Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
The business of a champion for Elsa being called for, the moments of suspense, the prayers of Elsa and her attendant maidens, the fiery impatience of Telramund and the premature triumph of Ortrud are all done with Wagner's consummate skill in writing purely theatrical music; and when the swan and the hero are sighted the excitement is worked up with the same skill to a glorious triumph, and we hear the Lohengrin, "as hero," theme in its full splendour.
Telramund conceals himself behind a buttress of the minster. The business of the day is gradually taken up in the citadel court. The porter unlocks the tower-gate that lets out on to the city-road; servants come and go about their work, drawing water, hanging festive garlands. At a summons from the King's trumpeters, nobles and burghers assemble in great number before the Minster.
Gottfried, the young son of the late Duke, has mysteriously disappeared, and Telramund, the husband of Ortrud, daughter of the Prince of Friesland, claims the dukedom.
But in the next act, when Lohengrin and Elsa are left alone she can no longer restrain her curiosity nor conceal her fears: in spite of his warnings she questions him. At the moment Telramund and other nobles rush in to assassinate him; he kills Telramund, orders the other nobles to bear the body into the judgment hall, and tells Elsa he must leave her.
Her father, the Duke of Brabant, had ere he died appointed his most powerful vassal, one Frederick of Telramund, to be her guardian; but he, seeking only the advancement of his own ends, shamefully abused the confidence of his lord.
And, firstly..." he solemnly draws the pall from the dead face of Telramund, "I make my charge aloud before you all, and ask for judgment according to law and custom: This man having surprised and assailed me by night, tell me, was I justified in slaying him?" "As your hand smote him upon earth," the horrified spectators cry in a voice, "may God's punishment smite him yonder!"
To promote the ambition of herself and her husband, she has changed Gottfried into a swan by throwing a magical chain about his neck, and persuaded Telramund to accuse Elsa of having murdered the boy in the hope of enjoying the throne together with a secret lover. The King summons Elsa to answer the charge and decrees trial by ordeal of battle.
"Give me the opportunity," she proceeds, with a return to that uncanny quiet of hers, "and I will show you, infallibly, what a feeble god it is protects him!" Telramund is impressed. She is telling him after all that which he would like to believe. Still, the impression of the day's events is strong upon him, his overthrow at God's own hand. After that, how dare he trust her?
News of it reached the people of Cleves, and a great concourse gathered to witness the spectacle, all of them secretly in sympathy with the persecuted maiden, though these feelings were carefully concealed from the ruthless Telramund.
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.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking