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Updated: June 7, 2025
"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.
"I ask you, therefore, Friedrich, Count von Telramund, will you, in life and death combat, entrust your cause to the judgment of God?" Telramund gives assent. "And you I ask, Elsa von Brabant, will you entrust your cause to a champion who shall fight for you under the judgment of God?" She assents likewise. "Whom do you choose for your champion?" the King asks of her.
Ortrud listens till it has died away; then asks, with cold quiet: "What makes you waste yourself in these wild complaints?" "That the very weapon should have been taken from me with which I might have struck you dead!" he cries, stung to insanity. Scornfully calm and cold as before, "Friedrich, you Count of Telramund, for what reason," she asks, "do you distrust me?"
I will await his coming, my champion he shall be!" Her audience is impressed by the look of inspiration with which she tells her tale of vision. "The grace of Heaven be with us," they say, "and assist us to see clearly who here is at fault!" The King in doubt turns to Telramund: "Friedrich, worthy as you are of all men's honour, consider well who it is you are accusing!"
There is another conclave of King and nobles. Lohengrin asks if he had acted within his right in slaying Telramund, and his deed is approved by all. Then he gives public answer to Elsa's question: In distant lands, where ye can never enter, A castle stands and Montsalvat its name; A radiant temple rises from its center More glorious far than aught of earthly fame.
Probably the performance will not take place for a few days; at present nothing can be settled, because now Elsa, now the King or Telramund, is ill, or because the bass clarinet ordered from Erfurt has not arrived; and when it does arrive at Leipzig, it is not certain whether the clarinet-player there will be able to play it, etc., etc.
As the music used to be played, a Telramund one degree nearer to a man than the average Italian baritone seemed ludicrously out of place; and when, in addition, the Lohengrin was a would-be lady-killer without an inch of fight in him, Henry the Fowler a pathetic heavy father, and Elsa a sentimental milliner, there was something farcical about Maurel's red feather and generally militant aspect.
Amidst all this excitement, and amidst all the unruly fighters, Telramund, strongest, fiercest, most unruly of them all, has to open the drama; and to command our respect, to make us feel that it is he who is making the drama move, that it is because all the barbarians are afraid of him that the drama begins to move at all, he cannot possibly look too ferocious and hot-blooded, too strong of limb and tempestuous of temper.
He perceived with triumphant joy, how they all shrank from fighting with him. Elsa looked still paler than before. For a third time the challenge of Telramund was heard. It sounded clearly over the whole plain. But none of the bright warriors came forward to take up the combat for Elsa's sake.
Lohengrin soothes the terror of his bride, and the procession starts once more. Once more it is interrupted. Telramund appears upon the threshold of the cathedral and publicly accuses Lohengrin of sorcery. The King, however, will not harbour a suspicion of his spotless knight.
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