Wagner: Lohengrin 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		0.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

Wagner: Lohengrin 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

He who must not be named.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 13, 2017

Both Luchino Visconti’s Ludwig and the Richard Burton film and miniseries Wagner amply documented the relationship between iconic German composer Richard Wagner and King Ludwig II of Bavaria, depicting the kind of weird fascination Ludwig had for the musician and how that particular obsession actually helped Wagner achieve a modicum of stability which allowed him to write some of his grandiose pieces. There are some interesting, perhaps slightly more subliminal, connections between Ludwig and Wagner, and one of them is an edifice I mentioned in the first paragraph of my Ludwig Blu-ray review, the “fairy tale castle” of Neuschwanstein. Neuschwanstein is no stranger to films, having been featured prominently in a number of properties like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but its very name hints at a linkage to one of Wagner’s most epic operas, Lohengrin. Etymologists may be able to discern that Neuschwanstein might be translated as “new swan stone”, and it’s that “swan” part that provides the first tether to Lohengrin, and actually not just that particular opera. The character of Lohengrin is culled, like many of the personnel in various Wagner operas, from German folklore and myth, and is part of a genre known as Knight of the Swan tales. That graceful amphibious bird assumes an almost totemic role in both Lohengrin, first produced in 1850, and Wagner’s later take on some of the same source material, 1882’s Parsifal. Both of these temporally distant operas share a basis in stories by Wolfram von Eschenbach, but as I have discussed in several of my reviews of Wagner operas, Wagner tended to work in whatever influences may have been wafting through his considerable mind at any given moment. Lohengrin’s dense subtext doesn’t ultimately weigh down some of Wagner’s most sublime music, including one of his “greatest hits”, the Bridal Chorus, which in its guise as “Here Comes the Bride” has ushered many an excited female down the aisle to stand next to her soon to be husband.

Kind of interestingly given Wagner’s penchant for dealing only in larger than life mythological characters, the beginning of Lohengrin seems almost mundane, at least by traditional Wagnerian standards, with King Heinrich (Georg Zeppenfeld) trying to unify his Germanic troops to prevent a Hungarian incursion. That “workaday” ambience soon gives way to the ultimately very mythological aspect of the opera, when Heinrich is asked to be a Solomon of sorts, settling a dispute as to a missing duke. The duke’s sister Elsa (Anna Netrebko) has been accused of having done away with her young brother in order to assume power in the duchy herself, an accusation leveled by Freidrich von Telramund (Tomasz Konieczny). When Heinrich proposes a battle to settle things, Elsa is asked whom she’d like to fight on her behalf, and she tells of a vision of a knight she has had, and she prays that this figure is her savior.

It takes a little heavenly coaxing, but lo and behold a swan borne knight named Lohengrin (Piotr Beczala) does in fact arrive and he vanquishes Telramund, though he stops short of taking his nemesis’ life. Ultimately Telramund and his scheming pagan wife Ortrud (Evelyn Herlitzius) are banished, but Ortrud, this opera’s quasi-Lady Macbeth, plots to get her husband back into power while also simultaneously attempting to get Elsa to violate the one rule that Lohengrin insisted upon before fighting on Elsa’s behalf — Elsa must never ask his name. There’s some subliminal content here that may spark thoughts of fairy tales like Rumplestiltskin or more serious religious texts that discuss the “unspeakable name” of God, or even other religious traditions that aver that speaking the “true name” of a God gives one power over him or her.

The major conflict in this piece revolves around whether Ostrud can get Elsa to defy Lohengrin’s request (demand?), something that might seem to suggest a certain lack of passion in the dramatics. That of course would be a misconception, for as usual Wagner’s penetrating analysis of psychology informs the characters to a surprisingly “human” degree, despite the inescapably larger than life ambience of the story.

