Patrick Bade
Lohengrin: Wagner

Patrick Bade - Lohengrin Wagner

- So we get to the dreaded Wagner tonight. And I wasn’t originally intending to include Wagner in this series, but Trudy wanted me to, and Trudy is somebody, by and large, you don’t say no to. So I agreed to do “Lohengrin’ partly ‘cause it contains music of such incandescent beauty that I think even some of the hardened anti-Wagnerians might be persuaded. It’s also an opera where antisemitism is not an issue. And frankly, I would rather leave that to other people to discuss. I’m still hoping to persuade Margaret Greeley at some point to join us and give a talk about the antisemitism in Wagner’s operas, or maybe Trudy herself. But so if anti-Semitism is not an issue, German nationalism certainly is. And in a way you do also have to at least refer to, I’ll put it this way around, the Nazi relationship with Wagner, not Wagner’s relationship with the Nazis. It’s important to remember Wagner died in 1883, so he died six years before Hitler was even born. But Hitler certainly, as you know, identified very strongly with Wagner. Here he is being greeted by the audience, by Reich on his birthday on the left hand side, and a rather grotesque painting of Hitler dressed up in a sort of Tin Man Lohengrin costume, rather similar to the costume worn by the great Russian tenor, Ivan Yershov in the role of Lohengrin. So "Lohengrin” was definitely a party piece for the Nazis along with “Meistersinger.” And I think it was probably the most performed opera throughout the Nazi period, but actually, it had been the most performed Wagner opera from the start.

That’s changed somewhat after the Second World War. It has slightly gone out of fashion. I think it’s less highly rated than other Wagner operas, and I will try and explain that later. Of course, it was the opera also that attracted the attention of Ludwig II. Ludwig II, Trudy talks about that. And this is one of the interiors at Neuschwanstein with a mural showing the arrival of Lohengrin. And just today, my friend, Mike in Munich has sent me this amazing photograph, hilarious, really, of a facade in Munich with the arrival of Lohengrin in his swan boat very clearly. The Lohengrin here is based on the somewhat more mature figure of Ludwig II. So it took off around the world relatively quickly. It was the first Wagner opera to be performed in Italy in 1871. Verdi went to see it and was very impressed by it. France was more resistant for various historical reasons. And the first attempt to perform “Lohengrin” at the Paris Opera in 1887 led to street battles and the military having to be called out. But it really hit the spot with the late 19th century, early 20th century and became immensely popular, and you can see that from all these wonderful, kitsch postcards that you can find in flea markets all around Europe. Also, this historical theme of the Middle Ages, it fits in with the taste for historicism that I’ve talked about in previous lectures, historicist architecture, historical novels, and so on. Great many 19th century operas set in the Middle Ages. And every time I go to St Pancras for Eurostar, it makes me think of a set for “Lohengrin.” So it’s the last of Wagner’s so-called romantic operas. You can see on the score, it says here . It says, “romantic opera in three acts.”

It’s the culmination of his early period. And immediately after “Lohengrin,” of course, he stopped composing for six years, and in those six years, he completely rethought his worldview, whether good or bad, because it’s at that period that he writes his notorious, the first version of his notorious essay about Jews in music. But he also completely rethinks the very nature and purpose of opera and you could say the nature and purpose of art in ways that were colossally influential. Trudy talked about this. You could argue that culturally speaking, Wagner, he’s a kind of giant who completely dominates the late 19th century, not just music, not just opera, but theatre, literature, painting. One reason I think that it became so popular quickly was that, in fact, it predates these revolutionary ideas, these culturally revolutionary ideas, and in some ways, it’s quite conventional. It’s still what we call a numbers opera. So instead of the continuous flow of music that you get in the later Wagner’s operas, it can be divided up into arias, duets, ensembles, choruses. We had some discussion at the end of the last lecture about how to define an aria. And certainly as an aria, it would’ve been understood by Italians in the bel canto period. Very few of the pieces in “Lohengrin” would fit into that. But we saw it already last time how Verdi is chipping away at these conventions.

