R I C H A R D WAG N E R
LOHENGRIN
CONTENTS
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SYNOPSIS P.
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A FLOODLIGHT ON THE WORLD BEYOND, LOVE WITHOUT REGRET CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN
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MYTH AND BOURGEOIS IDEOLOGY THEODOR W. ADORNO P.
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UNCONDITIONAL FAITH – NAGGING DOUBT KONRAD PAUL LIESSMANN
“WE ARE MAKING A THRILLER” JOSSI WIELER, ANNA VIEBROCK AND SERGIO MORABITO IN AN INTERVIEW
DIRECTING WAGNER TODAY SERGIO MORABITO
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IMPRINT
R I C H A R D WAG N E R
LOHENGRIN ROMANTIC OPERA in three acts
ORCHESTRA
3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo) 3 oboes (3rd doubling English horn) 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet) 3 bassoons 4 horns / 3 trumpets / 3 trombones / tuba timpani / percussion harp / strings STAGE MUSIC piccolo / 2 flutes / 3 oboes 3 clarinets / 3 bassoons 4 horns / 4 fanfare trumpets 8 trumpets / 4 trombones timpani / cymbal / triangle / 2 snares / 1 bell / harp / organ
AUTOGRAPH Richard-Wagner-National-Archiv Bayreuth WORLD PREMIÈRE 28 AUG 1850 Weimar Court Theater PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 19 AUG 1882 Vienna Court Opera DURATION
4 H 30 M
INCL. 2 INTERMISSIONS
LOHENGRIN
SYNOPSIS FIRST ACT The Saxon army of King Heinrich marches into the Duchy of Brabant along the banks of the River Scheldt. Heinrich wants Brabant to join his campaign against the Hungarians. But Brabant is currently leaderless, so first the question of the succession in the Duchy must be decided. Heinrich favours Count Friedrich von Telramund. The latter accuses Elsa of Brabant, the first-born daughter of the deceased Duke, of having drowned the legitimate heir, her younger brother Gottfried. Elsa is summoned to trial, but instead of defending herself, she conjures up an image of an unknown knight who will prove her innocence before God. Then he will marry her, she says, and succeed her father as Duke. A call is issued for anyone willing to defend Elsa and fight Telramund “to the death.” At first no one answers – but then a stranger approaches from across the water, whose novelty everyone finds captivating. He makes a declaration of loyalty to King Heinrich. But before duelling with Telramund, he insists that Elsa promise never to ask his name or identity. She does so, and thereupon he declares his love for her. The subsequent trial by combat results in Telramund’s defeat. The people of Brabant acclaim the nameless knight as their new ruler.
Previous pages: MALIN BYSTRÖM as ELSA DAVID BUTT PHILIP as LOHENGRIN
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SYNOPSIS
SECOND ACT Only Telramund’s wife Ortrud doubts the legitimacy of the nameless knight’s victory. She is an outsider who has not converted to Christianity, and she claims to have been witness to Gottfried’s murder by Elsa. Telramund has been made an outlaw, but Ortrud persuades him to try and debunk the nameless knight by accusing him publicly of sorcery while she manipulates Elsa into asking the forbidden question. Even if Ortrud were to succeed in seizing but the smallest part of the knight’s body, she says, his power would be at an end. Ortrud succeeds in restoring Elsa’s trust in her. The nameless knight has himself declared “Protector of Brabant.” He agrees with King Heinrich that after his marriage to Elsa, he will lead the army of Brabant into war alongside Heinrich’s troops. Fuelled by their belief in the divine mission of their new ruler, Brabant begins to mobilise while also preparing for the wedding celebrations. On their way to the marriage ceremony, Ortrud confronts Elsa and publicly stirs up doubts about the nameless man’s identity. Then Telramund also questions the legitimacy of the supposed judgement of God, since those present at his duel had failed to establish just who his adversary was. The Saxons and Brabantians are ready for battle and uninterested in any such matters of clarification. But only when Elsa publicly declares that she harbours no doubts about the “Protectors of Brabant” can the wedding take place.
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LOHENGRIN
THIRD ACT Elsa and her nameless knight are led into their bridal chamber. Elsa wants to know her husband’s secret so that she can in good faith share the responsibility of keeping it – if necessary, by sacrificing her life for it. He refuses, but in return affirms that he trusts her claims of innocence regarding her brother’s disappearance. All the same, Elsa asks the forbidden question, without regard for herself or him. At this very moment Telramund – who has been lying in wait – emerges to attack the nameless knight, who promptly strikes him dead. At dawn, the knight relinquishes his position before the armies of Saxony and Brabant that stand ready for war. By asking the forbidden question, Elsa has stripped him of all power, for the success of his mission was tied to the secret of his identity. By now revealing himself as Lohengrin, the son of the King of the Grail, he must withdraw. But as he disappears, he gives Brabant back the lost heir to the Duchy, Gottfried.
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DAVID BUTT PHILIP as LOHENGRIN MALIN BYSTRÖM as ELSA
CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN
A FLOODLIGHT ON THE WORLD BEYOND, LOVE WITHOUT REGRET ORIGIN When Lohengrin, Richard Wagner’s third and last “romantic opera”, had its premiere on 28 August 1850 under Franz Liszt, the intelligentsia of Europe came flocking to Weimar: Giacomo Meyerbeer, Bettina von Arnim, the writer Karl Gutzkow, critics from London and Paris and many more. Expectations were high, and reactions guarded. The one man who could not be at the premiere was the composer himself. As court “Kapellmeister” to the King of Saxony, he had taken part in the May Uprising in Dresden in 1849 [put down with bloodshed after four days]; he had leaflets printed, transported hand grenades; in short, he was freelancing for the revolution. Wagner‘s last official performance was to conduct a concert on 1 April 1849 including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. “All men shall be brothers”? It is easy to imagine the emotion and hectic theatricality of that performance. To this day scholars argue over what Wagner really saw in the revolution of 1848/9:
a genuine political issue, the chance to realise ideas of radical democracy? Or the elevation of a collective passion concentrated in art, as he was to formulate and encourage it a little later in his theoretical writing? I cannot make up my mind. Wagner’s first interest in the Lohengrin legend goes back to the time of his first visit to Paris in 1839. The sources of the opera are regarded as Wolfram von Eschenbach’s epic poem Parzifal, which Wagner studied in Karl Simrock’s translation while taking a cure in Marienbad in 1845, as well as texts by Joseph Görres and Jacob Grimm. The genesis of the work is rather disjointed: the libretto was finished at the end of 1845, the first sketches for its composition were written by the summer of 1847 [the last of them being the Prelude]. So that he could concentrate better, Wagner went to the countryside in Graupa near Pirna, to stay in a manor house that is now a Richard Wagner Museum. He completed the score in a euphoric frenzy of creativity from January to the end of April 1842, and
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A F L O O D L I G H T O N T H E WO R L D B E YO N D , L OV E W I T H O U T R E G R E T
nothing then seemed to stand in the way of its premiere in Dresden.
