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Updated: September 13, 2025
For many minutes Ortrud, encouraged by a furious orchestra, pours forth a stream of insult directed at Lohengrin and Elsa: she is not immediately seized and carried off to be tortured: the bystanders utter a few exclamations, and leave Elsa to reply for herself.
For the latter we shall have to get Frau Stager from Prague, because amongst our local artists there is none who could undertake Ortrud. Otherwise everything here is very much in the old groove, and there is little to please me. I long very much for my work.
In my introduction I only spoke of an experienced singer of second parts, who, for want of a better, and, if she were taken in hand properly, might perhaps do for Ortrud. In saying this I specially had regard to her agreeable, although perhaps slightly enfeebled, voice, and her well-known industry.
The day after tomorrow, Boxing-day, we shall have "Tannhauser" here, which retains its position as a "draw," a distinction which it shares at Weymar, with "Lohengrin" and "The Flying Dutchman." Next spring "Lohengrin" is to be mounted again here. Up to the present we still want an Ortrud, and, unfortunately, cannot get a good one from elsewhere.
"Lohengrin" will be given here very shortly; I have already had a few rehearsals, because Ortrud, the Herald, and the King will be in new hands. I cannot tell you how deeply the work moves me every time. The last time we performed it I felt proud of my century, because it possessed such a man as you show yourself to be in this work.
In the second act occur the bridal ceremonies, prior to which, moved by Ortrud's entreaties, Elsa promises to obtain a reprieve for Telramund from the sentence which has been pronounced against him. At the same time Ortrud takes advantage of her success to instil doubts into Elsa's mind as to her future happiness and the faithfulness of Lohengrin.
The throne is vacant; Count Frederick of Telramund, who has his eyes upon it, had offered his hand in marriage to Elsa, who, with her brother, Gottfried, had been left in his care on the death of their father, but had met with a refusal. He had then married Ortrud, a Frisian princess. She is the last of a royal line, but a pagan, and practises sorcery.
But, even so held, woman-like she looks back, in spite of herself, over her shoulder, toward Ortrud, who receives the timid glance with a detestable gesture of triumph. Properly frightened, the bride turns quickly away, and the procession enters the church. It is night. The stately bridal apartment awaits its guests. Music is heard, very faint at first, as if approaching through long corridors.
"The weaker he," Telramund observes, ill-pleased, "the more mightily was exhibited the strength of God!" "The strength of God!... Ha, ha!" laughs loud Ortrud, with the same unmoderated effect of scorn and defiance, which sends her husband staggering back it step, gasping.
Telramund is overwhelmed by his misfortunes, but Ortrud urges him to make another trial to regain what he has lost. The knight, she says, had won by witchcraft, and if but the smallest joint of his body could be taken from him, he would be impotent. Together they instil disquiet and suspicion into the mind of Elsa as she is about to enter the minster to be married.
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