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Podcast: Classical Music Discoveries
Episode: 1306 Wagner: Lohengrin
Description: Lohengrin, WWV 75, is a Romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself inspired by the epic of Garin le Loherain. It is part of the Knight of the Swan tradition.
The opera has inspired other works of art. King Ludwig II of Bavaria named his fairy-tale castle "New Swan Castle", or "Neuschwanstein", after the Swan Knight. It was King Ludwig's patronage that later gave Wagner...