MUSIC The score of Lohengrin is very straightforward and very sophisticated, it is naïve in the sense of being instinctive and sentimental in the sense of being thoughtfully reflective, melodious and advanced. Wagner may have had difficulty with Tannhäuser all his life; he succeeded with Lohengrin from the first. In Tannhäuser he is saying goodbye to the Spieloper; in Lohengrin he erects a memorial to German romantic opera and at the same time surpasses it. A hero who may not speak his name, the Grail as a higher authority situated somewhere ineffable, inaccessible, indeed divine – already, these features have so much of the artistic mythology of Parsifal in them that we cannot be surprised to hear of the audience’s bewilderment at the 1850 premiere in Weimar. In form, Lohengrin is Wagner’s first truly through-composed work. Here he concentrates more strongly than in Tannhäuser on the art of the transitional: the motifs and harmonies of the three acts are so densely interwoven, the orchestral composition is organised so much like a symphony, that apparent “numbers”, like Elsa’s somnambulistic entrance in the first act, or the wedding march, the love duet and the Grail Narrative in the third act arise from the material as if of themselves. Wagner also allocates certain musical features to the characters: the key of A major belongs to Lohengrin and the world of the Grail in their “silvery blue beauty”, as Thomas Mann put it, while the dark, wild, parallel key of F sharp
minor is associated with Lohengrin’s antagonists, Ortrud and Telramund, and all that the king says is written in the striking but ultimately empty key of C major. Similarly, in the orchestration the king has the brass on his side, Ortrud and Telramund are supported by woodwind and the lower strings, and Lohengrin is surrounded by the glistening radiance of violins playing in several parts. At the same time the motifs of Lohengrin and Elsa reflect each other, and even Ortrud’s sphere is concealed there. We are living in a single world, says Wagner – good will never exist without evil, we can never have heaven without hell. Lohengrin is also the first opera for which Wagner did not write an “overture”, but a “prelude.” I would not want to make too much of this change of term, but it clearly expresses his turning away from Italian and French operatic conventions. Wagner wanted to establish a tradition of his own, and now found himself well on the way to it. In addition the prelude to Lohengrin – unlike the overtures to the Dutchman and Tannhäuser – has no definite ending to catch the attention. “Continue without a break”, writes Wagner under the transcendent string music of its conclusion, and it goes straight on to King Heinrich and his men in the first scene of the first act. The floodlight from the world beyond with which the prelude begins has been enormously admired. Franz Liszt spoke of a “kind of magic spell”, Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky saw it as anticipating Giuseppe Verdi and “the final yearnings of the dying Traviata”, and Thomas Mann called the entire opera “the summit of Romanticism.” Anyone who studies the score will notice the
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incredible power of imagination witch which Wagner set to work on it, the extent of his poetic feeling, craftmanship and chutzpah! Some of the violins play with flageolet notes [light stopping], other do not, gradually the rest of the strings join in, also playing in different parts, then the oboes and flutes – taken all together, the effect is of a silvery glittering and flickering, as if one were dazzled by the sight of sunlight on waves. With a good conductor, incidentally, you do not notice when the woodwind comes in, as with the bassoons and horns in the Pilgrim’s Chorus of Tannhäuser. Wagner did not want to climb steps but to mingle colours. He does it in Lohengrin with the massive orchestral pedal effects achieved by the sound of all the instruments, from very high to very low and back up again; you sense it from your hair to the tips of your toes and back by way of your internal organs, and it is extraordinary. Equally magnificent is the close of the scene in the bridal chamber. “Weh! Nun ist all unser Glück dahin!” [“Alas, this ist the end of all our joy!“] sings Lohengrin, “deeply distressed”, after Elsa has asked the forbidden question and Telramund has fallen dead. The attentive listener will be reminded of an earlier passage, the second part of Lohengrin‘s warning to Elsa never to ask “woher ich kam der Fahrt, / noch wie mein Nam’ und Art” [“from whence to here I came, / nor ask my rank and name“]. We have the same motif, the same harmonies, but twice as slowly and creating an entirely different atmosphere, with more depth, more like a requiem, with muted cello music. And then the bell sounds, like a death knell from same galactic distance. lncidentally, whenever Wagner
has brought suspense to an absolute boiling point, all of a sudden nothing happens. We hear only the solitary bell; or after the death of Telramund a drum roll. OnIy then is there tremendous tumult, Elsa cries ”Rette dich! Dein Schwert! Dein Schwert! “[”Save your— self! Your sword! Your sword!”], and then only silence, silence. Four bars of nothing but the kettledrum. Listening, we think our hearts will stop, and then what does Wagner do to counteract the burden of this crippling depression? We get the cavalry march, rousing fanfares, “Heil, König Heinrich! / König Heinrich, Heil!” [“Hail,King Heinrich! / King Heinrich, hail!”], with 10 or 12 trumpets on stage. What a crazy, terrific contrast, like something out of a film! What a trick to play! It is known in Bayreuth that with Lohengrin Wagner was aiming for sound effects that he could not achieve until much later, on the Green Hill. Seen in that light, the opera is a Utopian project — which I am afraid does not mean that it works particularly well in the Festival Theatre. The limitations of the Bayreuth pit are unfortunately obvious, particularly in the Prelude to the third act. “Very fiery, but never in too much haste”, was Wagner’s stage direction, and it should be taken to heart. The heavy brass, the virtuosity of the entire orchestra – it must race along, it must sometimes be explosive with all those triplets and dotted notes, but you must not overdo it. An experienced conductor will always say: I conduct the prelude 3 per cent more slowly at Bayreuth than in an open pit so that the music will still be distinct. The “mystic abyss” mingles sound where perhaps it should not be mingled. It also swallows up the overtones,
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and a score groomed to such perfection as the score of Lohengrin will always sound less brilliant here than in Munich or Vienna. For the conductor, an important question thus becomes very clear for the first time in relation to Lohengrin:
how much structure does Wagner’s music need? How much will it bear? How do I solve the contradiction between atmosphere and clarity, mixed sound and distinct sounds? Only craftsmanship, feeling and experience will provide the answer.
