This February and March, fans of Wagner's soaring masterpiece Lohengrin have cause to rejoice as the opera finally returns, with Music Director Yannick N茅zet-S茅guin on the podium to lead a vivid new staging by director Fran莽ois Girard. Picking up where Girard鈥檚 transcendental 2013 vision of Parsifal left off, the production stars tenor Piotr Becza艂a as the titular swan knight and explores timeless issues that feel uncannily current.
Few works challenge a director more than Richard Wagner鈥檚 monumental final masterpiece, Parsifal, but when Fran莽ois Girard made his Met debut with a new production of the opera in 2013, it was nothing short of a triumph. The New York Times hailed it as 鈥渂rilliant ... [a] thoughtful and intrepid staging, full of striking imagery,鈥� and this season Girard returns with a new take on the composer鈥檚 Lohengrin, bringing the opera back to the Met stage for the first time since 2006.
鈥淥nce you鈥檝e done Parsifal, you know the destination of Wagner鈥檚 whole journey, of his whole lifetime of ideas about music and theatre,鈥� the Canadian director says. 鈥淪o, when you then look at the earlier operas, you see the seeds of what鈥檚 to come. Knowing where it goes gives you a retrospective on what it is you鈥檙e dealing with.鈥�
Read: Why Fran莽ois Girard Considers His New Lohengrin a Sequel to His Parsifal
Girard points out that Parsifal almost acts as a prequel to Lohengrin鈥�despite being composed 30 years after Lohengrin鈥檚 1850 premiere. In fact, in his climactic Act III aria, 鈥淚n fernem Land,鈥� Lohengrin reveals himself to be a knight of the Holy Grail and son of King Parzival. 鈥淭hat became a very central idea for me, this sequel-prequel relationship between the two,鈥� Girard says, explaining that he also explored the intersections between the two works in conversations with Met Music Director Yannick N茅zet-S茅guin, who had recently conducted the first revival of his Parsifal production in 2018. 鈥淵annick was there from day one. He鈥檚 the one who first asked me if I might be interested in Lohengrin and then followed all the half-formed thoughts鈥攁nd fully formed thoughts鈥擨 had about the piece. He followed the whole thing, so I鈥檓 looking forward to revisiting it with him.鈥�
In addition to leading the full forces of the Met Orchestra and Chorus, Maestro N茅zet-S茅guin conducts a supreme cast led by Piotr Becza艂a, who graduates from the lyric-tenor repertoire at the Met to take on the heroic title role. The production also features a pair of formidable Wagnerian sopranos, Tamara Wilson and Christine Goerke, facing off as Elsa and Ortrud, with bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin as Telramund and bass G眉nther Groissb枚ck as King Heinrich.
Lohengrin is the third of Wagner鈥檚 mature operatic masterpieces and stands at the crossroads of all the musical, dramatic, and thematic issues in his complex, and sometimes controversial, output. The direct source for the tale was the 13th-century German romance Parzival by the poet and singer Wolfram von Eschenbach (Wolfram himself appears as a character in 罢补苍苍丑盲耻蝉别谤, the opera that Wagner completed directly before Lohengrin). In the medieval legend, a holy knight transported in a boat drawn by a swan arrives to rescue an oppressed woman from her attackers. As Wagner tells it, the woman is Elsa, duchess of Brabant, who is accused by the pagan sorceress Ortrud and her husband, Telramund, of murdering her missing brother, the young Duke Gottfried. The plot is set in motion when they make their case before King Heinrich of Germany, who is attempting to unite the nation and fight Hungarian invaders from the east.
