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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 August 2008
This essay examines the story of two stories, both by Richard Wagner: a story of Lohengrin, knight of the Holy Grail, and of Lohengrin, the opera. Lohengrin's story is well known: Elsa of Brabant, accused by her former suitor Friedrich of Telramund of having killed her brother and heir to the throne, prays for help from the unknown knight in her dreams, promising herself as wife in exchange for his assistance. Miraculously, the knight appears in a boat pulled by a swan and accepts her offer on condition that she never ask about his origin, name or nature. But political and personal intrigue spun by Friedrich and the gypsy woman Ortrud nourish doubts about the knight's magical existence, doubts that ultimately drive Elsa to ask the forbidden question during her wedding night. Lohengrin publicly discloses his identity and leaves Elsa, though not without returning her brother (whom Ortrud had transformed into the swan) to power.
1 I should like to thank Bruce Redford for valuable comments on an earlier version of this article.Google Scholar
2 Groos, Arthur, ‘Back to the Future: Hermeneutic Fantasies in Derfliegende Hollander’, 19th-century Music, 19 (1995), 191–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Wagner's writings are quoted from the second edition of his Gesammelte Schriften, 10 vols. (Leipzig, 1887), henceforth cited as GS.Google ScholarTranslations are based, with some alterations, on RichardWagner's Prvse Works, trans. Ellis, William Ashton, 10 vols. (London, 1893–1899), henceforth cited as PW. The present quotations: GS IV, 297; PW I, 342.Google ScholarWagner echoed this view in a letter to Röckel, August, Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans, and ed. Spencer, Stewart and Millington, Barry (New York, 1988), 306.Google Scholar
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5 GS IV, 296–7 and Wagner, Richard, My Life, trans. Gray, Andrew (Cambridge, 1983), 326.Google Scholar
6 Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, 130.Google Scholar
7 Deathridge, John, ‘Through the Looking Glass: Some Remarks on the First Complete Draft of Lohengrin’, in Analysing Opera, ed. Abbate, Carolyn and Parker, Roger (Berkeley, 1989), 56–91, esp. 71–80.Google ScholarOther recent srudies of the opera include Ulrich Siegele, ‘Das Drama der Themen am Beispiel des Lohengrin’, Richard Wagner: Werk und Wirkung, ed. Dahlhaus, Carl (Regensburg, 1971), 41–52;Google ScholarBrinkmann, Reinhold, ‘Wunder, Realitat und die Figur der Grenziiberschreitung’, Lohengrin: Texte, Materialien, Kommentare, ed. Csampai, Attila and Holland, Dietmar (Reinbeck, 1989), 269–74;Google Scholarvon Soden, Michael, Richard Wagner: Lohengrin (Frankfurt, 1980);Google ScholarWhittall, Arnold, ‘Wagner's Great Transition? From Lohengrin to Das Rbeingold’, Music Analysis, 2 (1983), 269–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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9 As discussed for instance in White, Hayden, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore, 1987).Google Scholar
10 On that point see Groos, ‘Back to the Future’, 192–3, and James Treadwell, ‘The Ring and the Conditions of Interpretation: Wagner's Writing, 1848 to 1852’, this journal, 7 (1995), 207–31.Google Scholar
11 Dahlhaus, Carl, Richard Wagner's Music Dramas, trans. Whittall, Mary (Cambridge, 1979), 35.Google Scholar
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13 Schaeffer, Julius, ‘Über “Lohengrin” von Richard Wagner mit Bezug auf seine Schrift: “Oper und Drama”, Neue Berliner Musikzeitung, 6 (1852), 153–5, 161–3, 169–71, 193–6, 201–4.Google ScholarRaff, Joachim, Die Wagnerfrage … Erster Theil Wagner's letzte künsterlische Kundgebung im ‘Lohengrin’ (Braunschweig, 1854).Google Scholar
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19 For an initial attempt at Wagnerian screams see Friedheim, Philip, ‘Wagner and the Aesthetics of the Scream’, 19th-century Music, 7 (1983), 63–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarMuch broader in scope is Poizat's, MichelThe Angel's Cry: Beyond The Pleasure Principle in Opera, trans. Denner, Arthur (Ittiaca, 1992). In both works Lohengrin receives little attention.Google Scholar
20 ‘Über das Dichten und Komponieren’ (GS X, 137–51; PWVl, 131–48); ‘Über das Opern-Dichten und Komponieren im Besonderen’ (GSX, 152–75; PWVl, 149–72); ‘Uber die Anwendung der Musik auf das Drama’ (GSX, 176–93; PWVl, 173–92). See Bayreuther Blätter, 2 (1879), 185–96, 249–66 and 313–25.Google Scholar
