This is for fans of Tiana Lemnitz and Michael Bohnen only. We get highlights from the opera from a l936 Berlin performance sloppily led and equally sloppily sung by Lemnitz and Bohnen respectively; and from a 1939 performance under Hans Knappertsbusch of Agathe’s second act aria (missing the last minute or so) and the Wolf’s Glen scene, also with Lemnitz and Bohnen, but with Franz Volker as Max instead of Marcel Wittrisch, almost equally sloppy. It’s obviously one of those you-hadda-been-there things, since the sound is awful and Bohnen, on the basis of these excerpts, would have had no career at all. When Lemnitz sings, she’s good, even through the murky sound, but it’s not enough. Come to think of it, even fans of Bohnen and Lemnitz won’t need this.
