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SUNG IN GERMAN ESTIMATED RUN TIME 4 HRS 45 MINS CONDUCTOR Patrick Furrer * ELSA Elena Stikhina ORTRUD Christine Goerke LOHENGRIN Piotr Beczała TELRAMUND Thomas Hall * HERALD Brian Mulligan HEINRICH Günther Groissböck * - substitutions for this performance Lohengrin World premiere: Großherzogliches Hoftheater, Weimar, 1850 Lohengrin stands at the epicenter of Richard Wagner’s career—chronologically, thematically, and artistically. It is a Romantic-era reimagining of a persistent Medieval legend about a mystical knight who champions an oppressed maiden on the sole condition that she never ask his name, and the issues at stake range from the spiritual (the role of the divine in human lives) to the political (nation building in times of transition and migration) to the deeply personal (the centrality of mystery in erotic attraction). The wide thematic divergence within the story spurred Wagner to create a score that triumphantly covers all bases, breathtaking in its sweeping variety, yet approachable and theatrically effective. Creators Richard Wagner (1813–83) was the complex, controversial creator of music-drama masterpieces that stand at the center of today’s operatic repertory. Born in Leipzig, he was an artistic revolutionary who reimagined every supposition about music and theater. The composer wrote his own libretto for Lohengrin, as he did for all his operas, based on a medieval legend recounted in several places, most notably for Wagner’s purposes in the romance Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach (c. 1160–1220).

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Der Fliegende Holländer

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