"Lohengrin" Complete Opera Music - Richard Wagner

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra & Choir conducted by Rafael Kubelik. For a list of singers: https://tinyurl.com/2b3gxb3j

I - Akt I
Vorspiel (0:00) - "Hört, Grafen, Edle, Freie von Brabant!" (8:16) - "Dank, König, dir, daß du zu richten kamst!" (12:58) - "Seht hin! Sie naht, die hart Beklagte!" (20:10) - "Einsam in trüben Tagen" (24:10) - "Mich irret nicht ihr träumerischer Mut" (29:03) - "Wer hier im Gotteskampf zu streiten kam" (34:23) - "Nun sei bedankt, mein lieber Schwan!" (39:45) - "Zum Kampf für eine Magd zu stehen" (43:35) - "Welch holde Wunder muss ich sehen?" (49:16) - "Nun höret mich und achtet wohl" (52:49) - "Mein Herr und Gott, nun ruf' ich dich" (54:42) - "Durch Gottes Sieg ist jetzt dein Leben mein" (1:00:21)

II - Akt II
Einführung (1:04:53) - "Erhebe dich, Genossin meiner Schmach!" (1:09:15) - "Du wilde Seherin" (1:17:33) - "Euch Lüften, die mein Klagen" (1:25:37) - "Elsa!" (1:29:27) - "Entweihte Götter! Helft jetzt meiner Rache!" (1:34:03) - "Wie kann ich solche Huld dir lohnen" (1:38:19) - Szenenmusik (1:46:53) - "In Früh'n versammelt uns der Ruf" (1:50:14) - "Des Königs Wort und Will' tu ich euch kund" (1:51:44) - "Gesegnet soll sie schreiten" (2:00:12) - "Zurück, Elsa! Nicht länger will ich dulden" (2:05:46) - "Heil! Heil dem König!" (2:11:21) - "O König! Trugbetörte Fürsten! Haltet ein!" (2:14:43) - "Welch ein Geheimnis muß der Held bewahren?" (2:20:41) - "Mein Held, entgegne kühn dem Ungetreuen" (2:26:09)

III - Akt III
Vorspiel (2:33:10) - "Treulich geführt ziehet dahin" (2:36:48) - "Das süße Lied verhallt" (2:41:40) - "Atmest du nicht mit mir die süßen Düfte?" (2:49:15) - "Höchstes Vertraun hast du mir schon zu danken" (2:54:17) - "Weh, nun ist all unser Glück dahin!" (3:02:27) - "Heil König Heinrich!" (3:07:48) - "Habt Dank, ihr Lieben von Brabant!" (3:11:15) - "Macht Platz dem Helden von Brabant!" (3:14:58) - "In fernem Land, unnahbar euren Schritten" (3:21:26) - "Mir schwankt der Boden! Welche Nacht!" (3:27:46) - "Mein lieber Schwan!" (3:33:58)

Wagner's "Lohengrin" was composed between 1845-8, while he was working as Kapellmeister at the Royal Dresden court. In September 1848, Wagner conducted excerpts from Act I at a concert in Dresden to mark the 300th anniversary of the court orchestra (later Dresden Staatskapelle). A revolutionary uprising in Dresden took place between May 3-9 of 1849, which Wagner joined enthusiastically. After its failure he was forced to flee to Paris and then Zurich, as warrants were issued against him. The premiere took place in Weimar on 28 August 28 of 1850, at the Staatskapelle Weimar under the direction of Franz Liszt, a close friend and early supporter of Wagner.

The story is set in Antwerp, in the tenth century, where Elsa, sister to the would-be duke, Gottfried, is accused of his murder. A mysterious figure arrives to defend her and even take her as his bride, but he commands her to not inquire about his name or his unknown provenance. A count, Telramund, and his sorcerer wife, Ortrud, are Elsa's accusers, and in fact, the real culprits in Gottfried's disappearance. They lay a series of intrigues to convince Elsa to ask her mysterious hero his identity, and in so doing, bring about a sad ending to the love story but an unexpectedly happy conclusion: the return of Gottfried. In articulating this plot through musical means, Wagner demonstrates a number of his hallmark techniques as well as his keen sense of multilayered drama.

The tension between Elsa's love for her mysterious hero and her uneasy curiosity about his background is embodied by the semitone relationship of the key areas associated with each of them (A flat and A natural, respectively). Ortrud's sinister machinations cast an eerie shadow of diminished chord sonorities whenever she appears or her plans fall into place (especially effective when, in the third act, as Elsa succumbs to Ortrud's deception she also adopts a version of her theme). Likewise, the F minor sonority that consistently stands for the "forbidden question" clashes forebodingly with the C major harmonies that characterize the wedding procession at the end of Act II. These type of dramatic conceits combine with the most obvious one: as the opera centers on the utterance of the unknown name, the audience, who has been unceremoniously provided with the secret identity of the hero in the very title of the work, is in constant tension with the opera's protagonists.

Picture: "The Arrival of Lowengrin" by Carl Schweninger the Younger.

Sources: https://tinyurl.com/29yywlvw and https://tinyurl.com/2ywqkvvz

Score: https://tinyurl.com/24enza4f