Customer Reviews

Wagner: Lohengrin

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This Solti set is among the finest Lohengrin recordings out there, he achieves a perfect balance between the action and the flow. Domingo is truly a Lohengrin with a heart, I remember reading once that "he sings as if he has the Grail stuck in his throat"! The others in the cast are excellent. Jessye Norman, Dietrich-Fischer, Sotin and Nimsgern ideally fit their roles and truly make this a Lohengrin for all to love and enjoy.

The Decca sound is fantastic and Solti's interpretation is well-nigh definitive. He totally captures the mystery and atmosphere of the score which is wonderful.

If you're looking for a reputable and outstanding set, this is it!

Solti's status as a Wagner conductor is perhaps more legendary than any other. His ring cycle is still by far the best, at least for me, and his numerous other recordings are all fantastic, not a clunker in the set. If I had to pick a single opera recording of his, this would be the top of them all. Realize though I am going in to this with quite a bit of bias. I have been in love with Jessye Norman's voice since I started listening to music and Placido Domingo has been my favorite tenor for just as long. The chorus is somewhat hushed on this recording, moreso than the opera calls for but this is a very minor criticism. The orchestra sounds great, lush strings and powerful brass when needed. As some reviewers have noted, Solti definitely takes his time with the tempos and is consistently a bit under the rest of the pack. However this is definitely a plus as he revails so many hidden details and phrasing opportunities that many have missed. The prelude is probably the best it's been played and the arrival of Lohengrin here will leave you awe-struck. The first appearance of the "question theme" (Nie, solst du mich erfragen) has never had such a sense of foreboding. It's understandable if you don't prefer Domingo in this repertoire, but for me he is one of the best. If you want to get someone hooked on Wagner, this is the recording. Worked for me. My favorite teacher from undergrad played the prelude from this recording on our first day in class and I have been hooked ever since.

Whenever I offer comparative reviews here of great and lengthy works, I try to have as many versions at hand as possible. But in the case of Lohengrin, most listeners, including myself, stop after reading that the best recording, far and away, is Kempe's on EMI, with Jess Thomas in the title role and Elisabeth Grummer as Elsa. As it happns, I have problems with that set: Thomas sounds heroic and youthful, but he also bleats a little too much and forces his voice in the great climaxes. Grummer sounds touchingly innocent--she's a light, lyric Elsa who hasn't grown up yet--but the fast beat in her voice bothered me. I also don't accept that Kempe's conducting is the last word on the score.

As a result I have chased across the landscape for a better, if not ideal recording. My thumbnail conclusions:

Jochum/Bayreuth -- a live 1954 performance that features the young Windgassen as Lohengrin and a surpisingly supple Birgit Nilsson as Elsa. Available on several labels, this performance sounds reasonably good for broadcast mono, and the leads are worthy, but Windgassen's voice is unlovely, and Nilsson is chilly and by no means innocent-sounding. Even so, this would be one of the top recommendations if it weren't for Jochum's dull, unimaginative conducting. Reviewers at Amazon tend to focus solely on the singers in opera recordings; I always listen first to the conductor, who shapes the whole work, after all. Jochum rarely rises above the routine.

Leinsdorf/ BSO -- This recently re-released Living Stereo set has remained out of print for two good reasons. The scheduled Elsa droped out and was replaced at the last minute by the totally inadequate Lucina Amara. Second, Leinsdorf's conducting veers between dullness and perversity, with tempos and phrasing that drive me up the wall. The only reason to buy this RCA recording is for Sandor Konya, the best Lohengrin of his generation (he was also the best Walther in Meistersinger), a golden-voiced delight.

Abbado/ Vienna Phil. -- This 1994 release marked Abbado's first experience conducting a Wagner opera, and he does himself proud. The socre is beautifully shaped, and the Viennese orchestra and chorus are beyond praise. Siegfried Jerusalem would have benefited from being recorded ten years earleir, but his is a very musical Lohengrin and a strong characterization. Cheryl Studer, who specialized onstage in the role of Elsa, gives one of her best (and last) recorded performances, not as fresh-voiced as a decade earleir on Philips but still gleaming and youthful. For me, this ranks as an equal to Solti's reading.

