Lohengrin was first drafted in 1845—­for Wagner during this period allowed no grass to grow under his feet.  He was a member of a coterie that met at Angell’s restaurant, and there on November 17 he read the complete libretto to his friends and acquaintances.  Schumann was amongst them, and he bluntly asserted that such a libretto could not be set.  Others were more favourable, but many were doubtful.  However, that made little difference to Richard.  He knew his own strength and trusted his instinct; and however much he was urged to alter the denouement, he stuck to his guns and his libretto.

In point of structure the libretto of Lohengrin closely resembles that of its predecessor.  There are even fewer set pieces, there are more fragmentary speeches.  The drama is so contrived as to let in the set pieces naturally:  of the old forced operatic business of sending out or bringing in characters as seems advisable there is not a sign.  The story is on the whole simpler than that of Tannhaeuser.  Lohengrin is son of Parsifal, head of the mystic Montsalvat monastery where the Holy Grail is kept; where the monks never seem precisely to die; and where, without marriage and even without women, children are somehow born to the favoured ones.  He comes in a magic boat drawn by a swan to aid Elsa against Telramund and his wife, who falsely accuse her of having murdered her brother; he fights for her and overcomes the accusers, first exacting a promise that she will never ask him his name nor where he comes from.  She promises, yielding herself unconditionally to him; and so ends Act One.  Next Ortrud, wife of Telramund, gets Elsa’s ear, begging for mercy, and contrives to poison the girl’s mind with doubts regarding Lohengrin; and when later the wedding procession is nearing the church, Telramund himself accuses Lohengrin before the king and all the crowd of sorcery and witchcraft.  Nothing happens at the moment; Telramund is pushed on one side, and the procession goes its way.  But in the next act, when Lohengrin and Elsa are left alone she can no longer restrain her curiosity nor conceal her fears:  in spite of his warnings she questions him.  At the moment Telramund and other nobles rush in to assassinate him; he kills Telramund, orders the other nobles to bear the body into the judgment hall, and tells Elsa he must leave her.  In the next scene he reveals himself, and the swan returns to take him away.  Ortrud mocks him and tells how she, after all, has triumphed, for she changed Elsa’s brother into a swan; Lohengrin kneels and prays; the swan disappears and the missing brother springs up; a dove descends and is attached by Lohengrin to the boat, and he goes back to Montsalvat.