And in a way, you could say that in Wagner’s first three early mature operas, “Flying Dutchman,” “Tannhauser,” “Lohengrin,” he’s working along parallel lines to Verdi. So although, as I said, the form of the opera is relatively conventional, my guess is that the people who heard the first performance or heard it for the first time in the 19th century would have been completely astonished by the orchestral prelude to act ones. It’s quite a lengthy orchestral piece. I think a lot of people wouldn’t really have heard music in it. They would’ve just heard sounds. And it begins in the upper range of mainly the strings, very ethereal, like veils of music. And gradually the woodwind are introduced, and then the brass come in, and we get these shifting, vague shapeless in a way, orchestral colours. We’ll see throughout the opera, it’s an opera with a very conventional good versus evil plot And good and spirituality is associated throughout the opera with music at the high end of the instruments’ ranges, and evil is associated with music at the low end of the instruments. So we start off with music that we hear again and again in the opera that’s associated with Lohengrin himself, who represents purity and goodness and spirituality. Now, this piece of music had a very profound effect on the Russian artist, Kandinsky when he first heard it in 1896. Kandinsky was already 30 years old. He was established as a successful lawyer. But going to “Lohengrin” was a totally revelatory experience, and we hear this again and again in the memoirs of artists and cultural figures of the late 19th century and into the early 20th century. But going to an opera performance by Wagner was a turning point in their lives. And Kandinsky said that as the music started, he immediately started hearing it or seeing it in terms of colours.

What I would really like to do but I can’t do in this format is actually to have a whole succession of images that show these changing colours from very pallid high strings that start through to as the music descends somewhat and the rest of the instruments in the orchestra gradually come in. And I’m going to play the first bit in a recording conducted by Stokowski with the famous Philadelphia Orchestra. They were particularly famous for the beauty of their string playing. now I’m going to move on to a later section with the brass coming in and building up to a literally blazing climax. The opera opens, the curtain goes up, and we should see the River Schelde banks, the River Schelde at Antwerp. We’re in the 10th century, and the Saxon King, Heinrich der Vogler, Henry the Fowler, has arrived in Flanders to try and raise troops in a kind of pilgrimage against the invading Hungarians, the Magyars. And so he has quite a lengthy speech, and you can see the words here, “East and West, to all I say let every acre of German soil put forth troops of soldiers. Never again shall anyone abuse the German Empire.” So this was clearly a text that had a very actual, very current meaning for the Nazis. People would’ve remembered that, of course, right up to, well, up to 1936, there were foreign troops on German soil. There were French troops in the Saarland. And also these warnings against the East, there is the threat of Stalin’s Soviet Union. So this speech is certainly very nationalist, but rather like the very notorious speech of Hans Sachs in the last act of the “Meistersinger,” I see it as more a Tori Party conference speech than Nuremberg rally speech.

I don’t find either very sympathetic or likeable, but I don’t think they’re necessarily sinister. On the other hand, I’m always really, really glad when this bit is over in “Lohengrin,” not so much for political reasons or moral reasons, just because I find it so boring. So I’m going to give you a tiny excerpt here. I must say, after that ravishing prelude to act one when the curtain goes up, the opera gets off to a very, very slow start, and this was a criticism that Verdi made. He was blown away by the beauty of Wagner’s orchestration, but he said “It’s slow, slow, slow.” Not a criticism you could ever make of Verdi who quickens the heartbeat. And I must say when I’m doing housework, which doesn’t happen very often, Verdi is my composer ‘cause he really gets me going and moving. Anyway, finally, the heroine, Elsa comes onto stage, and you breathe the side of relief that the Herald and the King and all those boring people are off. And she is on trial for murder. The evil Ortrud has actually kidnapped her brother, Gottfried, and she has accused Elsa of murdering him so that she can claim the crown of Brabant. And she comes on stage in a kind of translate state, and she sings her first great aria, or, again, it’s not an aria as Italians would’ve understood it. It’s more of a narrative. And she’s describing a vision that she’s had of a knight in shining armour who’s going to come and defend her honour. It’s quite a lengthy narration, and it’s actually interrupted in the middle, but I’m going to play you two at the beginning and the end of it with two different great German sopranos.

We’re going to start off with Elisabeth Rethberg, and she is remarkable for the incredible beauty and poise of her singing. She was famously described by Toscanini as the most perfect singer in the world. In the the second part of the aria, Elsa builds up into a state of wild exaltation. And for that, I’ve chosen the great Lotte Lehmann, not a perfect singer, I would say, like Rethberg, but nobody does excitement better than her. You’ll hear from the very first words, this tremendous sense of excitement and exaltation. And so finally, Lohengrin arrives, and what an entrance. It’s one of the great entrances in all of opera, in my opinion, right up there with Hanna Glawari’s entrance in “Merry Widow” or Minnie’s gun-toting entrance in “La Fanciulla del West.” It’s spectacular, but all the people are waiting on the banks of the river, and then this night in shining armour arrives in a little boat pulled by a swan. It’s quite tricky to pull off. There are endless funny stories about disasters with the swan, and I’ve seen productions where you have rather jerky boats and swans being pulled on rails or strings or whatever. But musically it’s terrific. And then at the end, you heard, you know, those high woodwind telling us this is the pure and holy Lohengrin who’s arrived. So what kind of singer do we need for Lohengrin?