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Next pages: MALIN BYSTRÖM as ELSA ANJA KAMPE as ORTRUD
JOSSI WIELER, ANNA VIEBROCK AND SERGIO MORABITO IN AN INTERVIEW WITH ALBRECHT THIEMANN
“WE ARE MAKING A THRILLER” at
Let’s get straight to the forbidden question. Who is Lohengrin? sm Initially, he’s a stranger whom a young woman, under suspicion of a crime, hopes will help her. So what’s the starting situation? A woman, Elsa, has been accused of murdering her younger brother Gottfried. A trial is held. And this stranger only agrees to stand up for her on the condition that she preserves his anonymity; she is thus forbidden to ask him his name or his background. But as soon as this stranger enters the scene, the reason for his appearance seems to be forgotten. No one asks any more about the victim of the supposed crime. But why does this suddenly cease to play a role? What is the origin of this collective amnesia on the part of all those who have only just learnt of the accusation? How is it that the case that actually triggered the whole plot has suddenly evaporated. at Perh ap s itʼs becau se t h i s stranger is promptly glorified as a miracle-man who promises to solve all conflict. Everyone is spellbound by him, yet he reveals nothing about himself,
and no one challenges him about this. Why not? jw Lohengrin is a vision, a mystery man who is invoked by the woman accused. He’s a saviour who comes in her moment of greatest need so she won’t have to face the truth about her supposed guilt over her brother’s disappearance. Elsa plays this out so perfectly, so suggestively, that the public believes her. This materialisation of a delusional act of hope is her attempt to suppress what really happened – and it’s amazingly successful! at Is it a case of mass hypnosis? av It’s exactly that. Elsa calls repeatedly on this saviour and well-nigh conjures him up before he finally appears. Everyone gets carried away in a kind of trance. at Shouldn’t the opera really be named “Elsa”, after her? av Right from the start, I’ve felt that this ought to be the title of the opera. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that Christian Thielemann, who will conduct it, feels the same way. sm There’s no doubt that Elsa was the main character for Wagner himself.
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She invents Lohengrin and projects him into reality, rather like an artist would. The whole work ultimately revolves around her. That‘s why dealing with Elsa was our starting point. We also had to realise that she is already on the defensive, even before the action begins. And not just because she’s accused of a crime. She was the first-born child of the Duke, but is excluded from the succession on account of her gender. The Duchy is reserved for her younger brother. For reasons of power politics, she is supposed to marry a man whom she does not want: Friedrich von Telramund. So we are here dealing with a woman under societal pressure that for her constitutes an existential threat. at “One day, Elsa took the boy for a pleasant walk in the woods, but then returned without him”, claims Friedrich von Telramund before King Heinrich and the assembled people. But we don’t know whether or not she really killed Gottfried. sm All the same, there is a series of clues that seem to suggest it. In the second act, we even learn that there was an eyewitness to the crime: Ortrud. at But this is an assertion by a rival who is pursuing her own interests in a rather murky situation… av We are happy to accuse Ortrud of being evil, so we assume that she must be lying. But it gets interesting if we reverse the usual roles of these two women and posit instead that Elsa is the liar, not Ortrud. at To be sure, Ortrud is justified in expressing doubts about the mass hysteria initiated by this “guru” – a man of whom we know neither his name nor his
origins. Does Ortrud actually represent the voice of reason? jw Yes. It’s Ortrud who sees the impending reign of irrationality. sm Lohengrin’s arrival is the intervention of a Messiah in a new religion. But this new gospel can only unfold its impact and exert its power if you believe blindly in its promises of salvation. Ortrud refuses to acknowledge any such putative salvation. She rejects the collective frenzy. That is why she is branded as evil per se. at So your basic premise is: “Elsa did it.” Is Wagner primarily concerned with showing us her attempts to evade the noose? jw Elsa would have a lot of reasons for getting rid of her brother. The deed itself takes place before the beginning of the opera, so we know nothing for sure. But Elsa does everything possible to cover her tracks and to replace the trauma of murder with something else. Why is she yearning for this mira culous saviour? Because he can distract everyone – including Elsa – from remembering her brother. This nameless knight promises salvation from all evil. But Elsa has to convince everyone of his mission. Psychologically speaking, she reveals the symptoms of a borderline personality disorder. She gets carried away by something that she simply has to believe if she is to be able to carry on living. This is not only about her own fears; she also plays on the fears of the masses. But as in any good thriller, what’s interesting is not the solution to the crime, but what an unsolved crime triggers in a society. at What is the role in all this of King Heinrich of the Saxons? He initiates the trial, and is also negotiating a political alliance
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JOSSI WIELER, ANNA VIEBROCK AND SERGIO MORABITO
with Brabant to strengthen his kingdom against “the rage of the Hungarians.” sm Heinrich is a player too. He and his army march into the territory of a smaller state, then he claims that he has only come as a peacemaker. His actions might be concealed by diplomatic politician-speak, but they quite simply constitute a hostile takeover. Already in the first act, Wagner rattles Heinrich’s musical sabres, as it were, which makes it impossible for us to believe that he is really interested in invoking same peacekeeping mandate. We have to realise that a foreign army here invades a civil society that has very different problems – problems in which the Hungarians certainly don’t figure, as we are also told quite explicitly. The actual consequences of this foreign occupation of Brabantine society can be observed over the course of the whole opera. jw What we witness is a general mobilisation. Brabant is politically weak because of the death of Elsa and Gott fried’s father. Heinrich takes advantage of this situation to force Brabant to accept his rule. He is happy to form coalitions with anyone promising to advance his interests. First with Telramund, then with Lohengrin. Heinrich sees them primarily as instruments with which to implement his agenda. He no longer recognises Saxons, Thuringians or Brabantians any more: only Germans. That seems prescient of Kaiser Wilhelm II before the First World War. But Elsa also benefits from the power vacuum that has emerged during this interregnum. Her endeavour to gain major influence through her gamble on a saviour is only possible because Brabant is leaderless, and its patriarchal structures are consequently no longer so rigid.
