San Francisco Opera: Lohengrin

The swans pulled Wagner's Lohengrin into the War Memorial Opera House this past month; I was at the first performance (only to be felled a few days later, in an unrelated (I think) development, with COVID). Many of the participants were new to the work: Music Director Eun Sun Kim was starting her annual exploration of Wagner for the company with this performance; Julie Adams was making a role debut as Elsa & Brian Mulligan as Telramund, Judit Kutasi was making company, American, & role debuts as Ortrud, Thomas Lehman made his company debut as the Herald. so that leaves Simon O'Neill as Lohengrin & Kristinn Sigmundsson as Kind Heinrich as the only experienced hands (I have been informed that Mulligan did play the Herald about ten years ago).. From the conviction, power, & intensity of the performances, however, you'd never know that this work was new to most of them. From the moments the first diaphanous suspensions of the Overture floated out above us to the thundering finale four & a half hours later, the performance was a musical triumph.

The production by David Alden, new to San Francisco but previously seen in London & Antwerp, left me less convinced. One extremely odd choice was the very low level of lighting on stage – everything seemed to take place at 4:00 in the morning (the original lighting designer was Adam Silverman, & the revival lighting designer was Simon Bennison; I assume their designs were suggested, coordinated, and/or approved by Alden). A few scenes were brighter, mostly through the use of spotlights from the sides, but they didn't really focus attention; sometimes a singer's lower half was brighter than her top. I had been told several times to watch the lower balcony on the left, in the box nearest the stage, at the end of the 2nd Act; by the time that rolled around I forgot to check & the lighting certainly didn't do anything to highlight that Ortrud was up there glaring (I was told later that that was what was going on). At the ending some of the action was simply invisible (& I had an excellent orchestra seat; I heard from a friend in the upper balcony that things were even less legible up there). I barely saw Elsa's brother appear, & that was mostly because I was looking for him; I have no idea how Ortrud ended. Four & a half hours is a long time to be plunged in twilight.

I guess it's not entirely unsuitable, practical questions of visibility aside, as the world of Lohengrin is very much a twilight world of liminal boundaries & shifting hopes & moods. The music is often questing & uncertain, & when it's definite, it is perhaps a bit overly definite, in the way of people trying to convince themselves as well as others. Brabant is between royal houses, between military alliances, threatened by outsiders but also by insiders, as Ortrud an adherent of the old gods, dragging Telramund (& I assume others) with her, struggles against the newish ways of Elsa & the mysterious nameless knight.

The idea here is that King Heinrich, using the Swan Knight to unify the kingdom, is building a military state. Given the tensions from the conflicts in Ukraine as well as Israel & Gaza, Company Director Matthew Shilvock felt the need to come out before the performance to warn us about the militaristic themes. But the theme of Heinrich's growing military power fit oddly onto the narrative> How many people are following the King's political & military machinations rather than the struggles of Ortrud, Telramund, Elsa, & the Knight?. & that sort of military ambition seems more likely to be the ambition of a much younger man than the veteran Sigmundsson. The look of the production was very much mid-century European, with overlays of Art Deco stylization on Triumph of the Will-style pageantry. The second act was dominated by what I have to say was a stunningly effective statue of a stylized swan on a pillar (though I did hear the swan was maybe too far back & too high up to be visible from the second balcony). At the finale there were gorgeous red, white, & black swan banners that came hurtling down when Lohengrin had to reveal his name & therefore his departure from the scene.

The portrayal of the Herald also was difficult to figure out in this production. He seemed to be a wounded veteran of some sort, with a prosthetic leg (if I was seeing the costume clearly, & I'm not sure I was – he seemed to have some touches of medieval armor over his more contemporary uniform). He almost shoots Elsa with a crossbow towards the end, though again it was a bit difficult to tell what exactly was going on & why. At one point he stands off to the side & pointlessly smokes a cigarette, which is just silly.

& the Swan Knight is supposed to be a force for Good, not a cover for rising fascism – right? But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe the production was saying something astute & I was the one missing the point. Perhaps Lohengrin's "goodness" is less definite than I had been assuming. The whole Cupid & Psyche "you must not ask my name" angle has, if I'm recollecting my Wagneriana correctly, always sat a bit uneasily among the Master's Acolytes: could the creator of Brunnhilde, Isolde, & other powerful women really think that Elsa should meekly accept such a strange & unexplained condition? Even though Elsa is a more ethereal, dreamier character than many other Wagnerian heroines (Julie Adams did a good job of making her a bit otherworldly without seeming like a simp), shouldn't she at least . . . know her husband's name? Once she forces the issue, misled (or guided) by Ortrud, her knight confesses what we in the audience have known all along: his name is Lohengrin. What none of us knew is that the Grail sends its knights forth, but they are not allowed to speak their names or missions; if they do, they must return. & the reason for that is . . . well, a continuing mystery. We are assuming that our tenor is a hero, & therefore on the side of Good. But we don't really know that, as we don't know where he's come from or who sent him. Perhaps such a messianic figure could indeed easily be appropriated for morally ambiguous political purposes. Perhaps the world of the Grail Knights is too "Good" for our world. Or perhaps our world has moved beyond the sort of redemption that can be offered by a singly heroic Grail Knight?

Boston's Lohengrin-inspired swan boats, from my 2017 visit.