Solti/ Vienna Phil. -- With the same orchestra and chorus as Abbado's, Solti gets a more powerful, aggressive sound, abetted by an extremely vivid, dynamic recording. It's true, as others comment, that his style is not as driven, even manic as in the past, but the aggression is sitll there. Domingo is distinctly not a German tenor in style (or pronunciation), but Lohengrin was a viable stage role for him vocally, and he sings with great conviciton. Persoanly, I think he's not a patch on Konya or Jerusalem, but he's a positive force here. As for Jessye Norman, it would be silly to claim that she is trying to be a young, naive woman, or that her huge voice is right for an essentially lyric role. As always, she is regal and distant. But the sheer voluptuousness of her tone is irresistible, and she has such power that she can ride easily over the gigantic orchestra. In al, this whole produciton is a star turn, and all the stars involved are at their best.

In an ideal world Konya would return to life to record under Abbado with Grummer as Elsa and the Vienna Phil. in the pit. None of the sets above rise to that ideal, but they all have something special to offer. When next I get the Lohengrin itch, I will seek out the DG set under Kubelik with James King in the title role; it's the one major modern recording I haven't heard.

P. S. August, 2009 -- As an addendum to the above, I am adding my review of a 1959 Lohengrin from Bayreuth that feels like an answered prayer, since it features Konya with an excellent conductor. I've also heard the Kubelik, which despite its devoted fans, is crippled for me by James King's blatant, uninflected singing that carries little musical interest.

Here's the Bayreuth review:

By consensus the Fifties was a Golden Age for opera, and this 1959 Lohengrin from Bayreuth could be offered as prime testimony. I have little to add to the unstinting praise given below. Every role is filled almost ideally -- the Herald of Eberhard Waechter is as world-class as the King or Telramund. One advantage of a festival is that star casting can be lavished throughout. Grummer had already established herself as the major Elsa in Germany, and every opera house in the world clamored for the sweet-toned Sandor Konya, with his miraculous blend of lyrical beauty and power. In Wagner we haven't seen his like since, excepting only Ben Heppner.

Having gone back to the original Bavarian Radio tapes, Orfeo's sonics are exceptional; they have also remastered them to eliminate microphone distortion and hiss. The Bayreuth orchestra sounds a tad boxy and muffled, but the voices are up close and well captured. The overall effect is like hearing a superb FM braodcast. There are few stage noises (Wieland Wagner's abstract production featured no stage sets or machinery).

Fanciers of the opera won't hesitate to buy this set, despite the absence of libretto and the most tedious, long-winded liner notes imaginable. Given all its merits, is this the best Lohengrin on records? Vocally, the answer is yes. But expert as he is, von Matacic doesn't conduct with inspiration. Solti and Abbado both exhibit greater dramatic tension and musical variety. In turn, they bring out more vivid characterizations from their lead singers than is heard here. And modern stereo far outshines dated mono, of course.

But these are quibbles. Any Lohengrin featuring Konya is well worth hearing. Among the three or four now available (including a tempting RCA Living Stereo version under Leinsdorf from Boston that turns out to have both dismal conducting and a rock-bottom Elsa) this one is first choice. It's a must-listen for anyone who loves the oper

This is a magnificent performance. Solti conducts a very warm, sensitive, and lushious reading of the score, traits not normally associated with him. It lacks the ultra-piercing agressive climaxes and occasional rythmic stodginess that mar some of his work. One part I must call attention to is the Act I prelude, which is simply ravishing in its beauty. This is truly as good a Wagner recording as Solti left us. Once again the Vienna Philharmonic is Solti's orchestra. They always played gloriously for Solti and this recording is certainly no exception. They are every bit as good for Solti as they are in Kempe's celebrated recording. In fact, this is the only performance to give Kempe's set any real competition. One advantage of Solti is that his is a modern digital recording of demonstration quality, better than Kempe's analog. Big props to Decca for the superb engineering of this recording. He also has just as good of a cast. Domingo brings his unmistakeable sound to Lohengrin with stupendous results, Jessye Norman is simply astounding as Elsa, and the rest of the casts shines as well. The layout is also good, Act I on its own disc, Act II spread on two discs with a good breaking point, and Act III on its own disc. The only possible snag of this set is the price. But in my opinion its totally worth the money. Get this one and Kempe on EMI Great Recordings of the Century and you'll have all the Lohengrin you'll ever need.