av I think it’s better if we don’t pursue the fairy-tale aspect of this story of militarisation, but tell it in concrete terms instead. Elsa’s vision of a saviour doesn’t just outshine the murder of Gottfried. It also serves to hide the fact that Brabant has entered King Heinrich’s political sphere of influence. The opera actually begins with an invasion – one to which the Brabantians submit, to be sure. They soon go along with things, and by the end, Heinrich has a huge army at his disposal. at Wagner’s music aims to overwhelm us. Many of his admirers delight in the intoxication that his maelstrom of sound can induce. The figure of Lohengrin in particular used to be a special object of identification, not least among German imperialists. Is this “romantic opera” really some kind of drug? sm The danger is certainly there. So it is all the more pleasurable for us to be able to break down the supposed castiron “certainties” that have become ingrained over the course of the opera’s reception history. av We are not telling a story of salvation, we’re making a thriller. There’s a murder to be solved. This criminalistic perspective alone takes us way beyond the horizons of expectation. at Wagner spoke of Lohengrin as having the saddest ending of all his operas. There is a passage that he composed but did not include in his score, where one hears “a tender song, as if sung by the voice of the swan”, i.e. the swan that draws Lohengrin’s boat. It’s Gottfried’s voice: “My little sister waits by the shore, I have to comfort her.” Do you
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have Gottfried appear during the last bars of the opera? sm We aren’t using this passage that Wagner discarded, but Gottfried does indeed reappear. This return of a lost, forgotten “murder victim” is a surreal moment… jw …and let’s not forget that a realistic aesthetic is of only limited use when
dealing with this opera. Elements remain that are inexplicable and that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, the “dead” Gottfried appears as the repressed corpus delicti. The ending thus refers back to the event that preceded the trial, and that is actually situated at the very core of the entire work: the fratricide.
Next pages: MARTIN GANTNER as TELRAMUND ANJA KAMPE as ORTRUD
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ANJA KAMPE as ORTRUD ATTILA MOKUS as HEERRUFER GEORG ZEPPENFELD as KING HEINRICH MALIN BYSTRÖM as ELSA MARTIN GANTNER as TELRAMUND CHOIR of the VIENNA STATE OPERA
T H E OD OR W. A D OR N O
MYTH AND BOURGEOIS IDEOLOGY Myth becomes mythologising; the power of what simply exists becomes its own legitimation. The links connecting bourgeois ideology to myth can be seen at their dear est in Lohengrin where the establishment of a sacrosanct sphere inviolable by any profane tampering coincides directly with the transfiguration of bourgeois arrangements. In line with the authentic spirit of ideology, the subjugation of women in marriage is dressed up as humility, as the achievement of a pure love. Male professional life, which must of necessity be incomprehensible to women by virtue of their strict exclusion from it, appears as a sacred mystery. The Knight of the Swan bestows glory, where the husband merely disburses money; even earlier, the Dutchman hat been a good match. Female masochism magically transforms the brutality of the husband’s “that concerns you not” into the fervent “My Lord, never shall this question come from me.” The master’s whims, his imperious commands, and above all the division of labour which Wagner overtly ciriticises, are all unconsciously affirmed. The man who “fights” for his means of existence out in the world becomes a hero, and after Wagner there were doubtless countless women who thought of their husbands as Lohengrins.
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In the course of the plot Elsa is forced to submit to such an idealisation and nothing remains of her original vision. At first she rebels against the incomprehensible obligations of male professional life – a rebellion that echoes in the overtones of such stirring formulae as “The Grail has sent for its loitering knight” – and for which she is punished. Nor would she have it otherwise: “So that you may punish me, I lie here before you!” The vestiges of untamed feeling that proclaim themselves in this feminine protest are suppressed in the name of the miracles that kindle feminine admiration, and this fact unmasks the miracle as a lie. Hence, Wagner’s mythology ends in conformism. It is at this point that all defensive mockery of Wagner becomes justifiable. If the mythology strengthens bourgeois ideology, then the latter convicts the mythological ambitions of absurdity. In his condemnation of others, Wagner had invoked idiosyncratic responses to the elements of the trivial, the infantile or the merely individual in his own nature. The bridal chamber must be included in the list of intimate scenes that arouse disgust, if not mirth.
