Customer Reviews

Wagner: Lohengrin (Great Recordings of the Century)

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Opera fanatic friends of mine suggested (no, demanded) that I buy this version of LOHENGRIN when I told them that I was looking for "the best recording."

LOHENGRIN is the opera to start listening to if you are new to Wagner. It is so lyrical and romantic and passionate. And this recording, with its top-notch cast and orchestra conducted by one of the greatest of all Wagner conductors pulls the listener in like a magnet. Since buying it, about 2 years ago, I have literally listened to this version of the entire opera over a dozen times.

Jess Thomas, Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau and Christa Ludwig need no introduction. They simply own these roles and you don't ever have to hear anyone else sing them. But it is Elisabeth Grummer who has me marvelling every time I listen. This is a once-in-a-lifetime performance. Her 'Elsa' is brave, noble, strong and yet so naive and trusting that you watch in horror as she allows her miserable doubts and unhappiness to take over and defeat her one chance at redemption through love. The opera is named for Thomas' character, but it is really 'Elsa's' journey...her story. It is she who changes because of 'Lohengrin's' visit. She is truly the tragic hero in the classic sense who, like Oedipus, has the one major flaw which cannot be controlled. She will destroy herself. We watch and listen as she creates her own doom. Grummer's performance is magnificently sung and heart-breakingly acted.

This recording is almost forty years old, but the sound is full and rich.. The orchestra and chorus under Rudolf Kempe is thrilling. This is one of those very few perfect performances on disc. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

"Lohengrin," with "Die Meistersinger", is one of Wagner's two most beautiful operas, with gorgeous, flowing music that is almost unique in Wagner's gigantic output. It is clearly popular on records: since this, the first studio recording, was made in the early sixties, such recordings as those conducted by Karajan, Solti, Abbado, Barenboim and Davis have been made. All five of those recordings, however, have been seriously flawed, mostly in the casting of the fiendishly difficult roles of the two villains, Ortrud and Telramund. This 1962-3 Vienna recording is the only recording which has mastered every aspect of the opera, and has stood the test of time as an unrivalled "Lohengrin."

First and foremost is the magisterial conducting of Rudolf Kempe (1910-1976), who is peerless on record in the lyrical Wagners. He has a superb sense of structure, and allows the music time to unfold its beauty. He is unmatched at conveying both the silvery serenity and black, insinuating evil that make up this opera. The Vienna Philharmonic plays radiantly, even by its standards, and the Vienna State Opera Chorus is sublime, essential for this work full of glorious choral writing. The soloists, too, are in a class of their own. Elisabeth Grümmer owned the roles of Elsa and Eva in the 50's and early 60's, and she is caught here at her radiant peak. With her soaring, silvery voice and delicate sweetness, she is unapproached on disc. Gottlob Frick is a magnificent King, ideally resonant and dark of tone, and Otto Wiener is an unstrained, eloquent Herald. In the title role, which is relatively short but extremely taxing, Jess Thomas sings ardently and lyrically, despite a few passages of roughness. But what really put this recording in a class of its own are the stunning achievements of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Christa Ludwig as Telramund and Ortrud. Fischer-Dieskau's clear, noble voice and incomparable artistry create a vivid, tragic portrait of the weak count, while Ludwig uses her firm, rich mezzo, secure even in attacking the murderous high notes of "Entweihte Götter," to create an evil, intense, insinuating Ortrud. The sound is not flawless; despite the generally successful remastering, there are occasional rough passages. For the most part, though, it is admirably full-bodied and clear, and it is genuine stereo. This is remarkable coming from EMI, which seriously handicapped other classic recordings (such as the Kempe "Meistersinger," the Furtwängler "Walküre" and the Sawallisch "Capriccio") by recording them in mono when they could and should have been in stereo. Fortunately, though, that does not happen here. Superb teamwork added to these excellent individual performances makes this a unique "Lohengrin," truly a "Great Recording of the Century."

Lohengrin is Wagner's most popular opera at the Met, and is often referred to as Wagner's "Italian" opera. However, this last statement must be put into perspective. In Lohengrin, Wagner achieved the pinnacle of Romantic opera. Consequently, the work is quite "conventional" although heralding things to come. (For example, the melancholic segue from the wedding march to Lohengrin's "Das susse Lied..." is something more in line with Tristan.)

