[Met Performance] CID:124070



Lohengrin
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, November 26, 1938




Lohengrin (423)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Lohengrin
Lauritz Melchior

Elsa
Lotte Lehmann

Ortrud
Dorothee Manski

Telramund
Julius Huehn

King Heinrich
John Gurney

Herald
George Cehanovsky


Conductor
Erich Leinsdorf


Director
Leopold Sachse

Designer
Joseph Urban





Lohengrin received eleven performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Olin Downes in The New York Times

Melchior in "Lohengrin"

The Metropolitan closed the first week of its new season with honor. Last night's "Lohengrin" found the whole cast in good voice, the orchestra and conductor on the alert. There was about the entire performance the freshness born, perhaps, of renewed appreciation of a work that will soon reach its hundredth year.

"Lohengrin," with its finest lyricism and sharp characterization, can almost play itself across the footlights with a few reasonably respectable voices and a little thoughtful acting. But there was more than this last night.

From the aspect of vocal interpretation, Lotte Lehmann's Elsa is one of the best things the Metropolitan offers. It is a broadly melodious part peculiarly suited to Miss Lehmann, who is, it is pertinent to add here, a lieder singer of exceptional insight. Mr. Melchior, in splendid voice, was a more than fitting companion to an inspiring Elsa. This is a role whose heroic conception and execution are familiar enough to dispense with without further comment.

Dorothee Manski's Ortrud, satisfactorily sung, was not quite vivid enough a characterization to bring to complete effectiveness the sharp relationships between it and its two principal foils, Elsa and Telramund. An Ortrud of proper malevolence should heighten in contrast, and endow with greater dramatic force the white innocence of Elsa, as well as the vacillation and cowardice of the Telramund. The active influence in this triangle were last night somewhat two-sided, Mr. Huehn's Telramund contributing a persuasive portrait. This is a role that has grown notably since last season. John Gurney's King Henry was good to hear and George Cehanovsky sang the Herald with proper pomp.

Aside from some wry intonation in the woodwind (which was a matter of preliminary tuning, not technique) the orchestra behaved beautifully under Mr. Leinsdorf's vigilant direction. It is a treat to watch this young man send cues all over the pit and stage with a cool and unerring hand, and it is even pleasanter to attend his sane musicianship.



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