Swan slamdives German orchestra

The live swan featured in Frank Hilbrich's Theater Freiburg production of Lohengrin waddled out of his nest (above) on Thursday night and flapped into the orchestra pit.

Although the audience gasped, the orchestra played on without missing a note.

The tame one year old dwarf swan was easily recaptured by his trainer, who promises he'll be put in a harness for future performances "now he realises he can fly away". Director Hilbrich may be disappointed - he chose to use a live animal rather than the usual stuffed substitute as "a symbol of hope".

Comments

[Paul Pelkonen]

Needed L's dad standing by with bow and arrow at the ready.

[Oroveso]

Doesn't beat the night at the Met when 2 little toy dogs in the Act 1 ROSENKAVALIER Marschallin's Levée scene escaped their trainer, ran down to the prompter's box and began furiously humping (complete with howls of ecstasy) in full view of cast and audience. It happened to be St. Valentines's Day and Walter Berry as Ochs made a suitable aside to the audience referring to that fact and the amorous pooches’ celebration thereof. Even the very dour Dr. Bohm cracked a smile.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

Haha Oroveso - a wonderful story. I've never heard of a dwarf swan. Is it a breed, or is this one just a dwarf of the usual breed?

Intermezzo - who are the ladies with the eggs? Ortrud's attendants. And that lady behind the swan (Ortrud?) looks like one of those Beast of Belsen female concentration camp wardens.
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Intermezzo replies - the German source says it's a dwarf breed - and the lady behind it is its handler.

[Ruth]

As many will know, ENO's Magic Flute (in the Nicholas Hytner production), involves five white doves flying onto the stage one by one during the Bird-catcher song, and settling on the top of Papageno's basket. At the end of the song, Papageno encourages the birds into the basket and closes the lid.

This usually works like clockwork, and until last (I think) revival, I had never known the doves misbehave. But on this one occasion, two of the birds made a bid for freedom just as they were being put into the basket, and set off on circuits of the stage. Their handler walked on in costume to help recapture them. Bearing in mind that they have usually been so beautifully-behaved, that handler must have had to get into costume every night in case of just such an event, and finally got his starring moment...

[Nikolaus Vogel]

lol Ruth - another gem. IM should gather together a collection of operatic mishaps like this and make it into a book! Bryn nearly setting his glove on fire, and Gasteen tearing off her strange gimp-headdress on the first night of the Warner Walküre at Covent Garden could be included, too!

There's a new Deborah Warner Flute planned for ENO, or there was a couple of year ago, in the near future, I think. Maybe she got the Eugene Onegin instead, as that was originally scheduled for Minghella.