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UN CONDITIONAL FAITH – NAGGING DOUBT In contrast to a widespread opinion, Richard Wagner did not write any thesis drama. His characters taken from myth are poor illustrations of ideological or religious positions. He explained this clearly in his autobiographical Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde (“A Communication to my Friends”), in a passage written shortly after completing Lohengrin. “Anyone who can only class under one general category the appearances that spring from the most individual force shaping life‘s directly active relationships can understand as good as nothing about them – not the appearance itself, but only the category to which it has already been assigned, but to which in truth it does not belong.” If we proceed on this assumption, Wagner’s characters – his gods, heroes, dwarfs and women – should not be seen as illustrative or allegorical
personifications of general concepts. On the contrary, decisive insights can only be obtained from the actors themselves, their needs and questions, their voices, their physical characteristics. “Anyone who sees nothing more than the Christian-Romantic category in Lohengrin has perceived nothing further than an accidental superficiality, not the essence of its nature.” If we take Wagner’s description seriously, this also means that none of his protagonists can be reduced to one simple dimension, whether they are on the dark side or the light. Wagner’s world does not offer us stereotypical characteristics, but rather the conflicted ambivalences – the “directly active relationships” in which he entangles his heroes along with his villains. These relationships certainly offer insights which give specific colouring to the general categories and abstract
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concepts which we use in an effort to structure our lives. The encounter with Wagner’s music drama constellations becomes gripping when these pose a threat (at least marginally) to our everyday categorical certainties. A young woman in trouble begs for help. After a long delay, and literally at the last second, a man declares his readiness to give this, although on just two conditions. The woman must marry him, and must promise never to ask his name, who he is or where he comes from. Put this plainly, it’s immediately clear that Lohengrin’s offer to Elsa was anything but generous. The only thing that saves this harshness is that Elsa immediately falls in love with her presumptive saviour, as he matches the ideal she had dreamed of. This coincidence enables her to trust herself to the stranger, but she leaves the rigid ban on questions untouched. The moment of the greatest possible intimate involvement – their declaration of love for each other – also seals the absolute distance between them. Nobody knows better than Lohengrin how great an imposition this is. This is why he spells out this ban for Elsa twice and with the greatest possible emphasis. Elsa’s hasty and almost inattentive agreement leaves the impression that she has no idea what she’s really agreeing to. Every age hears Wagner’s operas and their key positions in a different way. Lohengrin’s urgent ban on question, with its recurring leitmotif, carries surprising undertones for our modern ears. At one time, Lohengrin could be seen in terms of social and political identity. Wagner is drawing on a mediaeval source where the force of the ban on questions first emerges when the
wife of the Knight of the Swan finally wants to know for the sake of their children whether these will be nobles – a crucial question in a feudal society. The fact that Wagner limits the action to a single day and night means that this understandable motive for breaking the promise is lost. Apart from the Grail story, where Wagner does not succeed entirely in avoiding contradictions, there is one reason, which Wagner has strongly emphasised in “A Communication to my Friends.” Lohengrin meets Elsa not as someone with a certain social standing, a scion, a member of a family, a representative of an institution, but simply as a human being. He wants to be accepted and loved on these terms, for himself. He wants to be taken for who he seems to be and act in the moment, his past is irrelevant. This love needs to be based in the present and the overwhelming feeling of the moment. “Lohengrin sought the woman who believed in him, not asking who he was and where he came from, but who loved him for himself, and because of how he appeared to her. He sought the woman he had no need to explain or justify himself to, but who loved him unconditionally.” In his “Communication” Wagner goes a stage further. Lohengrin also embodies the modern solitary artistic soul, struggling for recognition. “This is where I come to the most tragic aspect of the true artist’s situation in life today, which is exactly the same situation to which I gave artistic form in the Lohengrin material, namely that the artist’s most necessary and most natural need is to be unreservedly accepted and understood by the emotions.” The belief which is at the heart of Wagner’s
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opera is the belief in art, in the artist. The artist in turn demands unconditional devotion, without the need for convincing reasons. It is no longer obvious if – and this is one of the extensively debated aspects of our times – something is art. There is much we need to know. And above all, we need to believe. Wagner anticipates here a consideration which the art historian Boris Groys described as follows with regard to the radical experiments which avantgarde artists made with everyday objects, “readymades.” “The decision to choose this rather than any other profane object as a work of art is just as unfathomable as acknowledging a human being as god, if there is no visible difference from other objects or people. And in fact if Duchamp exhibits a normal urinal as “Fountain”, this involves a decision which does not differ in nature from acknowledging Christ as God.” For the unbeliever, the human being remains normal, the object profane. But for the believer, the person becomes a god, the object becomes art. This applies to many movements in modern art, just like the figure of Lohengrin. While Telramund and Ortrud insist on seeing him as an everyday charlatan, whose presumed supernatural powers can be revealed by a trick, it is the belief in his divine origin which enables Elsa to see the knight as her saviour. What Lohengrin demands of Elsa is an unconditional faith in his presence, his existence in the here and now, without knowledge of any of those features which otherwise define our relationship with human beings. He wants to meet her simply as a person, without any evidence of what makes him
special – but she still needs to believe in this. If anywhere, this is the much debated Christological moment in Lohengrin. Lohengrin wants to be seen as a being without a past, the question where he actually comes from is as much an impertinence as a racist insinuation would be for a modern person. Conversely, this refusal is also a rejection of what the philosopher Günther Anders describes as the “historical person” who sees their identity and reason for being in the visible membership of a community and its history. In contrast to this attempt rooted in social identity, which always has to appeal to the origin and special features of the individual’s own group, Lohengrin – to put it in modern terms –wants to express a radical universality, rejecting membership as meaningless. However, this can lead to no less radical individualism. The fact that rejecting these demands involves danger, is clear from the unusually emphasised second line of the ban on further enquiry: “never shall you ask me, nor trouble yourself to know…” The knowledge that could have assured Elsa that she was giving herself into good hands is to be withheld because this could have destructive force. Knowledge can lead to a burden, to concern, because it opens up new and disturbing perspectives, reveals problems which are difficult or even impossible to solve, bring us into conflicts which – to borrow John Rawls’ words – might have preserved the “veil of ignorance.” Someone who does not know where another person comes from is freer from bias in approaching them than if they had knowledge which might trigger a chain of prejudices. Lohengrin is seeking to not only hide his
