Saturday, March 18, 10:00am
Wagner’s soaring masterpiece makes its triumphant return to the Met stage after 17 years. In a sequel to his revelatory production of Parsifal, director François Girard unveils an atmospheric staging that once again weds his striking visual style and keen dramatic insight to Wagner’s breathtaking music, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct a supreme cast led by tenor Piotr Beczała in the title role of the mysterious swan knight. Sopranos Tamara Wilson and Elena Stikhina, as the virtuous duchess Elsa, falsely accused of murder, go head-to-head with soprano Christine Goerke as the cunning sorceress Ortrud, who seeks to lay her low. Bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin is Ortrud’s power-hungry husband, Telramund, and bass Günther Groissböck is King Heinrich.
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.
Approximate run time 4:35 with 2 intermissions
Adult $25 ♦ Student $15
Sponsored locally by Victor & Janet Ashear, Christine Gempp Love Foundation, Roger & Janet Haight, Seymour Thickman Family Foundation, Susan Scott Heyneman Foundation, Wayland & Marion Cato, and Wyoming Public Media
