Lohengrin

Abstract

Abstract By 3 August of that year a prose scenario had been outlined and by 27 November the versification completed. Wagner then made his first complete draft, on two staves (completed 30 July 1846), followed by the second draft with elaboration of instrumental and choral parts. Various changes were made to the poem during composition, especially in Act 3. Probably for this reason the second complete draft for Act 3 was made before those for Acts 1 and 2, but there is no evidence to suggest that the acts were originally composed in anything other than the usual order. The full score was written out between 1 January and 28 April 1848. Wagner, by 1850 in exile in Switzerland, was not present at the first performance. The work was received well in Germany, but Wagner was unable to hear it until 1861, when it was given in Vienna. The first performance in Bayreuth did not take place until 1894, when Mottl conducted a cast including Ernest van Dyck and Lillian Nordica. The performances at Bologna in 1871 were the first of any Wagner opera to be given in Italy and it was premiered in the United States, at the Stradttheater in New York, the same year.