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Lohengrin
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, January 18, 1950
Lohengrin (482)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
- Lohengrin
- Set Svanholm
- Elsa
- Polyna Stoska
- Ortrud
- Blanche Thebom
- Telramund
- Herbert Janssen
- King Heinrich
- Dezs? Ernster
- Herald
- Frank Guarrera
- Conductor
- Fritz Stiedry
Photograph of a scene from Lohengrin with Set Svanholm in the title role and Blanche Thebom as Ortrud.
Review 1:
Francis D. Perkins in the Herald Tribune
“Lohengrin” at Metropolitan
There were two important changes of cast in the third performance of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” at the Metropolitan Opera house last night. The title role was assumed for the first time here by Set Svanholm and Blanche Thebom sang Ortrud for the first time on any stage. The otherwise familiar cast included Polyna Stoska as Elsa, Herbert Janssen as Telramund, Deszo Ernster as King Henry, and Frank Guarrera as the King’s Herald. Mr. Stiedry again conducted.
Although Mr. Svanholm’s tenor voice is not an ideal one for the delivery of Lohengrin’s music, wanting in the melting quality essential for a convincing account of its more lyric pages, he invested many of the outspokenly dramatic passages with gleaming sounds and sang with unfailing musical intelligence.
As Ortrud, Miss Thebom proved worthy of following in the footsteps of some of the finest delineations of this exacting role who have appeared at the Metropolitan. Her voice has the wide range necessary to encompass its taxing tessitura, including the power and brilliancy demanded for a triumphal traversal of the invocation to the pagan gods in the second act. Her acting, too, was thoroughly convincing in its amalgam of malevolence, wile, assumed abjection and demoniacal fury.
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