Well, there are some strenuous parts in the opera, but on the whole, I don’t think we really need a heldentenor. What we want is lyricism. A very large part of the role is sung quite softly. Here are some famous Lohengrins, Ernest van Dyck on the left-hand side who sang it, by right, the Herman Jadlowker who was the favourite Lohengrin of both Czar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhem II. There’s a famous story about them quarrelling over him. They were at performance in Berlin, and Wilhem said to the Czar, “What do you think of my Lohengrin?” And the Czar said, “What do you mean, your Lohengrin? He’s my Lohengrin!” Because he was actually a nice Jewish boy from Riga, so it was rather funny to think of them quarrelling over him. And the very famous, of course, Leo Slezak and Erik Schmedes, who were the two Lohengrins who worked with Mahler in Vienna. And this is Ivan Yershov who was a Russian Lohengrin. Now, I’ve got seven different Lohengrins in this talk, and you may notice that only one of the seven is German. That is perhaps a personal prejudice of mine. I don’t really like the sound of most German tenors, this sound, you know, the tightening of the throat. It’s the fact the voice is produced far back in the throat is not agreeable to me. So we’re going to start off with a very, very Italianate Lohengrin, and if I could choose to hear a complete performance of “Lohengrin” with any singer in the 20th century, this would be my choice. This is Aureliano Pertile, the favourite tenor of Toscanini. Toscanini was notorious for shouting at the orchestra. “Why can’t you play like Pertile sings?” So this is as un-German as you could get. He sings it really as though it’s Puccini, and I suppose you have all the vocal mannerisms of Verismo rather than the Wagner. You’ve got a very forward, open, golden sound, very vibrant.

There’s a little hint of sob in the voice, and these swellings and diminishing of the tone throughout this, as I said, very, very Puccini, very Italianate. I absolutely love it, and I’ll be interested to know what you think of it at the end. Maybe people will hate it. But I’m going to continue into the chorus immediately after this short solo, one of these wonderfully grave and solemn and tranquil choruses that Wagner wrote for this opera. And we’ve got the great chorus of La Scala under its legendary chorus master, Vittore Veneziani. And my great mentor when I was a teenager who taught me more about opera than anybody else in my life, he trained as a composer at the conservatory in Milan in the '30s, and he told me how revered Veneziani was and the shock and the horror when he was dismissed from his post as a Jew when the racial laws were introduced in 1938. Anyway, I can tell you that he did survive and he got his job back again at the end of the war. What a very characteristic sound that chorus has, so different from, say, King’s College Chapel or a German chorus. Got a lovely warmth to it. So Lohengrin turns to Elsa, and he says he will defend her honour, he’ll fight for her and he will marry her but she must swear never to ask his name or identity, and ♪ Dah dahdahdah dahdah dah ♪ that’s the forbidden name motif, and it comes back again, as we shall see, a crucial point later in the opera. So then he takes on Telramund, the husband of Ortrud. There are two big fights in this opera. They’re very brief, mercifully brief, I suppose, but I always think it always looks so unfair. I mean, Lohengrin hardly has to do anything.

He just sort of lifts his arm and poor, old Telramund is felled both times. So now we move into act two, and the opening prelude, of course, has been all these very high, ethereal, floating notes, and the prelude to act two, which I’m not going to play you tonight for lack of time, but it’s right down at the other end down in the dark depths. And we have Ortrud and her husband, Telramund, having a marital row, and he’s absolutely angry and anguished and furious that he feels that his honour has been compromised. This is for quite a beefy, heroic baritone. So they’re at the foot of the castle, and then Elsa comes out onto a balcony. So once again, we have very much this sense of different levels, not only physically as well as in terms of sound. And we’re now up in, again, in the higher range of the orchestral instruments. And Elsa comes out, and she sings her “Song to the Breezes,” and Ortrud is still on ground level sort of muttering away underneath. You’ll hear her, a couple of interventions from her during this piece. Now, the type of soprano you need, the German term for it is . That means youthful dramatic. So there are moments in the opera coming up where she needs a certain amount of power and stamina, but she’s got to sound young.