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identity from Elsa, but to protect her from it. Friedrich Nietzsche extracted a sobering lesson from Wagner’s Lohengrin: “you should never know the person you actually marry too well.” Naturally, Lohengrin ultimately has to reveal his identity, and admit that all his power and ability are due to a community with a rich history. This is why his humanity comes with a hint of deception. His behaviour is reminiscent of the ruler who likes to walk among his people in disguise. Lohengrin wanted to pretend his status was meaningless – at least for one night of love. This was doomed to fail, but it was worth a try. Why did Elsa have to shatter this effort? What Lohengrin demanded was unconditional belief, not in a conviction, a message or an idea, but in a person. We could describe this as a trust that has the nature of an act of faith in that there is no good reason for it beyond the direct meeting. You can and must earn trust, you can demand belief. It is the unconditionality that distinguishes acts of faith. These do not require reasons, they can even be simply irrational. Religious believers have faith by “embracing the absurd”, to use Søren Kierkegaard’s term. They believe because there is no solid reason or logical evidence for the truths of faith. This distinguishes faith from any kind of knowledge, which always requires evidence. These characteristics also apply to the faith which Elsa wanted to commit to even before Lohengrin reveals himself. Unconditional submission, which allows no further thought: “…if he wants to call me spouse, I will give him all that I am!” But the assurance that she will not err in this submission and belief
in her saviour and redeemer contains the seeds of its doom. “My protector! My angel! My redeemer, who firmly believes in my innocence! What doubt could be greater than one which impugns your credibility? As truly as you protect me in my need, so shall I faithfully honour your command!” Anyone talking about possible doubt has already fallen victim to it. Even if Elsa only mutely senses this doubt emerging in herself and is able to suppress it for the moment, it becomes virulent when it is expressed by Ortrud, her rival and fateful opponent. The association with the evil that surrounds Ortrud should not keep us from being aware that there are good reasons for the doubt she articulates. Naturally – Ortrud is concerned with power and the chance to sabotage Lohengrin’s rescue mission. In a letter to Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner describes Ortrud as the incarnation of the misguided woman, “a woman who does not know love. This says it all, and says everything that is most terrible. Politics are her essence [...] There is a kind of love in this woman, the love of the past, of bygone generations, the terribly insane love of ancestral pride which finds its expression in the hatred of everything living and actually existing. [...] In all of history there is nothing more cruel than political women.” The villainy of this character lies in her focus on pride of ancestry and the desire for power. Her husband Telramund and Lohengrin are both remarkably in agreement in their choice of words for Ortrud – “you fearful woman.” In this respect Ortrud shows herself as the true opposite of Lohengrin’s rejection of the importance of status and origin. She is the last of
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Radbod’s line, and bases her claims on this. If we disregard Wagner’s rather crude thesis that a woman who focuses her purpose (i.e. to love) on politics, and becomes more unscrupulous than any man as a result of this passion, while at the same time treating politics as a business, Ortrud is left with something which can help us in need the legitimacy of doubt. To put it another (and modern) way, Ortrud simply casts doubt on an unprovable matter of faith. All the poison that she pours into the ear of the naïve Elsa in the splendid scene in act 2 is justified and can be rationally defended. Naturally, there is the suspicion that anyone who bans all questions has something to hide, and there is reason to suspect that this would be damaging, if known. The idea that Lohengrin’s purity might be imaginary, and refuted immediately by his true identity also has a certain plausibility. “Can you say, can you tell us whether he is of worthy and noble descent? Or whence the seas brought him to you, when he shall leave you again, and whither? No, you cannot! That would really put him in difficulties, which is why the cunning knight forbade the question!” After he was unable to prevent this dialogue between Ortrud and Elsa, Lohengrin tries to denounce the doubt as “wicked”, and warn Elsa against it. “Elsa – how I see her trembling! I must protect her from wild conjectures! Have the venomous lies of hate blinded her? O Heaven, protect her heart from these dangers! Save her innocence from this doubt!” As we know, Lohengrin appeals to heaven in vain. In contrast to faith, doubt is a process which questions everything, with
no corresponding conviction or truth. René Descartes placed doubt on pedestal philosophically by using it as a method designed to eliminate all the uncertainties and questionable elements in our assumptions about the world, leaving us with a secure basis for our efforts to arrive at knowledge. In times of perfect forgeries, Descartes’ brilliant assumption that it is possible for an evil spirit to simply simulate our sensory impressions and presumed certainties takes on unexpected relevance. Artificial intelligence now functions as Descartes’ genius malignus, and we no longer know what to trust in what we see on our monitors. Doubting everything is an advisable strategy currently in dealing with the flood of social media news and information. Ortrud’s doubt, however, is no longer based on epistemological considerations, but rooted in power politics. Its purpose is to undermine a position which has to rely on unconditional trust. Let us leave aside the question how far Wagner, possibly unconsciously, used the antisemitic cliché of the analytical power of the Jewish intellect, or whether his own statement can be trusted that Ortrud’s doubt represents the attempt to use the appeal to Wotan and Freia to restore the old and reactionary world of feudal hierarchy in the face of Lohengrin’s modern universal concept of humanity. The doubt, which is impossible to eradicate, is stubborn. This is its decisive characteristic. It is gnawing. It cannot be quieted, stilled. Where the seed of suspicion has been sown, everything appears in this light. Every attempt to calm doubters can be seen as evidence of the legitimacy of the doubt. Lohengrin want to give Elsa certainty
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by claiming that he doesn’t derive from “darkness and passion” but from “glory and joy.” What does Elsa make of this? “You meant to dazzle me, and now I am left in misery! The destiny you left was your greatest happiness, you came to me from delight and long to return! How can I as a wretch believe my faithfulness would be enough for you? One day the regrets for your love will take you from me!” This consideration has a certain logic. And the woman is not entirely wrong in her emotional confusion, as Lohengrin himself hints that the link between the Knight of the Grail and the redeemed one is doomed to be temporary. “O Elsa! I would have longed for a year of happiness at your side!” However, in the moment where Elsa shows herself vulnerable to the force of mistrust, there is no returning. Lohengrin capitulates. “To settle the frenzied questions of her doubting, let the answer no longer be kept back.” But this is the end of all happiness. Wagner remarks on Lohengrin’s decision in the following terms: “Doubt and jealousy convince him that he has not been understood but merely adored, and force him to admit his divinity, which returns him, shattered, to his isolation.” It is remarkable how this puts Elsa’s belief in her saviour in a questionable light. Someone who only adores has not understood anything. What Lohengrin asked was an impossibility – not love at first glance, but understanding. This is why – and this absolutely applies to the artist in
Lohengrin – doubt from a lack of understanding is particularly objectionable. Not to feel understood would be the actual tragic moment in Lohengrin. Elsa herself cannot bear the consequences of her doubt, the separation, Lohengrin’s departure, and sinks lifeless to the ground. The miraculous return of her brother, who (still a child) is now acclaimed as “duke” and proclaimed “leader” in the place of Lohengrin, who refused the title and wanted to be seen as “protector”, leaves only a vague sense of hope for the future. Incidentally, the standard practice in politically correct productions of replacing the term “leader” in the final scene by the word “protector” suppresses precisely this distinction between the heavenly “protective” Knight of the Swan and his all-too-earthly child counterpart. The emissary of the Grail doesn’t work as a political figure. The leadership of a boy “in shining silver vestments” is itself so comical that we can do without a moralistically inspired deletion. The decisive thing about this finale is something very different. Richard Wagner’s last “Romantic opera” ends with a general “loud cry of grief.” For good reason: Elsa is dead, the knight has gone, a child is playing with the insignia of power. But Ortrud is alive. She “stands tall”, “wildly ecstatic.” Which means that doubt remains. And it will accompany all belief in good, in redemption, a better life, like a dark shadow.