That being said, this particular Lohengrin is a wonderful work, and one of my favorites. Kempe's conducting is subdued when necessary, and fiery when called for. The cast is excellent. Grummer is an appealing and believable Elsa; she sings with great tenderness to Thomas's empathic Lohengrin. No introduction needed for Fischer-Dieskau, and Frick's bass is quite noble-sounding.

Lohengrin is also done justice in the DVD with Placido Domingo (check my review there). If you can have both, then get both, and lose yourself twice in the sublimity of this music. I'll go for a third, as Domingo also works with Solti in yet another version.

Wagner is my favorite opera composer, and "Lohengrin" is one of his best. He wrote it between 1845 and 1848. Franz Liszt gave the work's first performance in Weimar on August 28, 1850.
Wagner called "Lohengrin" a 'romantic opera,' where the god-sent knight is in search of a Utopia: trust solely based on the spontaneity of an immediate impression.

On their wedding night, Elsa asks Lohengrin the forbidden question: what is his name and where does he come from?
She has promised before the wedding never to ask, and now torments herself.
Lohengrin cannot reveal his secret. He gives up everything for her. The only thing he asks for his sacrifice is her love and unconditional trust.
She despairs, believing that trust is not enough to make him stay with her. Her charms would soon fade away with anxiety, and he would leave her as he came, gliding across the water, drawn by a swan.
By not trusting him, she has destroyed their love and happiness.

"Weh uns, was tatest du?"
(Alas, what have you done?)

Act III is the most beautiful and moving one. It includes a magnificent prelude conducted by Rudolf Kempe, full of Wagnerian grandeur, passion, and depth, followed by remarkable singing by Jess Thomas and Elizabeth Gruemmer.
I have heard Peter Seiffert/Barenboim, Rene Kollo/Karajan, but Jess Thomas is the one who captivates me. His singing is heartbreaking: deep, sad, romantic, authentic, powerful without being aggressive.
The arias sung by him, "Hoechstes Vertrau'n," and "Mein lieber Schwan" are sublime if you listen intensely.

Wagner operas are dazzling because they are so different: they go beyond the traditional operas, with the 'art of transition,'
breaking in the musical argument by ensuring that the end of one section fits in neatly with the beginning of the next, thus giving the opera a perfect harmony and unity.

This is a disc that displays its credentials as a 'Great Recording of the Century' in every bar. Getting on for nearly half a century old now, it still stands firm as by far the most recommendable version of the opera.

Certainly the singing cast is uniformly outstanding. The villains of the piece, Ortrud and Telramund, almost take over the show in the hands of Christa Ludwig and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. The opening scene of Act 2, with its dark foreshadowings of Wagner's later style, is compulsive here as the witch-like disciple of the 'old religion' probes and explores every chink and weakness in her husband's psyche while he struggles and frets to cling onto the last vestiges of his 'honour' like a fly caught in her spider's web. Ortrud's invocation of her gods in the solo which follows his departure is absolutely hair-raising. And the way in which she subverts and manipulates Elsa in the scene after that is just as psychologically and vocally fascinating as anything in The Ring. Great singing actors both.

The somewhat goody-goody hero and heroine will always find it hard to live with all that. The Devil always did get the best tunes. But Elisabeth Grummer is a near ideal Elsa. Only Janowitz on the Kubelik set runs her close. The voice is pure and silvery, but her vocal acting makes the character far from the simpleton Elsa can often seem. The Dream and Euch luften are both treasurable. Jess Thomas is not to everyone's taste but he characterises the Grail Knight wonderfully (as he always did in the theatre) and sings with consistently thoughtful and musical sense. The voice perhaps lacks that degree of Italianate bel canto that fits this part better than any other of Wagner's tenor heroes. For that you have to go back to the likes of de Lucia from the tail-end of the 19th Century or the Frenchman Georges Thill between the Wars. Gigli recorded some fascinating bits in his own inimitable style. Melchior was, I always think, a bit stentorian for the part. Among modern singers, only Domingo really essays this approach.

