Word: lohengrins
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...fewer Americans recognize him as the composer of the infamous Barber of Seville. And therefore it is highly unlikely that many would associate the Rossini of the dramatic and macabre opera to the composer of the humourous and light-hearted The Italian Girl in Algeirs. Much like Wagner's Lohengrin and Puccini's La Boheme, the works of this opera have become a part of our popular perception of the genre. But while the musical style may be familiar, anyone who thinks he or she knows Rossini will be surprised by the vibrant humour, wit and irony in the Lowell...
...that the Holy Grail was really in Japan? American theater artist Robert Wilson seems to think so. For the Zurich Opera, Wilson has conjured up a LOHENGRIN that is far removed from Wagner's realm of Brabant. The composer's scenario is full of feudal warfare and knightly swordplay. But Wilson, whose career has included such mesmerizing efforts as Einstein on the Beach and the CIVIL warS, avoids conventional stage action, particularly the use of arms and hands. So this is a slo-mo Lohengrin with formalized gestures that recall tai chi. In place of the banks of the River...
...huge papier-mache Greek heads borne by people dressed as Rhine Maidens and warriors of the Teutoburg Forest. There are screenings of films whose display is still illegal in Germany, such as Hitlerjunge Quex, 1933, and Jud Suss, 1940. One can listen to a duet from Act I of Lohengrin, conducted by the young Nazi virtuoso Herbert von Karajan, or to SS marches...
While composing some madrigals 20 years ago, William Bolcom stumbled onto an odd coincidence: "I discovered that the funeral hymn Abide with Me and the wedding march from Lohengrin fit in perfect Irving Berlin counterpoint -- a funeral-marriage, Love with Death." This is not a discovery that would impress most composers, but Bolcom is not like most composers. So when the Philadelphia Orchestra performed his powerful new Fifth Symphony last week, the second movement featured, along with intimations of both Tannhauser and Tommy Dorsey, that bizarre wedding of Wagner and Abide with...
That radiance is fully celebrated by Levine. At 41 already a brilliant conductor of Parsifal, he views Lohengrin as a kind of musical prequel to Wagner's last work. He adopted a daringly slow _ tempo for the Act I prelude, letting it burn with a fervid religiosity, but gave the chorus and onstage "brass players thrilling free rein in the opera's frequent boisterous moments. Levine has mastered the sense of timelessness so crucial to successful Wagner performances in general, and static works like Lohengrin in particular; one looks forward to the day, two seasons hence, when...