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Next pages: DAVID BUTT PHILIP as LOHENGRIN GEORG ZEPPENFELD as KING HEINRICH CHOIR of the VIENNA STATE OPERA
THOM AS M ANN / D OK T OR FAU S T U S
“DO YOU THINK THAT LOVE IS THE STRONGEST EMOTION?”, HE ASKED. “DO YOU KNOW A STRONGER ONE?” “YES – INTEREST.”
SERGIO MORABITO
DIRECTING WAGNER TODAY Fame, in the endeavour to draw the sting of greatness, turns “greatness as inspiration” into “greatness as a source of enjoyment.” The fact that in order to really enjoy greatness you need to re-
spond to it productively (which means defensively) is ignored just as much as the fact that greatness only makes sense as a challenge. Albrecht Fabri
Richard Wagner’s operas and music dramas pose special challenges to the director. When dealing with them you sense a “will to power” that is written into them. This will to power partly coincides with, but essentially differs from the “will to affect” which moves virtually every opera composer. Because the opera composer wants to have an effect within the framework of the opera house and on the audience. However, the foundation of Bayreuth and the ban on performing Parsifal in other opera houses indicates the exclusivity which Wagner claims for himself. The most important music critic of the Weimar Republic, Paul Bekker, wrote an article which on 12 February 1933 already could only appear abroad, in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. “Wagner is the first representative of the fanatic sectarians of the recent fashion who bases his message on fire
and the sword, makes exclusivity of validity, destruction of everything else the prerequisite of his impact. With regard to art, this will to power could only be fulfilled through the theatre. Every creative impulse and act had to be couched in terms of this theatre, because only the theatre proved capable to scale the summit of this dictatorial artistry.” Interestingly and disturbingly, Bekker described Wagner’s entire artistry as an emanation of a will to power, rather than conversely, with Wagner’s will to power as subordinate to a “primary” artistic mission. Bekker differentiates his thesis in the following, in which the setting of threats of the National Socialist “seizure of power” on 30 January of that year played an unmistakeable part. At the same time, these words – while negative at the same time – express the substance and special status of Wagner’s artistry, as
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impressively summarised by Bekker in his 1924 book Wagner: das Leben im Werke (Wagner: His Life in his Works). This is the comprehensive exploration, documentation and expansion of the dramatic possibilities for expression and performance of Western music. With Bekker, we are not dealing with “ideological criticism” – in other words, the reduction of a work of art to the actual or assumed intentions of its creator. One point – although not the decisive one – of Bekker’s book is the paradoxical emancipation and liberation of Wagnerian music from the systematic drive of its composer. Bekker, like Theodore W. Adorno, who was indebted to him in much, succeeds in identifying and objectifying the disturbing effect with Wagner’s authoritarian character in the fibres of the compositions themselves, without diminishing Wagner’s pioneering music drama and compositional achievements. To the contrary, these take on an even greater importance in the process, although without reducing their problematic content. The discussion of the latent anti- semitism in Wagner’s work remains important, even if this controversy easily becomes a distraction from the immanently musical aspects which still require recognition and analysis. Indirectly, this debate promotes the hackneyed underrating popular in discussion of opera of the verbal (libretto) text in favour of an absolute status for the musical texture – which is taken as justification for seizing on and feeling out immanently ideological moments in this; instead, we devoutly submit to its magic. The fact that such an escape into the allegedly “concept-free” realm of music is in flagrant contradiction to
Wagner’s verdict on so-called “absolute” music and the notion of his theatre as a textual, musical and dramatic unity would be the least objection to this attitude.) At the same time, Wagner’s pieces are overlaid with humanistic messages, which in turn are simplified to parables about humanity generally, such as trust in partnership (Lohengrin), the end of a world in thrall of a lovelessness remote from nature (Der Ring des Nibelungen) or the successful balance between youthful Sturm und Drang and a mastery at risk of becoming rigid (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg). In other words, Wagner is declared to be a mellow classicist – a strategy which as Roland Barthes never tires of pointing out seeks to transform culture into nature. The classical ideology confuses aesthetic constructs with “real life”, which “in classical texts becomes a frightful blend of commonly accepted opinions, a stifling blanket of stereotypical notions.” Everything of value in the direction of Wagner performances today is due to deepest mistrust of such attempts at harmonisation. In the process, directors’ strategies apply the most diverse concepts. One of the possibilities is explicit reference to Wagnerian anti-Semitism in particular and German antisemitism in general, as done by Barrie Kosky in 2017 in his Meistersingern at Bayreuth – for example, when he identified the character of Beckmesser with Hermann Levi, the conductor of the world première of Parsifal, who was systematically humiliated by Wagner, or quoted the courtroom of the Nuremberg Trials in the setting for his performance. With paradoxical intervention in the history of its reception, which has
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always claimed the mocked “marker” and confirmed bachelor Beckmesser as the antisemitic archetype, Hans Neuenfels in 1994 declared himself unable to see Beckmesser’s pedantry as “typically Jewish.” By contrast, Beckmesser’s compulsive character seemed to him to be “typically German”, so that in his Stuttgart production he turned him into a member of a student duelling fraternity trying to hang on to his “German (negative) characteristics in the post-war era of Reconstruction, Wirtschaftswunder and Reunification. In this way Neuenfels broke free of directorial uncertainty and – as it were – hoisted Wagner, the German chauvinist, on his own petard. This is a refreshing example of how an intelligent reading can deliver a subversive reversal of the prevailing history of reception, in place of further confirmation. Only direction which knows how to maintain and make fruitful a comparably critical and productive distance can hope to be equal to Wagner’s challenge. Advice on the lines of having to direct Wagner exactly as he specified in his stage directions as the only way to be really nonconformist today is definitely not helpful, it reproduces the atmosphere of doubt in the Gesamtkunstwerk. “It is precisely by treating [Wagner’s] operas as iconic that their tension is released and they are revealed as repetitive cult celebrations, surrendering themselves to the straight immanence of their progression and rooting out freedom.” Freedom cannot be won by submission to the will have the author, which is repeatedly demanded with contentment and a total lack of embarrassment, but only by reflected consideration of this.
