R. Wagner — Lohengrin, opera (concert performance)
Concert with two intervals.
Maestro Gintaras Rinkevičius and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra celebrate the orchestra’s 37th anniversary by launching an ambitious and artistically demanding cycle dedicated to the late operas of German musical genius Richard Wagner (1813–1883). The cycle opens with the magnificent Romantic opera Lohengrin, featuring world-renowned opera stars Vida Miknevičiūtė and Edgaras Montvidas, both of whom grace the most prestigious stages across the globe. In the coming years, together with leading Lithuanian and international opera soloists, the audience will be treated to further monumental Wagner scores, including Parsifal, Das Rheingold, Siegfried, Die Walküre, Götterdämmerung, and Tristan und Isolde.
“As a conductor, I want this music to be heard in Lithuania. This entire cycle is an extraordinarily challenging creative process — not only endlessly fascinating for me as a musician, but, I am convinced, equally captivating for the Lithuanian audience,” said Maestro Rinkevičius.
Lohengrin is a three-act Romantic opera, first staged in 1850 in Weimar. The tale of its eponymous hero forms part of the medieval legend of the “Swan Knight,” later incorporated by Wolfram von Eschenbach into his epic Parzival and its continuation, Lohengrin. The drama unfolds in the Duchy of Brabant, where the young duchess Elsa is falsely accused of murdering her brother. In despair, she calls upon divine aid, and her prayers are answered: a mysterious knight, Lohengrin — son of the Grail King Parsifal — arrives in a boat drawn by a swan. He vows to defend and marry Elsa, but on one condition: she must never ask his name or origin. Should she break this promise, the knight will be forced to leave her.
The interplay between Lohengrin and Elsa, and the forbidden question at the opera’s heart, embody Wagner’s exploration of the tension between the divine and the earthly, early medieval Christianity and Germanic paganism. Into this tapestry, Wagner also weaves elements of Greek tragedy, in which a god falls in love with a mortal woman and descends to her in human form.