This exquisitely recorded performance is of a concert in Berlin in 2011. As early as the Prelude the quality of the audio shines: the separation of the strings is spotless and crystal-clear, the gradual crescendo and decrescendo do not miss a note, and the music, as it should, shimmers in mid air. And so it goes throughout the performance—strings are vibrant (although I wondered if Janowski was using the full complement at times), brass is brilliant, off-stage music sounds genuinely off-stage, ensembles are transparent. In addition, the orchestra and chorus play and sing not only beautifully but with great attention to dynamics and subtleties. Unfortunately, aside from the technical side, it’s all a rather routine affair, and some of the singing is sub-par.
Klaus Florian Vogt, whose Lohengrin is currently available on, I believe, two DVD performances, is a Mozartean tenor in a Wagnerian—albeit a “young” Wagnerian—role. His singing is outstandingly beautiful and sensitive, and you get used to the small-but-gleaming sound after a while: it is easy to revel in the sheer loveliness and intelligence of his voice and reading. Lohengrin is supposed to be otherworldy, and Vogt’s sound certainly is; that having been said, most Wagnerians may find him wanting. (He is brilliant on an Opus Arte DVD under Kent Nagano.) The above description may seem contradictory—he’s wrong for Wagner but his performance is wonderful—but there you have it.
Annette Dasch’s Elsa is not one for the books: the voice seems a bit too small as well, and she does not let us feel the girl’s sadness or desperation. You’re getting the point, I presume: this is an intimate, young-sounding Lohengrin. Well, sort of: Susanne Resmark as Ortrud is just over-parted—her high notes fly sharp and are ugly (almost no mezzo gets out of this role alive, really, save Christa Ludwig and Petra Lang)—and Gerd Grochowski’s Telramund also has to reach for the part’s higher notes. You sort of know you’re in trouble in this opera when you wait for the King’s every utterance, here in the person of Günther Groissböck.
As good as this recording “sounds”, if it seems as if I’m dismissing it, I am. It cannot come close to the Kempe on EMI which hands down is the best available, nor can one dismiss the beautiful singing of Jessye Norman and Placido Domingo under Solti on Decca. Vogt fascinates: try the DVD with Nagano.
