Wagner-Mania Returns to LA-LA-Land

LOHENGRIN Opera Review

L.A. Opera premiered Lohengrin on November 20. No, this is not about Lindsay’s smirk in her mugshots. Rather, it’s another one of Richard Wagner’s works, only this time the opera is performed more conventionally, minus the avant-garde razzmatazz of Achim Freyer’s  The Ring of the Nibelungen, which had opera traditionalists’ panties in a bunch. Like The Ring Cycle Wagner explores a Germanic legend in Lohengrin, based on a medieval myth about a knight in shining armor (at least on one silver-clad leg). The original source saga could be roughly compared to the Sir Lancelot and Guinevere British tales of yore, although Lohengrin, of course, has an Aryan twist.

The production directed by Lydia Steier at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, however, has updated Lohengrin to take place during World War I (after Wagner’s death) in Saxony. In any case, like any good knight, Lohengrin (Canadian tenor Ben Heppner) comes to the rescue of a dazzling damsel in distress, the maidenly Elsa (Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski), who has been accused of a heinous crime. They vow to wed, but on one condition: Elsa must never ask Lohengrin about his family origins, or even his name.

Ben Heppner as Lohengrin (Photo Ray Millard)

But meet the mezzo — Dolora Zajick as the scheming Ortrud — who plays Iago to Elsa’s Othello, stirring the pot of suspicion in a classic case of projection. The U.S.-born mezzo-soprano’s character is married to Friedrich von Telramund (American bass-baritone James Johnson), who is a pretender to the title of “Protector of Brabant” and was originally supposed to marry Elsa, before she fell under a cloud of doubt. All hell breaks loose as Telramund alleges before King Heinrich (Icelandic bass Kristinn Sigmundsson) that Elsa has committed a horrific act, and Lohengrin’s rather magical appearance pits the knight against Telramund.

Wagner’s opera comments on many dimensions, including on true love. One can clearly see that Wagner suffered from unhappy marriages, and Lohengrin’s wedding night scene may be the most epic depiction of coitus interruptus in the entire history of art. Talk about love’s labors lost! The story also explores whether lovers should reveal their true inner selves, who they really are, to their partners. As well as the folly of marrying someone you’ve just met, without getting to know their future spouse first. There may be such a thing as love at first sight, but most of these impulsive marital unions are doomed to failure, as Wagner knew.

Lohengrin also observes the issues of faith versus doubt, paganism versus Christianity, sorcery versus religion, conditional versus unconditional love and miracles. The opera ponders secret societies and utopias, too.

More presciently, Wagner also sheds light on the cult of personality and mob mentality, as well as militarism. At first, the German soldiers wear Pickelhaube helmets with spikes, but by the third act they appear to be wearing Wehrmacht-style headgear like those worn during the Third Reich. The Nazis rather infamously misappropriated Wagner and his music, although the maestro died six years before Adolph Hitler’s birth. Leni Riefenstahl’s 1934 agitprop movie Triumph of the Will – a pseudo-documentary directed by essentially a feature/fiction filmmaker – may consciously or unconsciously incorporate elements of Lohengrin. In addition to the whole hero worship aspect, Triumph opens with Hitler descending from the skies to the adoring masses below in the gothic town of Nuremburg, just as Lohengrin arrives via a black swan (which, in Triumph, is der Fuhrer’s airplane).

The L.A. Opera production designed by Dirk Hofacker has its share of special effects not unlike last weekend’s other wizardry work, the latest installment of the Harry Potter franchise. 3-D is much the film vogue nowadays, but by George, Hofacker’s set in this three-act show really is three-dimensional! Hofacker’s bombed out church – most of the action takes place within or outside of it – is one of the best sets I’ve ever seen grace the stage of the Dorothy Chandler. And not only is the set solid, but it actually moves, in real time. Take that, Avatar!

Without trying to be insulting, some of the oversized performers also give IMAX a run for its money. Unlike its younger sibling, the cinema, opera cares more about singing ability than it does about the looks of its stars, some of whom wouldn’t exactly be playing romantic leads on the silver screen, if you catch my drift. The lighting by Mark McCullough, plus the changing skies, with clouds, stars, et al, are likewise glorious. It is not an overstatement to say that L.A. Opera’s sets can be true co-stars, and Lohengrin’s certainly are.

James Conlon ably conducts the orchestra. Surprisingly, the best piece of music Wagner composed for Lohengrin is the sonorous, stirring, brassy Prelude to Act III, which – for my money – rivals The Ride of the Valkyries and Siegfried’s Funeral March from Gotterdammerung (both in The Ring Cycle) as Wagner’s single greatest piece of music. Surprisingly, the Prelude is not reprised once the curtain rises, and it struck me as rather odd that Wagner sort of just tossed off Lohengrin’s finest musical moment.

Nevertheless, there is enough to delight the eye and ear in Lohengrin to make even the troubled Lindsay Lohan grin.

Ed Rampell

Lohengrin is being performed Sundays Nov. 28 and Dec. 12 at 2:00 p.m. and on Dec. 1, 4 and 9 at 6:30 p.m. at: L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Downtown Los Angeles; see: www.laopera.com or call: (213)972-8001.

And for those fans afflicted by Wagner-mania who can’t get enough of the composer, across the street from the Dorothy Chandler the L.A. Phil at the Walt Disney Concert Hall is presenting Wagnerian music under the baton of Esa-Pekka Solonen and sung by bass-baritone Bryn Terfel on Nov. 26-27 at 8:00 p.m. and on Nov. 28 at 2:00 p.m.

And to read about the Wagner Museum at Lake Lucerne, where the German lived due to his revolutionary activities (indeed, Franz Liszt conducted the 1850 world premiere of Lohengrin at Weimar, as Wagner was still living in exile at Switzerland), see my travel story at: http://www.intheknowtraveler.com/archives/6494 .

Ed Rampell