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22 Recent analysis of Wagner's music in neo-Riemannian terms has labelled this mode change a ‘ P ’ (for ‘parallel’) operation. See Hyer, Brian, ‘Tonal Intuitions in “Tristan and Isolde” ’ (Ph.D. Diss. Yale University, 1989), andGoogle ScholarLewin, David, ‘Some Notes on Analyzing Wagner’, 19th-century Music, 16 (1992), 49–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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24 Raff, Die Wagnerfrage, 222: ‘The appearance of Lohengrin is introduced in an incomparably better way. Elsa's narration of the vision, whose content is the knight of the Grail, as well as the accompanying musical motivation, would be in themselves sufficient [to warrant such a judgement]. I would maintain that this preparation is a poetic masterpiece, with little that equals it …. I doubt that anyone would fail to recognise for a moment the perfection of what Wagner achieved [in this scene] and what will secure Wagner an honorary place among the poets of all times. (‘Die Erscheinung des Lohengrin ist ungleich besser eingeführt. Die Erzählung der Elsa von der Vision, deren Inhalt der Ritter des Grales ist, sowie die dabei auftretende musikalische Motivierung wären an sich schon völlig ausreichend. Ich möchte indeβ behaupten, daβ diese Vorbereitung ein poetisches Meisterstück ist, welchem nicht eben viel Ebenbürtiges zur Seite [….] Ich bezweifle, daβ Jemand das Vollendete, was Wagner hier geleistet hat und was ihm unter den Dichtern aller Zeiten einen Ehrenplatz sichert, je einen Augenblick verkennen werde’.)Google Scholar
25 Ibid., 123–4.
26 See Borchmeyer, Dieter, ‘Choral Tragedy and Symphonic Drama: Wagner's Contribution to Nietzsche's Die Geburt der Tragödie’, in his Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre, trans. Spencer, Stewart (Oxford, 1991), 160–77.Google Scholar
27 Cone, Edward T. first drew attention to this distinction in The Composer's Voice (Berkeley, 1974) and subsequently0Google Scholarin ‘The World of Opera and its Inhabitants’, Music. A View from Delft, ed. Morgan, Robert P. (Chicago, 1989), 125–38.Google Scholar
28 Oper und Drama is cited according to the edition by Rudolf Kropfinger (Stuttgart, 1984), 347; PWII, 333.Google Scholar
29 Oper und Drama, 336–7; PWII, 323. The eye/ear conjunction is also the central image that governs Wagner's theory of alliteration, in which consonants are perceived by the ‘eye’ of hearing, and vowels by the ‘ear’; see Oper und Drama, 286.Google Scholar
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31 Through the famous letter to Mathilde Wesendonck, Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, 475.Google Scholar
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36 Adorno, Theodor, In Search of Wagner, trans. Livingstone, Rodney (London, 1981), 87 (translation modified).Google Scholar
37 Cf. ibid., 86: ‘Es ist Elsas Vision, in welcher sie als Träumende den Ritter und alle Handlung gleichsam herbeizieht’. Versuch über Wagner (Frankfurt, 1952), 108.Google Scholar
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40 See the stage direction when Lohengrin approaches: ‘Elsa, die mit steigender Entzückung den Ausrufen der Männer gelauscht hat, verbleibt in ihrer Stellung in der Mitte der Bühne. Sie wagt gleichsam nicht, sich umzublicken’. (‘Elsa, who has been listening with increasing rapture to the shouting men, remains in her posture in the middle of the stage. She does not, as it were, dare to look’.) Yet when Lohengrin arrives at the shore: ‘Elsa hat sich umgewandt und schreit bei Lohengrins Anblick laut auf’ (‘Elsa turns around and, seeing Lohengrin, cries out loudly’).Google Scholar
41 GS III, 3–4.Google Scholar
42 11 February 1872. Cosima Wagner's Diaries, trans. Skelton, Geoffrey (New York, 1978–1980), I, 457.Google Scholar
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49 Ibid., 352; PWW, 338–9.
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51 Feuerbach, Ludwig, Sämtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1849), VII, 331:Google Scholar‘Der Glaube … stützt sich auf eine besondere Offenbarung Gottes; er ist zu seinem Besitzthum nicht auf gemeinem Weg gekommen, auf dem Wege, der alien Menschen ohne Unterschied offensteht’. For a general overview on Wagner's reception of Feuerbach, see Chapter 5 of Franke, Rainer, Richard Wagners Züricher Kunstschriften: Politische und ästhetische Entwürfe auf seinem Weg zum ‘Ring des Nibelungen’ (Hamburg, 1983).Google Scholar
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58 Feuerbach, Sämtliche Werke, VII, 16: ‘However, if religion, God's consciousness, is referred to as human self-consciousness, this does not mean that the religious person would immediately know diat his consciousness of God is the self-consciousness of his life, since precisely the lack of this knowledge establishes the particular nature of religion’.Google Scholar
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63 LNattiez, Wagner Androgyne, 130, does not make that important distinction.Google Scholar
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