Bayreuth Festival: In the new Bayreuth Lohengrin, the bad guys are finally the liberators

F Let's change with the simplest: greet Christian Thielemann up to the toe. The deepest bow in front of Waltraud Meier (Ortrud) and Anja Harteros (Elsa) and Piotr Beczala (Lohengrin). Deep bow in front of Georg Zeppenfeld (Heinrich) and Egils Silins (Heerufer). And a big improvement on Tomasz Konieczny, who unfortunately falls from the high level, who barked at Telramund more than sung.

Otherwise, the premiere of this year's Bayreuth Festival was musically close to perfection. There is no better Wagner leader than Thielemann, Harteros and Meier do not form a clbad apart, and Beczala, who just joined a few weeks ago, sings that only Lohengrin's idea is strange and false. Especially for this production, the Polish is the perfect choice. A little more patience, please.

What is this staging? She is shameless. Because she's brutally turning Wagner upside down. But so that (for the moment) nobody notices it. This is not polite, but extremely intelligent. But from the beginning. The "Lohengrin", the most romantic opera of Wagner. When in doubt, it's quite simple: the unnamed knight comes as called, the murderer brother's debt accuses Elsa of Brabant in the divine judgment against the betrayal by the witch Ortrud Telramund and should now ascend the throne of the Duke and marry the saved.

The only foreign condition to shocked lovers: Elsa should never question her about her name, type and place of residence. When she does that, the world breaks. The Lohengrins and Brabantans are here without a new Duke. That Lohengrin, now condemned by the Grail Knights, with an eager prayer, releases the hereditary prince Gottfried from his swan life: rather the price of consolation.

And if you doubt everything and tell a different story? Well, the real revolutions on the hill are rare, just as Patrice Chereau shook the ring, no one has it anymore. But, but: Under the direction of Katharina Wagner, there was a lot of really good, really new, really brave. The new smoke Lohengrin joins perfectly. Oops: Smoke Lohengrin? Not Sharon-Lohengrin? Fact: The story of the staging is remarkable: as never before the responsibilities of the union masters have been mixed.

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Neo Rauch and his wife Rosa Loy are officially responsible for the equipment, Yuval Sharon for the management and Christian Thielemann for the The music, but in reality it was probably a big creative bang, the quartet never tired of stressing it. It all started when Rauch put in the CD six years ago and since Lohengrin "ran and ran and ran". The blue that now draws the cold and powerless Brabant, was one of the first thoughts – it is central.

Rauch talks about the staging of the stuff, as if he was the director, Sharon completes or explains the scenography. Sometimes people even shared a house in Bayreuth. Thielemann, who has now headed all the hill's masterpieces, was also closely involved in the design. Thus, Rauch and Loy paid attention to the fact that the construction of the decor does not result in any restriction of the acoustics. In a world where dramaturgy and musical direction often work against each other, it is truly revolutionary.

Hach! This good, very collective, which completes and fertile, Wagner would certainly have loved the time of the composition Lohengrin! Unconditional friendship, on the way to the big goal, wonderfully, in the first place, it seems to have arrived! Let go and keep going in the action

A know: The Lohengrin is a snob who gives the Beczala with a lot of pleasure and conviction with his "Italian" (Excuse me, but that's how I caught him in the break). And, no wonder, Elsa does not like it. Not at all. Neither at the beginning nor at the end, even at the very end, when one hoped, according to the story of the Grail, to embrace it exhausted and human, at least once: no. Inexorably, Lohengrin and Elsa intersect.

He does not like – as in work – the woman, but especially Henry, who languishes after a military commander, king on a Delft butterfly in blue and traditional costume, who has long since lost all energy and all strength. When Lohengrin appears, there is something crackling in the post that is Brabant. Very good idea Only: power station, power station, power station? Yes! Exactly, Chereau, we had already, but gave.

Whenever it cracks, protagonists take to the Bible

So unromantic, so good: Elsa is and remains bound, not free, sick. The Harteros plays well, she turns away constantly and writhes, even in the scene in the bridal chamber. Staging this in such a way that there is no love is not easy. But it succeeds. Instead of languishing, Elsa and the knight read in the Bible or in another textbook for love, whenever he wants to reach out, she taps on the book. First the theory! And the practice? No, no, my dear swan knight!

