Edward A. Bortnichak and Paula M. Bortnichak, Dreaming and Being: Perspectives on Yuval Sharon’s Bayreuth ‘Lohengrin’

The artists of the Romantic era were obsessed with the blurred border between the real and the imagined, between waking and dreaming. Richard Wagner left an especially rich record of his life-long fascination with all varieties of altered consciousness, including dreaming, that most ubiquitous yet mysterious of such states, and his belief in the power of mind over matter. The three main published accounts of Wagner’s life – his autobiography Mein Leben, the Brown Book journals (intermittently covering 1865–82), and the diaries of Cosima Wagner – are filled with recollections of and reflections on his personal dreams and evidence of his related intense interest in paranormal phenomena. The characters in Wagner’s works likewise form a cavalcade of dreamers, including the battling clairvoyants, Elsa and Ortrud, in Lohengrin.