Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As she is led in, stricken down and miserable, the warning theme is heard; then that winding, insidious theme associated with Ortrud; and last, four bars of the music heard in the first act when she stands helpless before the king and has nothing wherewith to answer her accusers: she is as miserable now as she was then, and the cause of it Lohengrin's edict and her defiance of it under Ortrud's influence.
Although, of course, I would not agree to any of these suggestions, I went so far as to consider whether I could not do away with the cruel separation, and still retain the incident of Lohengrin's departure, which was essential. I then sought for a means of letting Elsa go away with Lohengrin, as a form of penance which would withdraw her also from the world.
As Senta's ballad is the germ of the Dutchman, so is Lohengrin's narrative, "In fernem Land," the germ of this more beautiful opera. It plays a more important part in Lohengrin than does the ballad in the Dutchman.
In my opinion, nothing further can be done for the moment, and you have every reason to be calm and SATISFIED. Lohengrin's barque is drawn by a swan; the cackling of geese and the barking of dogs are of no avail. Berlioz is coming to Hanover at the end of March, and goes from there to Dresden, where he will conduct a few concerts at the theatre.
But the grouping of the characters is admirable; the truculent witch Ortrud is a fine foil to the ingenuous Elsa, and Lohengrin's spotless knighthood is cast into brilliant relief by the dastardly treachery of Telramund. The story of 'Lohengrin' lacks the deep human interest of 'Tannhäuser, and the music never reaches the heights to which the earlier work sometimes soars.
Lohengrin's warning sounds out, sinister; Lohengrin pleads, always stupidly, but to music of growing intensity and grip; the measures are no longer cut to a pattern, not incoherent as they are in the squabbles of the second Act; and at last a passage of Wagner at his theatrical best is reached when he solemnly warns her again "Greatest of trusts, Elsa, I have shown thee."
Lohengrin on the ground of desertion and non-support, obtained her decree, with back alimony of twenty-five per cent. of Lohengrin's income for a trifle over fifteen hundred years. How much that amounted to I really do not know, but that it was a large sum I am sure, for Lohengrin must have been very wealthy.
Had Seidl kept his vigour for the stormy scenes, and given us a finer tenderness in the prelude, the love-music, and Lohengrin's account of himself, his rendering would have been a flawless one. And even as Seidl interpreted it, the supreme beauty of the music, the sweetness of it as well as its strength, were manifest as they have never been manifest before.
"What a place," Maurice was disgusted; "it is driving me to melodrama." Her clothes fell into perfection she walked slowly and calmly with appraising steps. The lace veil was over her face. She did not forget her sunshade, her bag, or her handkerchief. Louis, the waiter, opened the door for her. She sailed out like a gondola on the stage, or Lohengrin's swan.
'You're wrong about Wagner, father, said Arthur, still glancing with paternal partiality at his sheet of manuscript: 'Lohengrin's a very fine work, a grand work, I assure you. I won't let you run it down. But, barring that, I think you're pretty nearly right in your main judgment. I'm not modest, and it strikes me somehow that I've invented a genre. That's about what it comes to.
Word Of The Day