And whereas I’m not very keen on the sound of a lot of German tenors, I really love the characteristic sound of a German soprano. There have been many of them. You’ve heard two already, Rethberg and Lehmann. But we’re going to hear the Black American singer, Jessye Norman, who seems to me to have the right kind of sound for this. You want us a very soft-grained, rather creamy, very womanly, very feminine sound. Now, Ortrud, here are two famous or Ortruds, Edyth Walker on the left-hand side and Anna Bahr Mildenburg, who is a mistress of Mahler, on the right-hand side. This needs a really big, I would say hairy-chested mezzo sound, a bit like you need for a great Verdi mezzo like Amneris. Very often, a good Ortrud will be a good Amneris. And she’s also got to have a very powerful top to the voice. And so she calls out to Elsa, and Elsa says she’ll come down to talk to her, and she disappears off the balcony, and she goes down the stairs out of sight. And while she’s out of sight, Ortrud has her big moment where she invokes the pagan gods. And great mezzo can completely bring down the house with this very short scene. And I’m going to play you a wonderful Belgian mezzo called Rita Gorr, and I can’t resist telling a little story about her.

Well, actually it’s about my dear friend, Renee Doria, a wonderful French soprano who died aged 100 in February. And for years, every month, I would go and have lunch with her, and we’d talk about all the singers she sang with. But one of the last times I spoke to her, I said, “Did you sing with Rita Gorr?” And she said, “Oh, yes, I sang with her often.” And I said, “Well, what was she like as a woman? Because she’s so terrifying in these roles of Ortrud and Amneris.” And Renee, she paused, and she gave me a rather cool look, and she said, “A little Belg.” She was Belgian, and that’s all she would say about her. But she’s certainly not somebody you would want to meet down a dark alleyway on a moonless night. So momentarily, they sing a duet together, a very beautiful one. I wish I had time to play it to you, and they seem reconciled. But as Elsa and Lohengrin entered the church to be married, Ortrud intervenes, and she again denounces Lohengrin and demands to know his name. And after a moment’s hesitation, Elsa continues into the church to be married, and that’s end of act two. Now, act three begins with another spectacular prelude. It’s in a very joyous celebratory mood. I first heard it actually in a cinema. I was sent, I must have been about 12, to see the Pasolini “Gospel according to Matthew,” and I was bored out of my mind, actually hated the movie.

But I was so excited by this piece of music that was played in the interval. It sort of won me over to Wagner straightaway. And I put in a Kandinsky, riotously coloured Kandinsky that seems to go with this spectacularly joyous music. This is followed by the famous “Bridal March,” which, of course, is so over-familiar. It sounds terribly hackneyed, and I wouldn’t claim that I think it’s one of Wagner’s greatest inspirations, but I think in the context, when you hear it off-stage and disappearing into the distance, it is quite effective. Enough of that. Now I want to play, we’re going to get our one and only German tenor coming up next, and this is Franz Volker in a performance conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler in Bayreuth in 1936. It was a new production. It was a very famous production. It was the pride and joy, really, of Nazi Germany. And, of course, the following year, 1937, was a coronation year, and Hitler offered to send this whole production, the entire cast to London as a coronation present. Actually, of course, it was going to be Edward VIII. Although he was never actually crowned. But he didn’t like opera, and he said he didn’t want it. And by that point, of course, it was a turning point. '36, up to that point, I think many people in Britain had been very sympathetic to the Nazis, and particularly “The Daily Mail” was a great cheerleader. A notorious headline in “The Daily Mail,” “Hurrah for the Black Shirts.” But I think the Battle of Cable Street, I’m sure you all know about that, when the British fascists invaded the Jewish East End. It was a real turning point in public opinion.

