The World's Most Famous Operas

• Lohengrin •

Music by: Richard Wagner (1813–1883)

Rendered into Arabic by: Samir Shikhani

An opera in three acts by Richard Wagner, first produced at Weimar in 1850.

The characters: • Elsa, Princess of Brabant • Lohengrin, a knight of the Holy Grail • Count Telramund • Ortrud, his wife • King Henry, King of Germany • The King's Herald • Nobles of Brabant, Thuringia, and Saxony; servants, maids of honor, and men of the royal retinue.

Time: the tenth century. Place: Antwerp.

Act One

Scene: a meadow outside the city of Antwerp.

Brabant is a small principality, and part of a great kingdom over which King Henry holds authority. The King has come down to Brabant, and when the curtain rises we see him holding court beneath a mighty oak tree outside the city of Antwerp, near the bank of the river Scheldt. The former ruler of Brabant left two children: a daughter named Elsa, and a younger son named Gottfried, the true heir to the throne. Count Telramund holds the guardianship of the two orphans and the regency of Brabant. As for Telramund's wife, named Ortrud, she weaves plots to be rid of the two orphans and to set her husband upon the throne of Brabant.

The little Prince Gottfried disappears, and no one knows what has become of him. Telramund accuses the Princess Elsa of killing him. Elsa is summoned to defend herself and refute this charge. She comes forward, surrounded by her maids of honor. She is asked, according to established custom, to name a knight who will defend her by dueling Telramund,

the author of the accusation. Elsa confesses that she has no one to defend her but a knight she saw in a dream, clad in shining armor, who drew near her and murmured words of consolation in her ears. She would have no champion but him.

The trumpets ring out, and the royal herald summons the knight, but silence still reigns. The call is repeated twice, and on the third time the herald proclaims his summons. Whispering rises among the crowd, and astonishment spreads. And soon the onlookers see a swan swimming in the river, drawing behind it a small boat bound to it by a golden chain, in which stands "a knight in shining armor."

The knight steps ashore on the riverbank, bids the swan farewell, then turns to the King, declaring that he has come to defend Elsa, and asking for Elsa's hand after he defeats her adversary — in return for one condition: that she never ask him his name, nor whence he came. Elsa, who is all but in a trance, quickly agrees to the condition. There follows