I love Lohengrin as I do with all of Wagner's operas. It is not my favourite of his(Tristan, closely followed by Meistersinger), but the music is some of his most beautiful and it is perhaps his most accessible. There are about eight DVDs of Lohengrin about, and all have reasons for watching them. The best is the Peter Hofmann/Karan Armstrong production. The Vienna, Met, Herzog and Baden Baden productions are very good, while the 2009 Jonas Kaufmann production is one that perplexes visually but is very well done musically. Likewise with the 2011 Bayreuth production, and while not on DVD last year's La Scala production also falls in this category.
Of those eight, it is this one from Peter Konwitschny that fares least for me. By all means there are definitely a lot of things that are good about it(it is certainly better than his awful 2005 Don Carlos with Ramon Vargas in the title role) there are also things that don't work.
The costumes and sets did work well within the action-in-a-classroom concept but lacked some kind of colour and life. I did Konwitschny tried very hard with making the most of the limited space on the stage, but with the space as limited as that and with lots of people much of the action seemed very cluttered and the sword fights with the wooden swords seemed awkward. The touch at the end with Gottfried was lost on me I'm afraid as well. Konwitschny does tell a story and the rapport and relationships between and with the characters are superb, but I am just not sure whether that story was Lohengrin.
While I did think the performances were excellent generally, I was underwhelmed by John Treleaven in the title role. By all means it is vastly superior to his Tristan and Siegfried, but I just here didn't ever warm to his rather bleaty sound and it was difficult to tell whether he was trying to behave like a schoolboy or a grown-up. To me it seemed like an uncomfortable hybrid of both.
Musically with Treleaven apart, it really does help in making a visually unappealing production(for me, I can understand if it works for others though) worth the viewing. The orchestral playing is both lush and powerful, the chorus are ethereal and communicative and Sebastian Weigle shows authority and a love for the score that he didn't show for the 2008 Bayreuth production of Meistersinger.
Emily Magee is a wonderful Elsa, she sings with a rich but also attractive sound and her acting is noble and poignant. Luana DeVol does have a vibrato that does get rather troublesome(not as much as Treleaven's) but her commanding vocal production and thrilling stage presence make for a foxy but nasty Ortrud. Hans-Joachim Ketelsen's Telramund is performed with lots of irony and with a voice that is up to the demands of the role without getting too melodramatic at the top. Reinhard Hagen's Heinrich brims with authority both in acting and in voice, and he is wholly convincing in the teacher role that Heinrich is in this production. Robert Bork's Herald is also commendable.
Overall, not for everybody. I thought it was very strong musically, but apart from an intriguing concept how the production was executed visually just got lost on me. 6/10 Bethany Cox
Of those eight, it is this one from Peter Konwitschny that fares least for me. By all means there are definitely a lot of things that are good about it(it is certainly better than his awful 2005 Don Carlos with Ramon Vargas in the title role) there are also things that don't work.
The costumes and sets did work well within the action-in-a-classroom concept but lacked some kind of colour and life. I did Konwitschny tried very hard with making the most of the limited space on the stage, but with the space as limited as that and with lots of people much of the action seemed very cluttered and the sword fights with the wooden swords seemed awkward. The touch at the end with Gottfried was lost on me I'm afraid as well. Konwitschny does tell a story and the rapport and relationships between and with the characters are superb, but I am just not sure whether that story was Lohengrin.
While I did think the performances were excellent generally, I was underwhelmed by John Treleaven in the title role. By all means it is vastly superior to his Tristan and Siegfried, but I just here didn't ever warm to his rather bleaty sound and it was difficult to tell whether he was trying to behave like a schoolboy or a grown-up. To me it seemed like an uncomfortable hybrid of both.
Musically with Treleaven apart, it really does help in making a visually unappealing production(for me, I can understand if it works for others though) worth the viewing. The orchestral playing is both lush and powerful, the chorus are ethereal and communicative and Sebastian Weigle shows authority and a love for the score that he didn't show for the 2008 Bayreuth production of Meistersinger.
Emily Magee is a wonderful Elsa, she sings with a rich but also attractive sound and her acting is noble and poignant. Luana DeVol does have a vibrato that does get rather troublesome(not as much as Treleaven's) but her commanding vocal production and thrilling stage presence make for a foxy but nasty Ortrud. Hans-Joachim Ketelsen's Telramund is performed with lots of irony and with a voice that is up to the demands of the role without getting too melodramatic at the top. Reinhard Hagen's Heinrich brims with authority both in acting and in voice, and he is wholly convincing in the teacher role that Heinrich is in this production. Robert Bork's Herald is also commendable.
Overall, not for everybody. I thought it was very strong musically, but apart from an intriguing concept how the production was executed visually just got lost on me. 6/10 Bethany Cox
