"Ever New Formal Structures":

Wagner once referred to the formal layout of§"Lohengrin" and the possibilities for future§innovations: it is bound to lead to ever new formal§structures along the road which I myself have opened§up. The three dialogue-scenes in Lohengrin reveal§examples of these new formal structures in various§guises; these new formal structures contain both§recontextualized Romantic opera traditions (such as§the aria or duet) and Wagner s own innovative musical§structures. Each of the three scenes studied in this§book represents a revolutionary construction for a§dialogue-scene: one a chain of aria-like numbers§whose varying complexity creates a§structural-dramatic rhetoric, another a series of§divergent monologue pairs and the third, a§dissolution of traditional forms and the most§progressive section of Lohengrin. The analyses of§these scenes in this book,§contextualized within the tradition of previous§German Romantic operas, reveal Wagner s first§concrete steps toward his new aesthetic ideal, in§which music and drama cohere as two inseparable§halves of one artistic whole. This important study§will be valuable to anyone studying Wagner, operatic§history, or 19th-Century music.