[Met Performance] CID:153080



Lohengrin
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, March 4, 1950




Lohengrin (485)
Richard Wagner | Richard Wagner
Lohengrin
Max Lorenz

Elsa
Rose Bampton

Ortrud
Margaret Harshaw

Telramund
Alexander Sved

King Heinrich
Dezsö Ernster

Herald
Frank Guarrera


Conductor
Fritz Stiedry







Review 1:

Jerome D. Bohm in the Herald Tribune

“Lohengrin” at Metropolitan

 

The sixth and final performance of the season of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” at the Metropolitan Opera House Saturday night brought with it the first appearance here in the title role of Max Lorenz and the first season assumption of the role of Elsa by Rose Bampton. Alexander Sved replaced Herbert Janssen as Telramund, and the Ortrud was Margaret Harshaw. Frank Guarrera was again the King’s Herald, and Fritz Stiedry conducted.

 

When at his best, in certain portions of the first and third acts, Mr. Lorenz’s tenor voice was freely projected, and he sang expressively.  But too often he sang throatily, and his vocalism and style were marred by excessive slithering from tone to tone.

 

Of the three Elsas heard this season, Miss Bampton’s proved by far the most convincing, both visually and tonally. She delivered her music with almost unerring adherence to a vocal line, singing with an apposite admixture of poetic tenderness and passion, reflecting these attributes as well in her acting. Miss Harshaw’s Ortrud is the peer of Miss Varnay’s and Miss Thebom’s in sheer vocal power but not in expressive subtlety or dramatic cogency. As Telramund, Mr. Sved sang mouthily and in exaggeratedly declamatory fashion.



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