»Ein Laut so klagevoll«. Lohengrin zwischen Richard Wagner und Salvatore Sciarrino

The article reflects the presence of the dream motif in Richard Wagner’s romantic opera Lohengrin (1850) and in Salvatore Sciarrino’s own operatic version of the Lohengrin legend from 1983. By reading both works against the grain of Elsa’s dream the article highlights a) the philosophical premises of Wagner’s dream-theoretical reflections and their sociopolitical implications in Lohengrin, and b) how Sciarrino in his opera directly engages with both aspects, undoing at the dramaturgical as well as at the musical level, the metaphysical assumptions and the societal vision sustaining Wagner’s work.