Frick is a rock-solid King Heinrich: Otto Wiener is luxury casting indeed as the Herald. The chorus from the Vienna Opera are magnificent, as is the Vienna Phil. But the greatest accolades should go to Rudolf Kempe, a Wagner conductor who would never tear a passion to tatters like a Solti nor indulge in an over-upholstered bed of sound like a Karajan. Here he has the full measure of Wagner's most 'operatic' opera, delivering perfect pacing, consistently long-breathed phrasing and great punch when it's called for.

These are discs that fully live up to their billing as one of the 'Great Recordings of the Century'.

Complete Wagner operas are hard to capture on records and even at that, it's hard to have a perfect recording, but this one is the most consistently picked line-up. Though it is not perfect, it is the best sung Lohengrin I've heard. From the opening bars, Kempe sets up his sensitive and knowledgeable approach. I don't find him expceptional, but he holds the drama together admirably. Otto Weiner sounds rather like a tenor but is still good as the herald while Gottlob Frick is a great king, loud and majestic. Fischer-Dieskau makes one of the best sung Telramunds, though i think he is beat out by Hermann Uhde on the famous 1953 Bayreuth recording. Nevertheless, he is fabulous, and Christa Ludwig is the best Orturd, hands down. The real performance here is by Jess Thomas, who could not possibly be more prefectly cast. His firm yet flexible voice makes him the most idiomatic Lohengrin there has been in decades. Interestingly enough, there is a recording from the 1962 Bayreuth Festival with Wolfgang Sawallish conducting. His singing, if anything, is better here, but this recording demonstrates that he was indeed a true heldentenor. Elisabeth Grummer is very good as well though sometimes a bit thin sounding. If you want to purchase a good Lohengrin, I don't know what else to recommend for all performances here are quite good.

Among Wagner's many creations, I find Lohengrin to be one of his best and most lyrical. I have heard many different performances on record and on stage, but I find this interpretation by Rudolf Kempe and his forces to be the best.

From the opening bars, Kempe manages to capture the mood of the story. The strings of the Vienna Philharmonic are in excellent shape throughout the recording especially in the Act I Prelude and Lohengrin's great narrative "In Fernem land" during the climax of Act III. The brass play brilliantly particularly in the interludes and the horns exude a warm sound during the famous Act III Prelude.

The singers too are excellently suited to their roles. I find Christa Ludwig's Ortrud to be a chilling portrayal. The way that she sings "Entweite Gotter," the hairs stand up on my body. She simply has the voice for such a role as a villain. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau also shows a lot of darkness as Ortrud's husband, who wants to see Elsa dead. His baritone has not been unequaled in my mind.

The young Elsa, portrayed by Elisabeth Grummer exudes warmth. The voice is rather fragile, but it must be so. Grummer's performance of "Elsa's Dream" is beautifully executed with almost minimal effort it seems. Jess Thomas has his inadequacies and while I will admit that some other heldentenor would have done the job equally well, I think that his performance of "In Fernem Land" is beautiful, dramatic and to the point. Hear it for yourself.

Finally, the minor roles and the chorus are excellently played. I find that this is a great recording not to be missed by those who seek a Great Recording of the 20th Century.

Wagner was already into serious genius territory when he wrote this opera--which is practically as long, complex, maddening and fascinating as anything else he wrote. The recording and rendering of this lengthy maze of text and music is a testament to the genius of the producer, conductor, record company, engineers, musicians and singers, who are uniformly good to great. The texture of the sound is especially pleasing here--an analog warmth and silkiness comes across without the tape hiss and lack of definition and clarity that were troublesome with LP records. I've listened to it several times and am more impressed with each listening. One small complaint--Jess Thomas never really did much for me. He seems overshadowed by such towering singers as Gottlob Frick, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Christa Ludwig. Even the distinguished critic who wrote the liner notes for this set failed to include Thomas in his list of brilliant singers who were recruited for the cast--a telling omission. Oh well, heldentenors were not then, nor are they now hanging out on every street corner. This behemoth works anyway and provides, as they say, hours of entertainment for those long dark winter days....and nights.