I contacted Rudy through email and he only samples some of the recordings from his work place a huge Tower record store with a classical music selection somewhere in California. He tells me he has made honest mistakes. Dietrich Fisker Dieskau is a baritone and traditionally the baritone or bass is the villain in an opera, unless he's portraying the "father" figure as in Verdi operas - (Germont in Traviata, the father in Simon Bocanegra, Aida's father King Amonasro, etc). Rudy must have made the mistake of believing Dieskau to sing a villain role instead of the herald in this opera. Now as for my personal opinion, it is Dieskau who is out of synch with the rest of the cast and has no authentic, exciting Wagnerian voice. Domingo was a cerebral tenor who recognized Wagner' original intent of having his heroic tenor roles sung with Italian lyricism. He actually specified that heldentenors sing in a bel canto style without sacrificing the dramatic power. It was Cosima Wagner who urged tenors to sing with the "Bayreuth bark" - the invective, harsh, high vocal style that lacks grace and radiant tone. Solti is doing a superb conducting performance and he treats the score with epic grand style. Solti was a supreme Wagner exponent. This is a 5 star opera with all the trimmings. Get it for Christmas!

A decade separates this Lohengrin from Sir Georg's last Wagner recordings then (Meistersinger and Fliegende, 1975 and 1976 respectively). The least we can say is that in the interval Sir Georg considerably changed his approach to Wagner conducting.

In the 40s, the 50s, the 60s and the 70s he was extremely energetic with strong dynamics, contrast, but first and foremost an intuitive sense of drama - never did I have a better impression of a story being told than by Sir Georg's beautiful readings of most Wagner operas (The Wiener Philharmoniker played in most cases, except the Chicago SO for Fliegende and the remake of Meistersinger).
Did he get bored by the frequent accusations of being "noisy"? Did he want to leave the image to posterity of being a "thinking" conductor, with broad tempi? In any case, in the mid-80s, Sir Georg started to broaden his tempi unreasonably, and at 3h42,this is the longest Lohengrin on CD (with Kubelik and Karajan).
As a result, he loses his usual drive - his clear strong point, and for once forgets about the drama. This Lohengrin therefore sounds like a romantic version of St Mattheus' Passion and is very very static. This is particularly true of the ensembles.
The result is that musically the singers are suffering: listen to Domingo at the beginning of Act III's duet: he really is struggling with the singing line, which is completely incredible considering how great a heldentenor he is! The Domingo fans (count me in!) will simply privilege him on stage with Claudio Abbado in Vienna (DVD, Kultur). Here he is just going through the (slow) motion of his conductor. Jessye Norman has a beautiful instrument and she sounds very aristocratic but - I agree with other reviewers, she is a bit distant and lacks passion. Bar Eva Randova, portraying a successfully evil Ortrud, the rest of he cast is simply disastrous. I said in the review for Solti's Tannhauser (on Amazon, 5-stars) that picking good Wagnerian singers in the seventies was difficult: in the eighties it was virtually impossible, and bar the two main parts, the rest of the cast is lacking: Siegmund Nimsgern can't sing Telramund but, to be fair, very few singers can do a good job with this most lethal of all Wagner baritone parts. Fischer-Dieskau is past his sale date as the Herald while Sotin's King sounds quite old.
The Wiener Philharmoniker and the Wiener Staasoper play beautifully but they are asked to play an oratorio - not an opera. In light of Solti's usual qualities (I am a fan), this set is a true disappointment: I would have re-recorded Lohengrin in his shoes, not Meistersinger. Amateurs will return to Melchior/Rethberg/Bodanzky (MET, 1935 obliterating), Kempe/Thomas (1964, EMI - a classic) or even Sawallisch/Thomas in Bayreuth (1962, Phillips) for the urgency of the theatre.

If you want to experience Domingo's Lohengrin, and of course Domingo is a legend and his Lohengrin is the Wagnerian role he is most well known for (I would argue that if you want to hear him in his best Wagnerian performance you should check out his Tristan and his Walter). The problem for me is that the rest of the cast is mediocre; one of the reviewers has described Jessye Norman as having a "rich dark voice". I would describe her as a massive miscast and one of the worst cases of "is she singing Elsa or Ortrud?" ever. Plus she's one of those singers who can't sound dramatic no matter how hard she tries. The rest of the cast is slightly better but still mediocre; Eva Randova is alright but I have to disagree with the reviewer who described her as portraying a successfully evil Ortrud; she is certainly no Waltraud Meier. Siegmund Nimsgern on the other hand is below average for the sadly underappreciated role of Telramund, so too the past the prime Sotin. But my biggest complain is still the conductor; this is an unusually slow and lackluster effort from Solti, you know something's wrong when this Lohengrin is 4 CDs instead of 3. He has watered down his Wagnerian sound here to the extent that it sounds more like Levine conducting here instead of Solti (and even Levine can be a good Wagner conductor at times).