“TURN THEN TO THE BELIEF...!” ...that Christianity [is] a religion of faith. For the Christian there is no greater sin than doubt. […] The Christian message of salvation contains more than […] the hope that the Messiah will come one day. It includes the fulfilment of this prophecy. The figure of God made Man means the end of all doubt. The impossibility of allowing doubt in turn leads to much of the antisemitic imagery […] For the Christian, […] the Jew is the ultimate personification of doubt, because he does not believe in the fulfilment and because Christ delegated his own doubts to the Jew. In the Jew he finds the other “wicked” self that there is no place for in his faith. The cultural scientist Christina von Braun analysed this pattern of thought, which Wagner updated in Lohengrin. The antagonisms between Elsa and Ortrud are an exemplary embodiment of this dynamic. The piece tells how the Christian heroine Elsa is infected with Ortrud’s demonic scepticism, fails to live up to her own ideal of faithful and unquestioning submission and ultimately refuses to obey the “God-sent saviour” (Lohengrin). Even though the figure of the heathen seer Ortrud hardly figures in the “official” gallery of Wagner’s distorted images of Jews, it is still not surprising that she is defamed as “Jewish” in the ominous Bayreuth correspondence at the turn of the century. In terms of cultural history, the antisemitic aggression against the allegedly “analytical” Jewish intellect arises out of the Christian taboo against doubting their own faith. How far post-war Bayreuth drew further on such myths of the “Christian
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West” deserves a study of its own, and could for example be shown in Wolfgang Wagner’s 1967 Lohengrin production, where Ortrud was identified with the “betrayer of the Saviour”, Judas. Our performance for the Salzburg Festival is a co-production with the Vienna State Opera tells the whole story under subversively reversed portents. The witch-like Ortrud is no longer blamed for the disappearance of Gott fried, heir to the Brabant throne – his older sister, the first-born Elsa, is actually responsible for his death. Ortrud was present at the site of the deed, and told the truth about what she saw to her husband, who then charged Elsa with fratricide. The “seeing eye” Ortrud, the “second sight“ attributed to her which she invokes can be demythologised and made sense of. As a member of a hated “infidel” minority she perceives things which the members of the Christian majority society would gladly overlook. Just as Ortrud emancipates herself from the typecast “fanatical intriguer” to a complex and considered female individual to be taken seriously, Elsa’s character evolves unexpectedly. Wagner has made her a defamed innocent, but rather overdone the goodness, and given her explicitly narcissistic characteristics, with marked self-pity and the masochism of a devotee. The ominous naïveté of her actions is understandable in the Salzburg production as an expression of her denied sense of guilt. With the intention of making Ortrud as a witness her accomplice, she takes the cast-off woman into her service as a mark of grace and promises to get the verdict that outlawed her husband repealed. In our performance, the often ana lysed theatrical moment of Wagner’s
aesthetics – that conflicts and characters are not so much objectively presented by the author as musically “mimed” holds the character of Elsa in a fascinating balance between appearance and reality. She is a gifted actress who knows how to use her role play to arouse social longings and manipulate. In creating new ideals of masculinity and manliness, she is also an artist and acts as a sort of Leni Riefenstahl before her time, a modern, unconventional, athletic woman who symbolises a social and emancipatory upheaval and at the same time continues the national history of violence and the patriarchal structures whose victim she is (as a woman she is excluded from succession to the throne and is part of her family’s “stock of eligible brides”). This change in the dramatic context of Elsa and Ortrud and their relationship, rich in tension, which gets by without any explicit reference to historical symbols of antisemitism, is illuminating, exhilarating and disturbing all at once, productively dislodging set patterns of sight and sound. One of the decisive factors for this is the liberated, differentiated, quick-thinking and physical acting of our wonderful performers. We expect singers to develop complex character studies with the director today in performances of Mozart rather than Wagner, which naturally also has to do with the demanding athleticism that singing Wagner requires. This is exactly why it is important to take the heaviness out of Wagner, liberate his characters from the “static staging” and ideally give them a Mozartian lightness. We feel that confronting the inhumanity of Wagner with humanity in this way, instead of
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assailing him with great assumptions and assertions or playing exclusively on the historical abuse, is a subtle and at the same time subversive way of dealing with the “painful legacy” that Wagner’s work poses for us. Giving his mythical characters with their ex-
tremely stylised and exaggerated black and white natures a complex humanity rich in internal and external contradictions that alone can make them exciting is a constant element of our work with Wagner.
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Next pages: MALIN BYSTRÖM as ELSA LORENZ TÄUBL as GOTTFRIED
IMPRINT R IC H A R D WAGN E R
LOHENGRIN SEASON 2023/24 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 29 APRIL 2024 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, MAXIMILIAN MOLZER Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Image concept MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN (Cover) All performance fotos by MICHAEL PÖHN Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES – ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION Konrad Paul Liessmann: Unconditional Faith – Nagging Doubt / Sergio Morabito: Directing Wagner Today, BORROWINGS AND TRANSLATIONS Chris Walton: Synopsis, “We are making a thriller” from: Osterfestspiele Salzburg programme booklet, 2022 / Theodor W. Adorno: Myth and Bourgeois Ideology, from: Sound Figures, 1999. Translated by Rodney Livingstone / Christian Thielemann: A Floodlight on the World Beyond, Love without Regret, from: Christian Thielemann: My Life with Wagner. In collaboration with Christine Lemke-Matwey. Translated by Anthea Bell. London: Orion Books, 2017 / Theodor W. Adorno: Myth and Bourgeois Ideology, translated by Rodney Livingstone from: Versuch über Wagner, Die musikalischen Monographien, 1986 / Thomas Mann: Doktor Faustus, from Doktor Faustus, 1990. ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Andrew Smith. COVER IMAGE Kevin Foote: Early to the Party, 2023 Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact. This production is sponsored by
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