Opera: Lohengrin

On the banks of the Scheldt, at the foot of a thousand-year-old oak tree, the King of Germania has drawn a circle of justice around which nobles, knights and commoners gather. The heiress of Brabant, Elsa, is accused of fratricide, conspiracy and concupiscence by her former suitor, Frederick of Telramund. With a gesture from the royal herald, the trumpets sound the ordination: a champion is called upon to fight the accuser to prove the young woman's innocence before God. As Elsa falls to her knees in prayer, a glittering knight on a swan-drawn boat appears in a halo of light. He agrees to defend her, on condition that she never asks him any questions about her origins. But how can she resist succumbing to curiosity in the face of such a miracle?

The knight with the swan is a character in many medieval chansons de gestes and sagas. In the early 13th century, the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach linked him to the Arthurian legends of the guardians of the Holy Grail in his epic Parzifal, whose mystical horizon had a profound influence on Richard Wagner (1813-1883) in his maturity. After a thirty-year absence, Lohengrin finally returns to the OnR in a staging by Florent Siaud that marks the debut of Michael Spyres in the title role. Aziz Shokhakimov conducts this monument to Romanticism, with its haunting, mysterious beauty.

6-96 €

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