Showing posts with label hero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hero. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Richard Wagner's Lohengrin

When I mention Lohengrin, I get three possible reactions: the opera, the chocolate bar, the wedding march. Lohengrin is the Wagner opera where you need a guide and a map to try and make sense of it. Richard Wagner concocted the libretto from poems, Greek mythology, and fake history. The end product has nothing the viewer recognizes as any story they ever heard. At the opera, they then spend hours in limbo or are busy rifling through the program they bought.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde

Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde (variously spelled as Tristan and Isolda, Tristan and Yseult, or Tristan and Ysolt) is the Romeo and Juliet of German opera. The mere mention of the names gives the connotation of unhappy lovers in a secret relationship with an unhappy ending. There are many versions of the story available that almost everyone has at least some idea of what is going on which makes it one of the ‘easier’ works by Richard Wagner to watch and actually know what is happening on stage.