This recording of Lohengrin deserves not only 5 stars but 10. It is the best performance of this opera ever recorded. The playing of the VPO under Kempe is superb specially the strings. The chorus is also first rate. But it is the cast of singers that makes the difference. Both Gottlob Frick as the King and Otto Wiener as the Herald are superb. Jess Thomas is not one of my favorite singers, but here he has perhaps his best performance, now incisive, now romantic and passionate. In my opinion, he is much better than Placido Domingo for Solti, for he can control his huge voice much better according to the demands of each scene, whereas Domingo sounds a little bit gritty in his first performance of the character. He would sing Lohengrin much more satisfactorily some years later for Abbado in the Vienna Opera. Grummer was the perfect choice for Elsa; she conveys the frailty of the character as no other singer. But it is the couple of villains that steal the show. Fischer Dieskau and Christa Ludwig are among the greatest singers of the 20th century and here both are at their best. They simply set the standards for their roles, and whenever one listens to any performance of Lohengrin, it is inevitable that the singing and acting of the singers who play Ortrud and Telramund are judged taking the ones of Ludwig and Fischer Dieskau as the parameter. Sound quality is excellent, but, of course, it cannot match Solti's album, recorded in 1985. But this performance is worth every cent you pay for the CDs.

Rudolf Kempe was a great Wagner and Strauss conductor, and it is great to have his Lohengrin on remastered CD with this great cast. In fact, this recording represents the collaboration of an historic dream team of the 60s and early 70s.

Although there are some excellent newer digital recordings with stellar artists, such as Solti's with Placido Domingo and Jessye Norman, and Abbado's with Siegfried Jerusalem and Cheryl Studer, this recording has many unique strengths which make it very desirable. I am very familiar with the Solti and Kempe recordings, both. I am less familiar with Abbado's - having heard it only once.

The Evil Ortrud and Friedrich

In particular, under Kempe, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Christa Ludwig, as the evil Friedrich and Ortrud, are absolutely incomparably superb in their characterizations of the conniving, malevolent couple. Others are "good", but no one comes even close to their portrayals, they are definitive. This recording would be important for that reason alone, but there are many other delights.

Vulnerable Elsa

Elizabeth Grummer is ideal as the sweet and insecure Elsa. Jessye Norman, who is Elsa on Solti's excellent recording, sounds wonderful, but her voice and personification are too big for the character. Grummer wonderfully conveys Elsa's vulnerability and self-doubt. This is a definitive Elsa.

Heroic Lohengrin

Jess Thomas, the American heldentenor, as Lohengrin was in great demand in live performances of the 60s. He lives the part, and is very characterful in pointing his words and conveying heroic strength and emotion. But he was also known for a heldentenor tendency to "barking". Nonetheless, Thomas gives one of his more commanding performances under Kempe in this recording. His rendition of "In Fernem Land" is particularly exciting. His main competition comes from Placido Domingo on the Solti recording, or Siegfried Jerusalem under Abbado. To my ear, Jerusalem has the same "barking" issues as Thomas. Domingo, however, is a revelation on the Solti recording. Although his accent comes through the German, his Lohengrin soars heroically, no barking or strain. It is a beautiful performance above all others. Still, there are moments where Thomas is preferable, as in "in Fernam Land", where he may not sound as beautiful as Domingo, but he nails the heroism better.

Conductors & Orchestras

As far as conductor competition, Solti represents another conductor internationally known for decades of superior Wagner/Strauss interpretations. Abbado may not be as well known for that, but they both conduct the same orchestra as Kempe- the Vienna Philharmonic. Solti and Abbado have modern digital sound, which means we hear everything at every dynamic. The Vienna Philharmonic are excellent on all counts. The brass especially pull out the stops for Solti. That recording always quickens my pulse in the Act 3 scene change with the brass players double- and triple-tonguing. Kempe was known for his flexibility in shaping phrases and building climaxes. I think in many places (the second scene of Act 3 as I mentioned and in Act 2 particularly) Solti does him one better, but Kempe captures the human drama of Lohengrin, and it is very gripping in his hands.

I highly recommend this remastered Kempe recording of Lohengrin by a great team. Although the recording is nearly 40 years old, it has many special qualities and provides some incredible unique Wagnerian operatic moments.

I also think the Solti recording is very special. I couldn't make up my mind between them, so I bought them both!

You should too!