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Lohengrin - Wagner
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| USA
bits - Manfred Honeck has promised the Pittsburgh Symphony
Orchestra that he will focus on conducting the works of
'composers of his home country', Austria, when he takes
up his post as Music Director - summer
visit to Pittsburgh/courtesy ©PPG.
USA bits - Honeck's International Wolfegg Castle concerts
- Lindau, a charming resort town on the shores of Lake Constance
- Manfred Honecker's summer hide-out. Next year, the International
Wolfegg Concerts will take place from June 27 to 29 -
courtesy
©PPG |
[Lohengrin
– a well thought out choice for Teateraachen
©argospier20/03/2007 - 1000 words.
Editor/Consultant - Joneve McCormick ]
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Archive
NEWSREEL -
With its entry too into the Wagnerian
arena, Teateraachen seems to have grasped the growth potential
of a Wagnerian Sanctury in the Low Lands and wants to add a plus
value to it as well as capitalize on the buzz. Its enthusiastic
proclamation of its appearance on the scene with ‘Wagner
wieder in Aachen’ (Wagner once again in Aachen), states
its case. Its jubilant cry can also be taken as a firm territorial
claim, implying that more is to come from ‘Aachen’
in the future. With its campaign, it reveals its intentions, and
with the choice of ‘Lohengrin’ as its first Wagner
opera in 10 years, Wagner’s 6th and an opera with its setting
in Antwerp, it reaches out in an almost symbolic way to the Vlaamse
Opera in Belgium. Antwerp (150km from the city) is one of the
major locations of the Vlaamse Opera that has booked success with
their Wagner production. It also connects to Köln (80km from
it), which recently produced the ‘Ring’. Some might
say this is a cheap flirtation, but both Aachen and Antwerp lie
on the banks of rivers of vital importance to the survival of
these towns as well: Aachen on the Rhein and Antwerp on the Schelde.
If one considers other aspects of Teateraachen's choice for ‘Lohengrin’,
a well-rehearsed strategy can be discerned.
Teateraachen
doesn’t enter as competitor to either Köln or to the
Vlaamse Opera, but as complimentor to their programs. It is obvious
that another ‘Ring’ in the Low Lands would have had
a catastrophic effect on both of the two existing ‘Rings’
and for Teateraachen as well, creating over-kill and duplication.
No, Teateraachen wanted its territory to be safely out on the
periphery with its choice of ‘Lohengrin’. And this
space on the periphery is the ‘grey area’ in Wagner’s
oeuvre, the history-cum-myth, problematic and romantic. The choice
of ‘Lohengrin’ communicates that Teateraachen thinks
it can contribute something else to a Sanctuary in the Low Lands
and become a ‘specialist’ in it. The future is wide
open to produce another Wagner opera linked to ‘Lohengrin’,
namely ‘The Flying Dutchman’. Both of those operas
have a similar unearthliness in their tone and both are occupied
with a focus on secrecy, mysteriousness; further, both have a
hero who comes from ‘over the water’ and entertain
lovers who see mirages and have fatal destinies. ‘The Flying
Dutchman’, although not fully clothed in history-cum-myth,
has references that would make it the perfect choice after ‘Lohengrin’.
And,
should anything go wrong, Teateraachen could ob out of the arena
without fear of losing face. A stand-alone production of ‘Lohengrin’
this season is a perfect contribution; a duet, ‘Lohengrin’
this season and ‘The Flying Dutchman’ next season,
is perfect too. There would be congruity in the effort and these
two would be a perfect unit of Wagnerian opera which would be
much appreciated by spectators and Wagner lovers. If the Opera
stops then, only good memories will remain. The strategy is brilliant
– Teateraachen can deliver a beautiful and tight and congruent
‘study’ of one specific aspect of Wagner’s operas.
The scope is there. The stakes nevertheless are high. And true
Wagnerian ‘believers’ will watch the developments
with Argus' eyes. Even the production of Lohengrin itself is under
heavy pressure, this due to the history-cum-myth aspect of it
and the link the opera has with ‘The Flying Dutchman’.
To name only three issues that will involve scrutiny – these
are the ‘holiness’ of the character Lohengrin, the
opera’s ending and the opera’s ties with the ‘Flying
Dutchman’. With the fierce competition of ‘Lohingrin’
in Paris, Teateraachen is claiming an authoritative voice in the
arena. (Lohengrin is ‘hype’ in Paris momentarily –
ironically it was a disaster when Wagner himself directed and
produced it the first time there. And Paris is only 1 and a half
hour’s train ride with TGV from Brussels and some 3 hours
from Köln). It is expected that both producer and singer
will be under a lot of strain to make this production a perfect
one.
The
daring move to enter the arena deserves therefore the highest
compliment and the Teateraachen should be embraced as a brave
little David engaging a Goliath. Teateraachen is THE one Opera
that could combine myth and history and claim a permanent space
in the Sanctuary of the Low Lands … but the consolation
is that Wagner too had been under a lot of stress when he produced
it in Paris … and now has won his definite seat in the Opera
National de Paris … with ‘Lohengrin’. This is
the ONE chance of Teateraachen to win its seat in the Sanctuary.
Lohengrin
Archive - With the promotional
slogan ‘Wagner wieder in Aachen' ('Wagner once again in
Aachen’) the Teateraachen (Opera House in Aachen) started
its promotion and production of Ludger Engels' and Marcus R. Bosch’s
Lohengrin 2007. It has been 10 years now since there has been
a Wagner opera produced in Aachen, the lovely and cultivated mediaeval
town on the crossroads between The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.
Not far from the town is the renowned ‘Drei Ecke Punkt’,
where the borders of the three countries actually touch at one
geographical point.
The production
of Lohengrin in Teateraachen, which is only some 80km away from
the Kölner Oper in Köln, makes it the third Opera House
to enter the Wagnerian arena that has been developing in this
part of Europe over the past three years. The bigger Opera Houses
in the vicinity, the Kölner Opera House and those in Belgium
and Gent/Antwerp, have initiated Wagner’s operas on a grander
scale since 2004. First the Kölner Oper began with ‘Der
Ring des Nibelungen’, widely spoken of now as the Carsen
and Kinmonth production. In 2006 the Gent/Antwerp Opera House
in Flaenders, Belgium opened with the avant-garde Ivo Van Hove
production of the same opera.
The success
enjoyed by both Houses is proof of managerial foresight; and the
intimate contact between the Operas and their growing audiences.
Wagner is a ‘hot topic', and with this year’s full
house productions in both of these two bigger Opera Houses one
can feel an even greater stirring of energy and excitement. This
might be the birth of a new Wagnerian Sanctuary for believers,
right in the centre where the Low Lands meet.
Argo
Spier
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