Ishwar Maharaj as Gottfried
'what are we to make of the impassioned kiss between Elsa (Edith Haller) and Gottfried (Ishwar Maharaj), her young brother’s return to human form at the close? Has Ortrud’s paganism infected Brabant after all?'
'In the closing moments of Lohengrin, revived last week at the Royal Opera House and persuasively conducted by Semyon Bychkov, the heroine, Elsa (Edith Haller), engages in a frankly intimate kiss with her long-lost brother Gottfried (Ishwar Maharaj), the new ruler of Brabant who until recently was a swan. Crowds rejoice. She swoons. Her lover, the Holy Grail knight of the title, gets into his swan boat - there's a theme here - and disappears back into the mists whence he came. The curtain falls.
But this is Wagner. Siblings behave oddly and knights travel by strange amphibian, here represented by a corporate-style swan logo beamed up on a screen and a hole in the floor through which to disappear.'
'Elijah Moshinsky gives us the fetishism, taboos and conflict between old and new religions, and even possibly dwells on other prohibited behaviour, if we consider the lingering kiss between Elsa (Edith Haller) and her brother Gottfried (Ishwar Maharaj) after his reappearance at the end of the opera.'
