LOHENGRIN – Wagner Teatro dell’Opera di Roma

Event information

The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, stages Lohengrin, Richard Wagner's epic story set in mediaeval Brabant that explores the conflict between Christian faith and Germanic paganism. The three-act opera was first performed at the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar on 28 August 1850, the last of his major works to premiere before his political exile. Wagner wrote the libretto and composed the score for Lohengrin between 1845 and 1848 when he was employed as the Kapellmeister at the Royal Dresden court.
Lohengrin was already established as a legendary character before Wagner came to tell his story in opera. A Knight drawn from the German Arthurian legends, Lohengrin is a Knight of the Holy Grail and the son of the Grail King Parzival, another fabled figure Wagner wrote music for. In the legend, Lohengrin is sent to defend the honour of the Duchess of Brabant. He can protect her but there is a condition: she must never ask him his name nor question anything about his identity. The idea of this type of Christian, knightly intervention and the forbidden nature of knowing anything about it appealed to the German composer and he made it the focal point of his operatic interpretation of the tale.

In the first act, the Duke of Brabant's elder sister, Elsa, is in trouble. The Duke is young and ineffective. In Wagner's version of the tale, he does not have a singing part. It is his guardian, Count Friedrich von Telramund, who is causing the problems. Telramund has accused Elsa of murdering her brother so she may take over as Duchess. After arriving in Brabant, King Henry the Fowler is asked to decide upon the guilt or innocence of Elsa. He asks her to tell the truth but she simply responds with the aria, Einsam in trüben Tagen. Her words express sadness at the apparently unexplained absence of her brother but provide little for the King to go on.

A trial by combat is decreed to settle Telramund's accusation. At this point in the story, the almost superhuman figure of Lohengrin appears, arriving on a boat drawn by swans. Without announcing himself, Lohengrin says he is willing to defend Elsa's honour. He does so, vanquishing Telramund. However, the plot takes a turn for the worse when Telramund's widow, Ortrud, vows revenge. Will she be able to prise Elsa and Lohengrin apart, given the promises made before God about what she is allowed to know of her saviour?

This production of Lohengrin at Rome's Teatro Costanzi features all of the iconic elements that make this opera so distinctive, from the Bridal Chorus in Act Three to the mythical arrival of the Knight in Act One.