The Abbado DVD has a VASTLY better Elsa in Cheryl Studer (one of the best Elsas you can get), a very good Hartmut Welker as Telramund, a not so good but still alright Ortrud and Henry and Abbado's terrific conducting (and he has conducted sadly little Wagner operas). His Lohengrin on CD is also very good and one of the best Lohengrins you can get, despite Siegfried Jerusalem not being as good as Domingo you have the best Elsa/Ortrud pairing you'll ever get in Cheryl Studer and Waltraud Meier. There are other fantastic Lohengrin recordings (Kubelik and Sawallisch deserves mention too) and to me Solti's effort is probably not even fit to be in the top 10 of Lohengrin recordings.

I wish that I could give this recording 6 stars, as it deserves it! I think that the cast, orchestra, and conductor say it all: Jessye Norman, Placido Domingo, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, (et al), Vienna Philharmonic, Sir Georg Solti. And, the digtal sound is spectacular.
As for the opera itself, the music foreshadows Wagner's later works in many ways, but still relies heavily on paired, rhyming stanzas (in the text) that get somewhat annoying after a while. Plus, I don't believe that I have ever heard so many brass fanfares and choruses in a single opera. I can't say that this is my favorite opera of all time, but there are certainly moments that are unforgetable and beautiful. I feel that Lohengrin is much more accessible (to the listener) than his other Holy Grail opera--Parsifal.

Everytime I hear Placido Domingo singing Wagner, and this is a new thing because Wagner opera is the latest repertoire in Domingo's career, I feel that without a doubt it is the way Wagner wanted his operas sung. In this recording, Domingo essays the heroic role of the Swan Knight Lohengrin with a balance of dramatic heaviness and lyrical expressiveness. It helps that Domingo does not strain his voice by employing the "Bayreuth bark" nor does he presume to be taking over the fach of such celebrated Wagnerian tenors as Laurence Melchior, Jon Vickers or Wolfgang Windgassen. Domingo is in a class of his own, singing Wagner in a beautiful and dramatically gratifying fashion. Opposite his Lohengrin is soprano Jessye Norman, whose rich dark voice is suited for Wagner - she is the only black soprano to ever sing Wagner other than mezzo soprano Grace Bumbry. Jessye Norman has done a terrific Sieglende and as the heroine Elsa, she is a fiery and majestic lady, on equal grounds (at least vocally) with the tenor. There are times that the combo of Domingo and Norman are somewhat like a Tristan and Isolde duo. This gave me the idea that if Domingo had sung Tristan on stage (he has not or maybe has not YET, though he recorded the role for EMI) he would have been wonderfully paired with Jessye Norman singing Isolde. Norman is in retirement but if she can still deliver the goods, it would be wise if someone pulled her out of retirement to sing the role of Isolde opposite Domingo's Tristan. But this is a fantasy of mine. Another fine member of the cast is baritone Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, as the villain. His voice is dark, lyrical and normally not associated with Wagner. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, this is his first Wagnerian role. Dieskau has a pure bass voice, but he colors his voice so that he can essay a variety of repertoires- from Lieder, to the roles of Don Giovanni, Scarpia, the Count in Mozart's Figaro and others. Dieskau sings German with natural flair and the orchestral forces support him well. George Solti should be lauded for this terrific recording with great sound and orchestral magic. Solti is no stranger to Wagner, being the only conductor in his time to produce the first Ring of the Nibelung studio recording. He conducts Wagner with panoramic intensity and epic grandeur.

This is another comment on a review by Rudy Avila, who seems to write reviews non stop without listening to the recordings. In fact the speed he is writing reviews on opera recordings does not allow him even to look on the cast. Otherwise he would have recognized that it is not Fischer-Dieskau who is singing the "villain" here,
FiDi is singing the "Heerrufer" announcing the king's decisions.
So be careful in believing all what Rudy Avila is telling you in his reviews.
My own opinion on this recording is mixed. Domingo has the right voice for the role, but unfortunately he never managed to show that he really understands when singing German.