And Hitler’s offer was rejected by the British government. But I’m going to play you the radio announcement in 1936, I find it fascinating but a bit chilling, you know, the aggressive clipped tones of the announcers on the German radio in the Nazi period. Yes, so now we get, this is the opening of the bridal chamber duet. And if you know this opera, I’m sure many of you do, I bet you’ve never heard it sung or performed like this. It’s incredibly slow, and you just think, “Oh my God, these poor singers,” the breath control needed to sing it at this speed. This sensuous, languorous effect is absolutely magical. And I do think Volker is quite wonderful in this, even though he has that characteristic, rather throaty German tenor tone that I’ve already complained about. So that’s just the start of a very lengthy duet, 20 minutes or more. In the next stage of the duet, Lohengrin, he’s warming up and declaring his passion for Elsa. And I’m turning now to a version in French by the great Corsican tenor, Cesar Vezzani, totally different sound, not in the back of the throat. It’s open and forward and bright and plangent with a certain rapid vibrato in the voice as well, extremely ardent and passionate. But Elsa is gradually working herself up into a state of hysterical anxiety because she doesn’t know his name. We can see her moving inevitably towards the fatal question, which is going to bring disaster. And for this section, I’m going to play you the two greatest Wagnerian voices on record, two greatest Wagnerian voices of the 20th century, the Danish Lauritz Melchior and the Norwegian Kirsten Flagstad. Now, neither of them would be my first choice, really, for this opera.

I don’t think you need huge voices like this for most of the opera, but in this section, the incredible power of their voices certainly pays off. Melchior with those amazing trumpet-light turns. Well, of course, the inevitable happens, and she asks the fatal question, and that moment, Telramund bursts in with his henchman to kill Lohengrin. But all he has to do is raise his sword and Lohengrin drops down dead. Last act, were again on the banks of River Scheldt, and, of course, Lohengrin, because the question has been asked, he has to return to Montsalvat, from where he came, where the Holy Grail is kept. So he reveals his identity and that he has to go back to guard the Holy Grail. I’m going to play you three different excerpts from this in different languages. And first of all, this is a real curiosity, but I think a beautiful one, this is a Catalan tenor. Of course, Lohengrin is Catalan. He comes from Catalonia, the monastery of Montserrat close to Barcelona. And Barcelona became a great centre of Wagnerism in the early 20th century. And this is the Catalan tenor, Emili Vendrell singing the Grail narration actually in Catalan. Now, throughout this, oh, this is just a story I can’t resist telling you, that when Hitler had in effect won the Spanish Civil War for Franco, Goebbels was sent on a goodwill visit to Spain.

And they said to him, “Is there anything in Spain you would really want to see? And Goebbels said, "Oh, yes, I want to go to Montsalvat.” So they took him to Montsalvat, and he looked around, and he said, “Well, where is it?” And they said, “Well, where is what? What do you mean?” He said, “Well, the Grail, of course, silly.” So we’re going to move on to I think an even more beautiful, I think maybe the most beautiful version I know of this wonderful narration where the tenor voice is hovering all the time in the upper middle part of the voice. And again, the orchestra, all the instruments are in their upper range. This is Stalin’s favourite tenor, the great Ivan Kozlovsky singing in Russian. I wish I had time to play you more of that, so wonderfully sort of dreamy and ethereal. So back comes the swan, you hope. There’s this very famous story of Leo Slezak in Vienna when the swan got stuck off-stage and they’re just waiting for the swan. And he’s supposed to have shouted, “What time does the next swan go?”

But here is the greeting to the swan on its return. I’m going to play just a tiny bit of this 'cause it’s so beautiful. This is the French tenor, I think, with the most beautiful French tenor voice of the 20th century. This is Georges Thill. So as he’s about to depart in the swan-mobile. Ortrud bursts onto stage, and she has a hysterical annunciation in which she reveals that she has, in fact, transformed the heir to the throne, Gottfried, into the swan. So Lohengrin does the sign of the cross and little prayer, and whoops, up comes Gottfried. The swan has returned to its human form, and then he departs, and Elsa faints in grief. Now, I’ll play you just a minute of this 'cause this is an extraordinary performance. This is live Berlin, 1942 . Just think what’s going on at the time and who might be in this audience. And this is such an incredible sort of carpet-chilling, amazing performance from Margarete Klose. Well, I think I have to stop because I’ve run out of time.

Q&A and Comments:

And so let’s see what. Trudy isn’t fearsome. She’s lovely. She’s my best friend, and I love her. But I don’t very often say no to her. Actually, I did say no to her when she wanted me to go to Bayreuth with her, but otherwise, no.

Q: This is from Frida. “Don’t I think that German nationalism was always historically about disliking Jews?”