The interconnectedness of the Lohengrin tale with Wagner鈥檚 other works led Girard to conceive this production as a sequel to his Parsifal. He refers to his earlier staging to elaborate: 鈥淎t the end, in the last three seconds of a six-hour evening, the newly crowned Parsifal turns his head, and a dancer stands up. I was certainly not thinking of Lohengrin when I staged Parsifal, but when I was staging the first beat of Lohengrin, I realized that this dancer is Lohengrin鈥檚 never-named mother.鈥�
Since he set Parsifal in the present day, this Lohengrin must perforce be in the future, but rather than concoct some kind of 鈥渇uturistic鈥� aesthetic, Girard and set and costume designer Tim Yip鈥攖he Academy Award鈥�winning production and costume designer behind Ang Lee鈥檚 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, whom Girard describes as 鈥渁n incredible companion, artist, and designer鈥濃� instead chose to have the story play out in an environment that is simultaneously contemporary and fantastical, reinforcing what they see as the primary theme of Lohengrin: the collision between the magical realm and the real, human world. It鈥檚 a different psychic space from the one that Parsifal inhabited, but there are still resonances between the two productions鈥攆or instance, projection designer Peter Flaherty鈥檚 mesmerizing cosmic imagery from Parsifal will find its way into the world of Lohengrin.
But the otherworldly dimension is only one aspect of this opera. Lohengrin is often cited as Wagner鈥檚 鈥渄reamiest鈥� score (indeed, Elsa introduces herself by recounting a dream that she had of a knight savior, who promptly appears); however, it is also one of Wagner鈥檚 most historically specific operas. And as there is more history in this opera than in other Wagner operas, there is more history around it. It was the opera that first fired the imagination of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Wagner鈥檚 eventual patron, who grew up in Hohenschwangau Castle, on a lake said to have been visited by the 鈥渁ctual鈥� Lohengrin. This was also the opera most frequently performed outside of Germany for many years鈥攊ts first Met performance took place less than a month after the company鈥檚 founding in 1883鈥攁nd was considered a sort of 鈥済ateway鈥� to all of Wagner鈥檚 works. With its emphasis on nation building, militarism, and alarm about invaders from the east, it was also highly fetishized by the Third Reich. Girard believes that most productions since the Second World War, even many he has admired, have veered too far into abstraction in an effort to dissociate from the work鈥檚 place in history and all its implications. Setting this production in what he calls 鈥渁 diffused future鈥� made it an echo of history rather than history itself, an entirely changed political perspective.
Unfortunately, though, history did intrude on this staging, which was initially planned as a co-production with Moscow鈥檚 Bolshoi Theatre and which premiered there on the fateful date of February 24, 2022, the launch of the invasion of Ukraine. Girard and the entire cast and crew鈥攁 mix of Ukrainians and Russians鈥攚atched as their work was reflected by the events of the day. 鈥淭he thing I felt was how this catastrophe highlighted our mission鈥攁s artists, musicians, theatre people,鈥� Girard reflects. 鈥淭hat night, what we were celebrating was ultimate empathy. This is what we do for a living. We are artisans of empathy. In the absence of empathy, you have war, and that was right across the street, in the Kremlin, that same night.鈥� (Immediately upon the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Met suspended its partnership with the Bolshoi and has created all-new sets and costumes for the New York run.)
While Lohengrin includes many conflicts of love and enmity between characters and nations, the central conflict in Girard鈥檚 conception of Lohengrin is found in the two antagonists of the libretto: the wicked Ortrud versus the righteous Lohengrin. It is not a question of conflicting dogmas but of antithetical natures, with real humans caught between them. The enigmatic swan serves both sides, as Kundry in Parsifal serves both the Holy Grail and the malefactor Klingsor. Ortrud manipulates the action from afar, as Klingsor in Parsifal does with his magic and his all-seeing spyglass (a version of which, an oculus, appears in Yip鈥檚 set). Girard鈥檚 goal is to open the possibilities of this multifaceted operatic gem rather than to impose a single interpretation onto it. He warns us to 鈥渂eware of directors, commentators, or anyone who has concrete answers to Wagner鈥檚 unfathomable questions. When it comes to storytelling, the smartest people in the room are the audience. We have to believe in the imagination of the audience."
