In times when the world seems complicated and the economic situation is dire, the longing for someone who supposedly offers simple solutions to difficult problems becomes overwhelming. The 20th century provides ample evidence of this, and the present day offers similar examples.
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Lohengrin
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In Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, it is a mysterious knight who promises to fight for Elsa of Brabant; in doing so, he becomes a projection screen for the yearning of a fractured people for a charismatic leader.
Wagner, himself a revolutionary in the mid-19th century, artistically expressed his political utopia of a different world order in Lohengrin – a utopia of saving the world through art, but here doomed to failure.
Eric Cutler, a youthful heroic tenor trained in bel canto, sings the title role, while the Finnish soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä provides the necessary counterweight as Ortrud. Her compatriot, conductor Susanna Mälkki, is making her debut with both the Deutsche Oper Berlin orchestra and the work itself.
