The second
opera of my Berlin weekend was a classic German opera, that is Richard Wagner’s
Lohengrin in the Deutsche Oper. This production by director Kasper Holten is already
from year 2012, so not so new, but it still filled the house as a part of the
Wagner week in the opera. I am not really surprised about its popularity, since
it was a great production.
The story
of Lohengrin tells about the daughter of the Duke of Brabant – Elsa. Friedrich von
Telramund, who is yearning to gain the title of the Duke of Brabant himself,
accuses (prompted by his wife Ortrud) Elsa of murdering her brother – the natural
successor of the title. Elsa prays a pure knight to arrive to prove her innocence
and he appears. Elsa and the unknown knight confess their love to each other,
marry and the knight swears Elsa never to ask his name and origin without giving
any specific reason for his request. Ortrud makes Elsa start to doubt the
intentions of the knight and finally she gives up and insists that he must tell
her his name. The knight reveals that his name is Lohengrin and he is a knight
of the Holy Grail and tells that after telling his name, he is compelled to return
and leave Brabant and Elsa, who collapses down. In the original story Elsa dies
in the end, but in this version it remained a bit unclear if Lohengrin really
leaves and Elsa dies.
This is the mere skeleton of the story, since there are
other things happening in the opera. I am a bit disturbed by the part of the plot
where Elsa, who is first seen as an innocent victim in the beginning, gets to
be blamed by the whole society in the end for insisting to know the name of
Lohengrin. No extenuating circumstances are taken into consideration, even
though Lohengrin has earlier expressed yearning for his previous life and Elsa
is rather reasonably afraid of him disappearing without a trace. Lohengrin, on
the other hand, is described as a noble knight from the beginning to the end despite
his reaction to Elsa’s anxiousness being more in the line of ”stop bothering me
with stupid questions”. How empathic!
Though the opera is
also idealizing war as a way to solve problems.
Despite the
slightly misogynist story this production became already in May one of the
operatic highlight of my year. The set design of the opera was not bountiful,
but I think the simplicity of the set gave room to the strong emotions and the
beautiful music. I hate above all directors, who think that charismatic singers
cannot keep up the interest of the audience when they stand alone on the stage
and sing, but there must be some people doing something trivial on the background.
Kasper Holten fortunately did not commit this mistake, but he allowed the
performers to create an emotional contact with the audience.
The soloist
were all of high quality, but my own favourites were John Lundgren as Friedrich
vonTelramund, Andreas Bauer Kanabas as Heinrich von Vogler and, of course, our
own Camilla Nylund as Elsa von Brabant. Lohengrin with the angel wings (Daniel
Johansson) had a bit uneven performance: some parts were really good and some
not so much.
The
orchestra, the conductor Donald Runnicles and choir of Deutsche Oper were also
great stars in this four and a half hour long opera (incl. two intermissions). They
got well deserved fiery applause from the audience in the end. A great performance
that I could have watched again right away despite its length.
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