Blue, of course, what else. Milky blue, midnight blue, violet blue, bluish blue, blue, as blue as the gentian is the stage design by Zoe Leutnant for the children's "Lohengrin" at the Bayreuth Festival.

After all, Neo Rauch and Rosa Loy's stage for the current adult "Lohengrin" is also thoroughly blue, just like Lohengrin, the knight in blue, and like the prelude to Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin", which was once written about that one could hear an opalescent blue in it.

Jan Brachmann

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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The stage set for children is a roofscape of neo-baroque gables, windows, doors, chimneys and a greenhouse, in which Ortrud – Stéphanie Müther with a smock apron and Monica Lewinsky's bloated hair like an anteater's tail – waters her cucumbers.

But she's just pretending, Ortrud.

It's not harmless.

Of that later.

An old hit, but not by Wagner

First of all: "The night is blue and the moon is in the sky, look how he's laughing." That's an old hit, but not by Wagner.

Only Elsa and Gottfried are actually standing on the roof while the orchestra, conducted by Azis Sadiković, lets the prelude blue waft through the hall of rehearsal stage 4 and look at the moon.

Until the drum hits.

bang!

– Gottfried is gone.

A gnatzig, wriggling, scolding swan lights up on the wall of the house as a cartoon projection.

The children on the seat steps slap each other on the back, point at the swan and laugh squirrels on their bellies.

The small actor Manni Laudenbach as an investigator called "Heerrufer" and Oleksandr Pushniak as a commissioner called "King Heinrich" ("Heinrich König" would probably work too) clarify the situation for the children: "Something happened here in Brabant: Gottfried is gone!

Luckily we're both detectives.

We have to find Gottfried again.” In the costumes by Christiaan Harris, the two look a bit like the captain from Köpenick.

The young director Lea Willeke and her dramaturge Marlene Schleicher tell "Lohengrin" as a children's crime story, coordinated with the artistic director Katharina Wagner and the musical arranger Marko Zdralek.

Daniel Kirch as Lohengrin speaks directly to his audience, asking if they won't betray him;

nobody should know who he is and where he comes from.

When a fighter for Elsa is sought in the ordeal, Manni Laudenbach asks if there is anyone in the room who would fight Telramund in a boxing match.

Yes, of course, many!

No boy will let you sit down, this question.

"Okay, not now, I promise you, we'll fight together after the performance." Instead, Lohengrin makes things clear.

But in addition to what children want to see, there is also what they should hear: Richard Wagner's music and his special language.

The prelude, which is one of the most beautiful things Wagner ever dreamed up, is slightly abridged.

Brit-Tone Müllertz sings Elsa's dream with a magical, silvery timbre, Daniel Kirch as Lohengrin, strong and gentle at the same time, penetratingly clear, reciting the abridged Grail story during interrogation.

And Michael Kupfer-Radecky as the chimney sweep Telramund, singing darkly, accuses the six to ten-year-olds of words like "boy", "gem" and "walking around" until he explodes: "I accuse her of fratricide", namely Elsa, the now stuck.

Willeke and Schleicher have perfectly balanced the need for concentration and the need to unleash a laugh.

Even adults can't help but grin when Lohengrin sits on the sofa in the bridal chamber in front of the suitcase TV and munches popcorn while Elsa asks him: "What should I call you now?

pacifiers?

Little treasure?"

The two don't become a couple, just like in real life, with Wagner.

But Ortrud is arrested as an evil sorceress and has to transform the swan back into Gottfried.

After the final chord, the arch comedian (which Ortrud can you say that about) Stéphanie Müther simply erupts.

Manni Laudenbach catches her: "Ortrud, stay here!

Bow down!"