Lohengrin

No other Wagner opera has received so much adulation or been the target for so much critical mockery as Lohengrin. One thing is clear – given the internal contradictions of the piece, the theatre is faced with the ultimate challenge of developing a penetrating and sensitive deconstruction of its role models and conflict structures. The culture of doubt, rejected and demonized in the piece and personified in the figure of the pagan witch, Ortrud, is the only thing suitable today for Wagner’s epochal and at the same time deeply suspect art. The »amplification, realization and specification of the mythically remote«, entirely in the sense of Thomas Mann’s quote here, are design strategies which the theatrical art of Wieler, Morabito and Viebrock is measured against. They have immersed themselves in the fine network of fairy tale and myth which Wagner’s eclecticist Lohengrin myth is rooted in. In the process, they found a folk tale which begins, »Once upon a time there was a king who died, leaving two children, a son and a daughter. The daughter was a year older than the son. One day, the two children were arguing over who should be the king, as the brother said, ›I’m a prince, and if there are princes around, princesses don’t get to rule.‹