This Lohengrin was hotly anticipated due to its focal stars, both making their Wagnerian debuts, but perhaps just as much (if not more) due to conductor Christian Thielemann. I’ve long championed Thielemann’s Beethoven cycle on Blu-ray (Beethoven: Symphonies 1-3, Beethoven: Symphonies 4-6, Beethoven: Symphonies 7-9), and he makes an auspicious “debut” on 4K UHD with his electrifying account of this gargantuan score. The singing here is routinely superb, but it’s Thielemann’s shaping of the orchestral underpinnings, as well as the Vorspiels that really caught my ear and made this a memorable listening experience.

In my Parsifal review linked above, I mentioned how Wagner, often seen as the champion, or even patron saint, of tonalities pushed to their breaking points started that opera with a very traditional outlining of an Ab triad. Interestingly (at least for music theory geeks like myself), Wagner offers a pretty diatonic sounding triad in A for at least the first couple of measures of Lohengrin’s first Vorspiel, and while he does soon detour off into various chromatic excesses, there’s still a very strong feeling of tonality. (In fact the aforementioned Bridal Chorus is another great example of Wagner toeing the diatonic line, at least some of the time.)

Wagner: Lohengrin 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lohengrin is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon with a 2160p transfer in 1.78:1. May I just reiterate the music geekdom alluded to above in the main body of the review by stating how cool it was to see the iconic DG logo in all its UHD glory at the start of this presentation. DG always was the "gold standard" (no pun intended, given the color of that logo) for classical recordings when I was a kid growing up, and their presentation here suggests that they're moving into the 4K UHD world with standards intact. This release does not include a 1080p Blu-ray (there's evidently a standalone Blu-ray release available), so I can't comment on any differences between the 1080 and 2160 presentations (the lack of a Blu-ray disc also accounts for the fact that this review doesn't include screenshots). That said, this is a rather impressively sharp and well detailed looking transfer, one that boasts pretty impeccable shadow detail (you can clearly see Thielemann making his entrance from the catacombs behind the pit at the beginning, despite an absence of any light and most people, including Thielemann, wearing black). Detail levels are uniformly very high, showing some of the artifice in the production like the gelatin meant to be window panes or even the makeup on various performers. Textures on costumes, which often feature elaborate elements like fringe or beading, is virtually palpable, even in some midrange shots. Despite my player not showing HDR, the palette on this release is also quite sumptuous, with things like the reds that Lohengrin wears popping extremely well.

Wagner: Lohengrin 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lohengrin features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0 and an LPCM 2.0 track, both of which offer sterling fidelity and remarkable dynamic range. The surround track has some excellent directionality, with some of the choral immersion especially impressive. The Staatskapelle Dresden sounds fantastic throughout, with the brass section in particular reverberating with considerable force (the heraldic calls in the first scene are especially notable, no pun intended). My one issue with the surround track is with regard to the mix — as sometimes tends to be the case with live performances, I simply found the voices to not be forward enough in the mix quite a bit of the time. Netrebko's entire first scene just sounds overly "wet" and/or spacious, with none of the focus that is noticeable in the obviously narrower stereo version. This issue tends to arise in both solos and duets, but ameliorates at least somewhat in larger choral moments.

Wagner: Lohengrin 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Aside from a nicely appointed insert booklet, the only ostensible "supplement" on this disk is a menu option of "Weblinks", which simply takes you to a static page with a couple of URLs for various Deutsche Grammophon related sites. I frankly don't consider that a scorable supplement.

Wagner: Lohengrin 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As I mentioned in my Parsifal review, sometimes it's best to not worry to much about what any given Wagner opera "means" and to simply go with the (swan?) flow. That's probably the case with Lohengrin, too, since it's another weighty philosophical diatribe whose imagery is opaque at best and downright confounding at worst. The magical realist underpinnings of the opera play surprisingly well with Wagner's gargantuan musical proclivities, and this production has both excellent singing and playing as well as a handsome physical presence. Technical merits are strong, and this 4K UHD release comes Highly recommended.