[Met Performance] CID:152370



Lohengrin
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, December 30, 1949




Lohengrin (480)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Lohengrin
Kurt Baum

Elsa
Polyna Stoska

Ortrud
Astrid Varnay

Telramund
Herbert Janssen

King Heinrich
Dezs? Ernster

Herald
Frank Guarrera


Conductor
Fritz Stiedry


Director
Dino Yannopoulos

Designer
Joseph Urban





Lohengrin received twelve performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Herbert F. Peyser in Musical America

There was reason to expect a carefully groomed, not to say a completely restudied, "Lohengrin" when Wagner's opera was restored to the Metropolitan repertoire after an absence of almost three years. What one saw and heard, unfortunately, was a performance that, barring a few distinguished features, was largely pedestrian, vocally defective, and marred by some of the most unintelligent stage direction and preposterous lighting to which the Metropolitan has subjected the beautiful work in a long time. And as if these woes were not enough, the curtain developed what was called technical trouble before the last act, causing a halt of several minutes in the proceedings just as the orchestra played the brief anticipation of the bridal chorus which precedes the scene. An announcement was made from the stage, and after a momentary pause things were set aright.

All in all, one had the impression of a performance more or less jinxed. Helen Traubel, who was to have been the Elsa, not having recovered from an indisposition, yielded the role to Polyna Stoska, who likewise had been ill, and whose voice still showed traces of the fact. Neither was Kurt Baum, either vocally or dramatically, more than a well routined representative of the Grail Knight.

On the other hand, Herbert Janssen's Telramund was the authoritative impersonation it has so often been on past occasions; and Deszo Ernster, apart from a certain amount of unsteady singing, bore himself with distinction as King Henry, and delivered the music in becomingly rotund style. Very acceptable, too, was the Herald of Frank Guarrera, whose tones seem to have gained in resonance and volume since he was first heard at the Metropolitan.

The outstanding elements of the evening were the superb Ortrud of Astrid Varnay and the treatment of the score by Fritz Stiedry, whose "Lohengrin" had not yet been experienced here. Miss Varnay was at the top of her form. Her recent "Elektra" seems to have freed her upper tones, and in Ortrud's music these had a luster, a focus, and a vibrancy that gave them a new freshness and impact. Her "Entweihte G?tter," with its thrilling high A sharps, was vocally the peak of the performance, and the prolonged burst of applause that greeted it was heartily deserved. And the final outburst in the closing scene, "Fahr heim! du stolzer Helde!," despite its dangerous tessitura, was delivered without the slightest timidity or attempt to skimp its great phrases. Here was an Ortrud after Wagner's own heart, and fully in the grand tradition.

Mr. Stiedry's reading of the score was on a level with his greatest Wagnerian achievements in sweep of line, lyric beauty, and cherishing treatment of detail. His tempos were at all points logical and fluent. The orchestra played beautifully with respect to tone quality and balance. In the last act, the conductor opened a few cuts which in previous seasons have been alternately in and out of the score. These were the 34 bars at "Dein Lieben muss mir hoch entgelten"; the 24 at "Nie soli dein Reiz entschwinden," in the first scene; and the 20 measures in the second, "Ihr h?rtet Alle, wie sie mir versprochen," shortly before the Grail Narrative. One likes to think it may some day be possible to hear under Mr. Stiedry's baton that almost universally neglected, though psychologically essential ensemble, "0 Elsa! Was hast du mir angethan ?," which adds so incalculably to the grandeur of the scene.

The chorus had a poor evening of it, and sang (especially in the second act) with grievous disregard for the pitch. The lighting and the stage direction of Dino Yannopoulos compared with the most willful and inept one has witnessed at the Metropolitan. A new conceit at the end of the opera was a picture of the Grail dove projected against the heavens, where it remained, fixed and immobile, even after Lohengrin had departed in his skiff without any visible means of locomotion.



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