The Third Man Comes to Brabant: Tash Siddiqui is impressed by David Alden’s powerful new Covent Garden ‘Lohengrin’

Review of Lohengrin, directed David Alden, conducted Nelsons, Royal Opera House, London, 2018.

November 2018, Volume 12, Number 3, 82–3.

‘Her nature is politics. A male politician disgusts us, a female politician appals us.’ Not a misogynist commentator denouncing Theresa May’s Brexit policy, but Wagner’s description of Ortrud, disinherited scion of the pagan house of Frisia that once ruled Brabant. Elsa’s Christian power literally conjures Lohengrin into being, but in theory she is also powerful in the temporal sphere, as scion of the ruling Christian house of Brabant. In this context, Lohengrin’s swanning onto the scene and onto the throne looks distinctly suspicious, and is hardly made less so by his embargo on questions. Lohengrin may pit Christianity against paganism, but it is also about the conquest and wielding of political power, as is made clear in David Alden’s thrilling new production.