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At present one wonders how it is possible that one once sat entranced through performances of "The Flying Dutchman" and "Tannhäuser." "Lohengrin" begins to seem a little brutal, strangely Prussian lieutenant with its militaristic trumpets, its abuse of the brass.
I am FIRMLY RESOLVED not to allow "Lohengrin" to be given at either Berlin or Munich WITHOUT ME. A performance of my "Nibelungen" can of course not be thought of, unless I have the permission to travel through Germany so as to gain a knowledge of the acting and singing materials at the theatres.
"Lohengrin" is surely the most beautiful, the fullest of sheer beauty, of all Wagner's operas.
After reading this, in his own way, Wagner realized, if you please, that both Tannhäuser and Lohengrin preached the same doctrine; and one can only retort that, if they preach any doctrine at all which they don't, thank heaven! it is not that.
Wagner's tone coloring is intrinsically the more ecstatic.... Wagner is the first who has broken through this harp conventionality." In the Wagner-Liszt correspondence, Wagner states that the Lohengrin Prelude typifies choirs of angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth.
John's mind continually went back to the great republic overseas, so safe and so sane. While he was listening to the thin tinkle in the dark and snowy trench his friends were going to the great opera house in New York to hear "Aida" or "Lohengrin" maybe. And yet he would not have been back there. The wish did not occur to him.
The subject of "Parsifal" had always been disagreeable to him, but he had not been able to find any argument against the art of it. So the criticism "revolting hypocrisy," "externality," and the statement that the prelude to "Lohengrin" was an inspiration, whereas the prelude to "Parsifal" was but a marvellous piece of handicraft, delighted him.
The theme of the opera is taken from the cycle of Holy Grail myths to which "Lohengrin" also belongs. The reader will remember that Lohengrin in his final address declares himself son of Parsifal, the King of the Grail; and it is with this Parsifal that Wagner's last work is concerned. Parsifal, like Siegfried, represents free human nature in its spontaneous, impulsive action.
And not only were these things in themselves delightful they also served to make the drama doubly powerful, and the tender parts of the music doubly tender, to show how splendid in many respects was Wagner's art in the "Lohengrin" days, and to prove that Maurel's way of doing the part of Telramund some years ago was, as Maurel's way of doing things generally are, perfectly right.
If I could see you again now, I should go half mad through joy, therefore wholly mad, as people have surely taken me for half mad a long time since. I would sing "Lohengrin" to you from A to Z; that would be a real pleasure! Enough for today. I shall soon write again. Whether I have got any money from Weimar for "Iphigenia" I cannot tell yet; there has latterly been much confusion around me.
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