United States or Indonesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
On the occasion of my next morning call she told me she would send me an invitation to a musical evening which she was going to have at her house in honour of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, her elderly patron, and she also gave me back the manuscript of Lohengrin, with the assurance that it had appealed to her very much, and that while she was reading it she had often seen the little fairies and elves dancing about in front of her.
You will then probably begin with "Tannhauser". This would appear to me a more natural order of things: perhaps in the first half of the season "Tannhauser" and soon afterwards "Lohengrin". It is true that you cannot count upon my niece, who will be in Paris next winter.
As mouche du cache I cannot go to Berlin, and should in that capacity be of little service to you. Your works, it is true, are above success as at present understood, but I will bet ten to one that "Tannhauser" or "Lohengrin," rehearsed and placed before the public in a proper manner, will have the most decided success.
But the element of the forbidden question is of unspeakable antiquity and survives in the law of taboo which exists among savages to-day. When Wagner discussed his opera in his "Communication to My Friends" he pointed out the resemblance between the story of Lohengrin and the myth of Zeus and Semele. Its philosophical essence he proclaimed to be humanity's feeling of the necessity of love.
Since the sojourn in Marienbad, where I had conceived the Meistersinger and Lohengrin, I had never occupied myself again with that poem; now its noble possibilities struck me with overwhelming force, and out of my thoughts about Good Friday I rapidly conceived a whole drama, of which I made a rough sketch with a few dashes of the pen, dividing the whole into three acts.
On the other hand, I tried to strengthen myself by again working energetically at Lohengrin. While doing this, I proceeded in a manner that I have not since repeated. I first of all completed the third act, and in view of the criticism already mentioned of the characters and conclusion of this act, I determined to try to make it the very pivot of the whole opera.
After the performance of "Lohengrin" I received your letter about the Goethe foundation, and I thank you cordially for it. I may mention, however, that perhaps no less than two years' time and trouble will be required to make the idea of the Goethe foundation a reality.
As a painter in music of landscape, seascape, of storm, rain amongst the leaves, spring mornings, and calm sunny woodland scenes, Wagner has no equal. There is nothing theatrical on this side of his art: the footlights and back-cloths disappear, and the very thing itself is before us. In or about 1847 Lohengrin was finished. The tale is of the simplest. Elsa is in distress.
The precise provocation of this essay was a certain performance of "Lohengrin."
The Grand Duchess was ill, and could attend only the third performance of "Lohengrin;" soon afterwards you left Weimar, and therefore had no opportunity of preparing the Grand Duchess for your plan in a proper and dignified manner. All this I know, and therefore no blame attaches to you in the remotest degree. Only I must know now where I am.
Word Of The Day