Part 4 (“Höchstes vertau’n, etc.). Lohengrin has completely lost control of the interchange; his only resort now is to reassert his power. He steps back and, to a portentous entry of trombones that has a tone of religious admonishment^(I), he reminds her of the rules: he has already accorded her the highest trust, and has believed in her oath in return. If she will but keep it, he will hold her above all women. That will prove her worth. Quickly abandoning the stern tone and drawing her to his breast again (an impulsively swirling musical figure), he asks her to keep him close, that he may share her happiness, breathe the air she breathes. And now he takes the wrong tack. In a strangely sprightly, cantering mode (this is the internal cut that was formerly common), he begins to recount the things he’s given up for her, and would still refuse on her behalf (and though he cannot say so, those would include immortality, yearly renewed at the Grailhead). He blunders on: her unconditional love is the only thing that can repay all he has sacrificed! And listen (this will surely clinch the case!): he doesn’t come from Night and Sorrow (like The Dutchman, if you’re in need of anachronistic intertextuality), but from Light and Bliss!

Part 5 (“Hilf Gott,” etc). This last only serves to make Elsa frantic, and her terror drives the rest of the scene. He’s come from some perpetually happy realm, and will certainly want to go back! How can her wretched self, her inevitably fading charms, keep him from the world of magic and wonder he’s left behind? Her music mounts higher: what happens to her then? In one startled moment, she thinks she hears someone coming!  (That would be Telramund, who at the end of Act 2 left her with the thought that he would be lurking near, ready to make the snip of flesh that renders the hero vulnerable.) Ah, no—no one. But there’s the swan! He’s called it back! She will never know rest! Though it cost her life, she must know his name, where he’s from, who and what he is! And now Telramund does burst in, with the four Brabantian nobles who follow him. Elsa, however, snatches Lohengrin’s sword from beside the couch and holds the sheath while he draws it and dispatches Telramund with a single blow.

Postlude. In brief utterances amid a depressed musical atmosphere, Lohengrin mourns the lost promise of happiness; Elsa prays for God’s mercy; Lohengrin orders the nobles to carry Telramund’s body before the King at the Oak of Judgment, then summons Elsa’s Ladies in Waiting to escort her there as well, where her husband’s secret shall be disclosed.

The ’35 performance. There has been virtually no change in the condition of Melchior’s voice since the ’26 studio performance. All the fresh ring and sap of the timbre, the eagerness and fluidity of movement, the elasticity of line, the clarity and elegance of word formation (even when, three or four times, they are the wrong words) are still at beck and call. So is the command of dynamics, with the unique tingle of the full voice emerging naturally from the easy beauty of his mezza-voce (e.g., at “So ist der Zauber” after the wonderful opening of the “Athmest du nicht“), then falling back on the instant (on “da als ich zuerst”—only one of several examples). But I want to call particular attention to Melchior as vocal actor. This is something that, amid all the grousing about his note-value abuses, he is grudgingly conceded in the third act of Tristan or “Amfortas! die Wunde!” But it is equally apparent here, in the most lyrical of Wagner’s leading tenor roles save for Stolzing, which he never sang. And since he surpasses himself in that regard here, I ascribe at least some of the difference to the inimitable Lehmann. She and Melchior were frequent and friendly partners, especially as the Walküre Zwillingspaar, and they play off each other here like Lunt and Fontanne transported to 9th Century Brabant. There have been Elsas (though not many, in recorded history) who could be called Lehmann’s equal or superior in strictly vocal terms, but none has captured the combination of beautiful, ingenuously open soprano tone, appropriate vocal calibre, and intense emotional expression that always seems precisely “right” yet never calculated, that Lehmann brought to so many of her roles. And in the final scene, Melchior goes on to an “In fernem Land” that is both deeply felt and perfectly structured, and a Farewell that is truly that of a broken-hearted hero.