Lohengrin has fared very well on discs, and the value of this 1952 studio recording lies primarily in the singing of the title role and the leadership of Eugen Jochum. Lorenz Fehrenberger was a tenor with a huge repertoire (from Tamino to Almaviva to Radames to Lohengrin and more), and while more beautiful voices have recorded the part of Lohengrin–Domingo, the young Siegfried Jerusalem, Sandor Konya–I can’t recall a reading more sensitive to nuance than Fehrenberger’s. He obeys, to the letter, all of Wagner’s dynamic markings, and his sweet singing in the part’s early moments, the Bridal Scene, the farewell, and elsewhere, is as beautiful and filled with tenderness as his heroic singing is potent and memorable. His repeated warnings to Elsa contain a true degree of menace; his championing of her cause is strong and resolute.
Jochum’s leadership is remarkable as well. The public moments have great pageantry, the regal decrees are authoritative, the shimmer before Elsa begins to sing is spine-tingling. He also keeps a certain tautness throughout and the drama unfolds naturally, rolling toward its inevitability. His orchestra plays handsomely; the chorus is not on the same level, particularly in the first act.
Ferdinand Frantz is the Telramund, and he’s a grand-voiced weakling, precisely as threatening as he should be until we hear him with Ortrud: how he shrivels! Ortrud is Helena Braun, an Isolde and Brünnhilde, and her singing is spotless, with no fear of the role’s cruelly high passages. What she isn’t is interesting. Annalies Kupper’s Elsa is girlish and needy, but the voice is an ordinary one, and where incandescence is called for, we get good singing and intelligent phrasing. That should be enough, but Elsa is an odd bird, and we get none of her dreaminess. Comparing her to Elisabeth Grümmer or Gundula Janowitz is unfair to her. And so, this is for Wagner completists, fans of Fehrenberger, or those curious about how all the aspects of the role of Lohengrin should be handled.