And then she inevitably breaks the prohibition of issues, because she never took her heart anyway. Even though she was pronounced, it was for Elsa a chain of slaves, who handed her arms crossed with defiance. However, no one better demonstrates that the ban represents that Ortrud, who turns to the king for help – full of misunderstanding about such a request. The arrival of the hero in a state of intoxication – do not notice what they engage in.

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Ortrud do not sow doubt, he is still strong in the only Elsa to the outer doll with the wings of Lillifee. But it reinforces it again and again and above all: with reason! The second scene of the second act here is not a quarrel between a naive Else and a vicious Ortrud, but an appointment, an alliance, as both are more BFF (best friends forever), who sometimes mock but on a wavy line, no wonder. Ortrud is really cool.

Reinterpreting the witch as a revolutionary, the team goes the furthest. Runic woman, who has not defeated the devil of the gods, who praises Wotan, masters the magic and consumes after the throne and the power of the ancestors of the peasants, whom Wagner describes by essence as evil, becomes the true Redeemer . It is Ortrud who, according to the interpretation of the staging with its constant call for doubt, does not bring Elsa to ruin and misfortune, but even frees her.

Of a man to whom she can not be equal, of a society, which every rebellion, every reserve, as well: Freedom fails. It's a radical change, that Bayreuth's returnee Waltraud Meier may even have influenced, as she simply does not need to sing unidimensional figures. In any case, the shooting is dramatic.

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Cope? Is this allowed? Does this give the text, the context, our habits? Let's have some doubts in the triumph of doubt. In the end, is Elsa not supposed to be dead, in any case "disinherited", as Master wrote in the director's statement? Why is Elsa here at the end? And in a bright orange power gap? Was the question not banished, proved to be a "communication to friends" of 1851, a prerequisite for Lohengrin to be sure of not being loved ("admired and admired") for his divine nature?

Wagner in Lohengrin was not he worried about what he wanted so much? An unlimited love? So without a doubt? And, yes, the family history of Ortrud and her belief in the Germanic gods make her a complex antagonist – but also a determined opponent to pure and freedom.

All of these reviews again. You know! Among these filmmakers, to whom the work is nothing, their interpretation is everything. Re-gy-the-a-ter! "Well, with this Neo Rauch, I was already scared," whispered a Festspielhaus Brünnhilde in the row behind me. What happened next, she found big and applauds supposedly another ten minutes after the last curtain.

Intelligent and intelligent, the team has made a naive advance, avoided the director's theater, at the same time but a lot to betray the interpretation and then capture everything again at the same time . No, no, not really wanting to change the world here, it's all about letting the viewer dive into the blue!

Everything is visible from Rembrandt to Wieland Wagner

And that succeeds because he has a real magic here, namely that of infatuation. One can not escape the beauty of this staging, the powerful images, the radiant costumes, and even the light (Reinhard Traub) – all unknown familiar, new and old, there is Rembrandt and of course the Neo-Bayreuth from Wieland Wagner. Portion Fritz Lang (not "Nibelungen", but "Metropolis", especially with the holding of Lohengrin, as he Deus of the machine gets up).

Everything but also very chivalrous, not as unbalanced as the fantastic drama of Werner Herzog Bayreuth, who was already pretty blue. And for a long time, not so brilliantly, brilliantly and intellectually as Hans Neuenfels here in Bayreuth more than worthy detached rat experience.

So you get lost in the new Lohengrin, can let you down and only very late or not even notice, that this real enchantment is only a stunning grenade for a rather heavy directorial theater. Whenever he exposes himself, it gets bad: this green Gottfried, who wears the rune of protection like a monstrance in front of him. Silly. Get away with! Nobody needs air combat either.

In general therapy, however, Rauch / Loy / Sharon / Thielemann implant doubts about Lohengrin's habitual reading so skilfully and carelessly that it ignites properly after leaving the Festspielhaus. And so this production carries the doubt in the world. "The subculture," said Smoke, should work the Lohengrin. And there, under the skin, this staging will last a long time. A great success, very important. Because it applies: In doubt for doubt! It is he who badures us freedom. This is only when there is a doubt that the twilight of the gods is over.