A: No, I don’t actually, I really don’t think so because actually, some of the most ardent German nationalists were Jews. So I know nationalism in any country, in this country, can go hand-in-hand with xenophobia and racism. It can do, but I don’t think it has to be.

“Wagner so recognisable from his brass writing, couldn’t be anybody else.” Yeah, you know, the orchestration is one of the great things, isn’t it, about Wagner with the instrumentation. I quite agree about that.

Q: “Was part of the reason for the Philadelphia string sound 'cause the string players were not allowed to use drills?”

A: I didn’t know that. That’s very interesting. But in especially in older recordings, it’s very distinctive, the Philadelphia string sound.

Q: “Who are the more energetic painting?”

A: It was Odilon Redon, Odilon Redon. Gorgeous thing, isn’t it? Yes, sometimes known as

“Elsa’s Dream,” that’s quite correct. On old records, you’ll see on the label. It says “Elsa’s Dream.” I don’t think, well, he certainly wouldn’t, Wagner doesn’t use Italian terms in the scores. No, it’s certainly not described as an aria. Yes, Carl saying

Q: “How many Jews were in the cultural world who were exceptional masters?”

A: That is very, very true. But I’m not quite sure where it came in there. I’m glad you thought that, Caroline, that Pertile was lovely even though it does sound like Puccini.

Q: “Is it the German training?”

A: It may be the training. I think it’s also the language, although it doesn’t seem to affect female singers. You know, I think the German language tends to be quite guttural and back in the throat.

Q: “Pertile, very exciting singer, phrasing dynamics.” “Do you think his diction is so-so?”

A: Maybe not quite Pavarotti, but you can understand the words. Veneziani was the chorus master, so, I mean, he was not actually singing. He was directing. He trained and directed the, and, of course, that was sung in Italian. It wasn’t sound in German.

Lillian Levy saying “It doesn’t sound like Wagner.” Well, whatever it sounds like, it sounded lovely to me.

Yeah, I’m glad you liked Jessye Norman too. And thank you for that nice comment.

The Kandinsky, yeah, “Fantasia” 'cause “Fantasia” is really what Wagner would’ve called a , and this idea that goes back to also to Baudelaire as well as to Wagner of correspondences between the senses.

“It’s a pity you didn’t discuss the wonderful orchestration for the entrance to the cathedral for the marriage.” There’s so many things I had to cut out of this 'cause the “Wedding March,” which is the association, was actually a Prussian royal wedding quite early on, I think in the late 1860s, that was the first to use it in that context, and as you say, has nothing to do with “Here comes the bride.”

Yes, “Do you know that, of course, the very first concert given by the Palestine Orchestra, as it then was, now Israeli Philharmonic, conducted by Toscanini included the prelude to "Lohengrin?”

“Thank you for nice comments. It’s ironic that so many Jewish brides will walk down the aisle to that.” Well, I can tell you the only orthodox wedding I’ve ever been to, they had a string quartet, and I was gobsmacked that they played the “Easter Hymn” from “Cavalleria Rusticana.” I said to to the mother of the groom afterwards, “Did you know that you had the 'Easter Hymn’ to accompany the wedding of your son?” “Prelude to act three?” Yes. Is there anything quite so exuberant, really, in “Meistersinger” as as that?

Yes. Walter Sleck says, “I wrote several autobiographical books, and one of them has the title in German. I think it’s or something like that, "When Does the Next One Go?” Yes, do you know that’s an interesting question.

Q: “How does Lohengrin actually get back to Montsalvat?”

A: He’s presumably got to row, the poor bugger ‘cause he hasn’t got a swan anymore to take him.

Q: “Translations of operas, does it change the character?”

A: It does. It totally changes the character. On the other hand, I’ve got a nerdy obsession with opera and translation, and I have “Rigoletto” in Russian, German, French. And I love Wagner in translation. I adore Wagner being sang in Italian in particular and in French. Totally changes it though. I agree with you there.

Q: “Is there any recitative in 'Lohengrin’?”

A: Well, some people would say most of it’s rest recitative. I don’t think there’s any more a very clear distinction between recitative and aria for a lot of the time, even at this point in Wagner.

Yes, I know. I really felt rushed again. When I do “Don Giovanni” after Christmas, I’m going to do it in two sessions. The impression that Hitler and the Nazis were acting out, I mean, at the end, you really feel that they were kind of acting out . And I think I’m really running out at the time, so I better just say thank you very much and goodbye and see you on Wednesday for “Der Rosenkavalier.”