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The day after your first performance in Paris you will be "as one new-born and content like a Greek god." Regarding London, it will be somewhat difficult to place your "Lohengrin" there. It depends very much upon the chance of a good opportunity, which I hope will turn up.
The angry and arrogant disgust expressed in his letter at my desire to see that Lohengrin was produced without 'cuts, served admirably to expose to me the profound antipathy of this man whom I had once so blindly overestimated.
My horror, therefore, was all the greater, when young Wilhelm Heine one day came to my room with the news that the scenery for Lohengrin had been suddenly countermanded, and instructions given him to prepare for another opera. I did not make any remark, nor ask the reason for this singular behaviour.
To play "Lohengrin" in the old way is to deny Wagner the astonishing sense of dramatic effect he had from the beginning; to play it as Seidl played it is to prove that the conductor appreciates the perfection of artistic sense that led, compelled, Wagner to set the miraculous vision of Lohengrin against a background made up of such stormy scenes.
She sang through the greater part of "Lohengrin," and then took up the "Meistersinger," and read it till it fell from her hands. ... It was three o'clock; and feeling very tired, she thought that she might be able to sleep. But all night long she saw her life from end to end.
If the processional has been the "Lohengrin" march, it is thought by many to be very effective for the organist, all through the ceremony, to continue on the swell organ a dreamy sotto voce improvisation, in the course of which a varied reiteration of "Faithful and true" serves as an affecting expression of the sentiment of the hour.
Yet he steadily refused all inspection of his books, maintaining that he thereby protected my property, as all I possessed having been confiscated, it would otherwise be seized at once. A pleasanter topic than this was Lohengrin. My friend had completed the pianoforte arrangement, and was already busy correcting the engraver's proofs.
The prospect down-stairs did not seem to justify despatch. She lingered and thought, of 'Lohengrin' and Albani, of the crowd of artistic friends that had escorted her to Waterloo, of the way in which she had been applauded the night before, of the joys of playing Brahms with a long-haired pupil of Rubinstein's, who had dropped on one knee and kissed her hand at the end of it, etc.
But the black shadows cast upon its waters by the steep cliffs which rise sheerly from its sides, give back their darkness to the depths of the lake, and for the scene of a picturesque murder it would be perfect. There is a magnificent echo around certain parts of the Königsee, and swans sailing majestically on the breast of the lake remind one of the Lohengrin country.
The poetic indications which I read in the programme, especially those of the introduction to "Lohengrin" and the overture of the "Flying Dutchman," interested me very much. Before long I may send you a little article about the "Flying Dutchman"; and if you approve of it, it shall be published. I have been much depressed these last few days by many and various things.
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