Michael Tanner

Wagner’s secret

Lohengrin<br /> Royal Opera House

issue 09 May 2009

Lohengrin
Royal Opera House

Nietzsche said of the prelude to Act I of Lohengrin that it was the first piece of hypnosis by music, and listening to the Royal Opera orchestra’s performance of it under Semyon Bychkov tended to confirm his claim, at any rate until the climax, where Bychkov pulled out a few stops too many, and made the piece sound almost vulgar. The opening, however, was exquisite, entrancing, the divided violins playing with such piercing sweetness that Wagner’s phenomenal feat of evoking the mystical by sensuous, even sensual means was as potent as I have ever heard it. This prelude, which has no predecessor in any work, retains its power to move and dazzle as much as any he wrote.

Lohengrin is perhaps the work where the gap between surface beauty and underlying significance is the greatest in Wagner’s oeuvre.

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