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Updated: August 24, 2024
This reminds me that I have corrected a mistake in the manuscript of the libretto, but not in the score. In the last words of Lohengrin's leave-taking of Elsa it should be, instead of "mein zurnt der Gral wenn ich noch bleib," "mir zurnt," etc., etc. You ask me also for a few metronomical indications of the tempo.
The flower of a loyal army look on at all this and go on their way, leaving Frederick free to make an attempt on Lohengrin's life in the third Act. Again I emphasise a point because it reveals exactly how far Wagner's art had got at this period. Well might he feel it necessary, before proceeding to other masterpieces, to discover where he stood, what was his ideal, and how he might attain it.
In 'Lohengrin' Wagner used this beautiful idea more systematically than in 'Tannhäuser'; Lohengrin's utterances are almost always accompanied by the strings of the orchestra, while the wood-wind is specially devoted to Elsa.
Yet the evidence was unsatisfactory because merely circumstantial. My piece of down might have come from an opera cloak and not from a well-broken swan, the hair might equally clearly have come from some other head than Lohengrin's, and other men have had trouble with their wives.
The first is of the theatrical type: it is a leitmotiv of the same sort as Lohengrin's warning to Elsa; the other is a miracle, one of the wonders of music. It gives one in a brief phrase Siegfried's dazed sense that something has gone from him, a strange sense of loss; and it has the pathos the moment demands.
But now I have first of all a great wish to address to you: Give the opera as it is; cut nothing! One single cut I will indicate to you myself, and I even insist upon the omission of the passage, viz., the second part of Lohengrin's tale in the final scene of the third act.
Now I would ask the reader if this story is reasonable, if any "meaning" or moral can be read into it. On the face of it Lohengrin's conditions are preposterous. Yet he is bound by the laws of the magic domain he comes from; he trusts Elsa and does battle on her behalf without any proof of her innocence; and she has no patience to wait for him to explain matters.
There is an accent of passionate grief in Lohengrin's words to Elsa, and of remorse in Elsa's wailings; but the most touching thing in this final scene is the song in which he hands her his sword, horn and ring, to be given to her brother should he return. The note of regret, especially in the poignant "leb' wohl," reminds one irresistibly of Wotan's farewell to Brünnhilda.
But Lohengrin's power is not exhausted; he kneels upon the river bank, and in answer to his prayer the white dove of the Grail wheels down from the sky, releases the swan, and, while Elsa clasps her restored brother to her breast, bears Lohengrin swiftly away over the waters of the Scheldt.
He thought it offensive to effect Elsa's punishment through Lohengrin's departure; for although he understood that the characteristics of the legend were expressed precisely by this highly poetical feature, he was doubtful as to whether it did full justice to the demands of tragic feeling in its relation to dramatic realism.
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