’ This tells stories relating to the mysterious Holy Grail and the keeper of its secret, Parzival, and his son, Lohengrin. These spotless knights fight for right and justice as God’s holy warriors, their story interwoven with the legends of King Arthur and his Round Table, from even older French sources. Wagner’s reading material in his summer retreat at Matienbad included Wolfram’s great poem, and, of course, Wolfram himself featured as a major character in the composer’s previous opera, ‘Tannhäuser’, as the principal baritone, best friend of the eponymous hero and one of the important Minnesänger who compete in the famous song competition at the Wartburg.
So much for the origin of the opera, but why do I love it so much? I suppose it is because it seems to me to be the summation of early Wagner, the moment when the composer emerges from his period of assimilation of previous styles into a recognisable and unique voice. There are still standard features of big choruses, dramatic duets and aria-like sections, but the orchestral writing is unlike anything we have heard before, the representational motifs are stronger, and the vocal lines are exceptionally well-written, albeit mostly for god-like voices. The role of Tannhäuser had been immense, and high, but the other roles in that opera had been relatively concise. In ‘Lohengrin’, there are several enormous roles involving a lot of singing and loads of stamina: Lohengrin, Elsa, Ortrud, Telramund, Henry and even the Herald, a minor baritone role that needs a firm top and a big voice.
I was once cast as King Henry with ENO, long ago, but various circumstances occurred to prevent me from singing the role, and I am now hugely relieved that it never happened, as my voice wasn’t and isn’t right for the part. It is not particularly long but it is heavily orchestrated, it lies very high for a bass, and requires a more stentorian sound than I possess. It is more subtle than the famous description of some Wagner roles as “Park and Bark”, implying a figure whose movements are minimal and who is expected simply to sing very loudly, but not much more subtle. I know I would have been struggling with it, and am for ever grateful (though not at the time!) that I pulled out. Not singing in that ‘Lohengrin’ resulted in me being cast as Der Tod in ‘Der Kaiser von Atlantis’ at the Monnaie in Brussels, and as the Ghost of Hector in ‘Les Troyens’ with the LSO and Sir Colin Davis at the Barbican, and later at La Scala, Milan. Such are the vagaries of a singing career!
Ortrud and Telramund are great acting and singing roles, both requiring vocal amplitude and stamina. Check out the old EMI recording from the 1960s conducted by Rudolf Kempe, and marvel at the utterly wonderful performances by Christa Ludwig and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (aged 36 and 39), for me two of the finest performances on any recording. Indeed the Kempe set is utterly superb with the gorgeous creamy Elsa of Elisabeth Grümmer, the firm and heroic Henry of Gottlob Frick and the majestic and unflagging beauty of Jess Thomas as Lohengrin. Some commentators have been critical of this American tenor, but I find him absolutely perfect for the role, both lyrical and dramatic as required.
The third act of ‘Lohengrin’ is one of the greatest acts of all opera, starting with the thrilling Prelude, leading directly into the famous Wedding March (‘Here comes the Bride’, of popular usage) and then giving us one of the most beautiful love duets Wagner wrote. Elsa’s disastrous probing, Telramund’s abortive coup and the transition to the finale follow perfectly, and the scene is set for the climax of the opera, the revelation of the secret of Lohengrin, the last desperate charge of Ortrud, the transformation of the swan into Elsa’s long lost brother, breaking Ortrud’s evil enchantment, and the inevitable demise of Elsa, broken by her curiosity and impatience.
There are several fine recordings of ‘Lohengrin’. For me, Kempe is the best, but the live Bayreuth set from 1972 is very fine, and captures the best Lohengrin I ever heard, René Kollo. This German tenor sang the role at Covent Garden in the late 1980s, when I was first in London, and Kollo’s sublime Lohengrin has stayed with me ever since.
I love all the Wagner operas, but ‘Lohengrin’ sits high in my ranking, even though it is still obviously an early work. Catch it if you can.
