A strange but outstanding Lohengrin
First off, this is definitely NOT a Lohengrin to suit everyone's tastes. It is as far from traditional as one can get. However, after having seen numerous relatively tame (ie. boring) traditional productions, this was a welcome variation. The concept of the production is that an experiment is being conducted in a rat cage. Strange as it sounds, the concept worked on stage when I saw it in Bayreuth. It actually made sense. After all, how would anybody react to a total stranger who promises to save you from an enemy, and yet refuses to reveal his name? The fact is that WE are the rats and are living in our own cages, constantly being subjected to societal pressures.
Production aside, the singing is fantastic. Vogt has a mellifluous voice devoid of the "Bayreuth bark", Dasch is a beautiful Elsa with a ravishing voice, Lang has an appropriate harshness consistent with her role of Ortrud, and the Youn is a wonderful King's Herald. The orchestra and chorus maintain the high...
Of Mice and Men
Lohengrin has always been one of the most difficult Wagner operas to approach, partly because of where it stands in the development of the composer finding his own voice and partly because of the history that has become attached to it through its association with Nazism. Hans Neuenfels' idea then isn't in itself necessarily a bad one. He correctly sees that there is much more to Lohengrin than solemn declarations of Germanic might and purity, but that there is a wider consideration and a deep understanding in Lohengrin of the flaws and weaknesses in the German character also. In some respects then for Neuenfels, Lohengrin represents a kind of social experiment where these conflicting German characteristics are examined under laboratory conditions.
The difficulty with the idea of the opera as a social experiment however is that its reductio ad absurdum turns Brabant literally into a laboratory where its citizens run around for the most part dressed in black, white and...
Loved it!
This is my first Lohengrin that surprisingly enough I watched the whole thing during one sitting. There is always something exciting happening. I have other productions (tradittional) that I can never finish watching not even the first act and then I fall asleep. I loved the singing from all the principals but the ones that struck me the most are the villains of the opera.Apparently Bayreuth will be realising the controversial Parsifal - I can't wait to get it. I watched a few scenes on youtube and it seems that again it is going to surpass all other production of Parsifals. Going back to Lohengrin. I highly recomend this controversial production from Bayreuth. If you are open minded and could care less about tradittional boring productions, this will be what your looking for....Enjoy!
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