Opéra National de Lyon - DVD & Blu-ray videos

“Nikolaus Lehnhoff's new Lohengrin is a calculated distillation of both the work's dramatic contents and its production history. The hand of his old master Wieland Wagner lies beneficially over the outer acts' terraced ranks of Brabantine courtiers and Saxon soldiers, as it does on the chessboard movements of the principals around a central disc. (The sets here are by the noted German architect Stephan Braunfels, whose recreation of a giant Svoboda staircase for the Act 2 processions is memorable.) The (swanless) appearance and departure of Lohengrin into a thin, central beam of light recall the imagery of Bayreuth's recent Keith Warner/Stefanos Lazaridis staging, while the promotion of Elsa to a constantly onstage narrator/dreamer continues an idea of Götz Friedrich's in an earlier Bayreuth production. Yet, although Bettina Walter's costumes are modern-ish – somewhere between Juan Carlos's ceremonial Spain and a Hollywood Prisoner of Zenda – Lehnhoff's direction, as always, remains narrative-based and essentially traditional. Only once, in the bridal chamber scene of Act 3 does this director allow himself a conceit, showing Lohengrin, Wagner-like, at a reversed keyboard piano, composing and playing the wedding march. It's a strange and acute image, revealing at a stroke the hero's narcissistic and chauvinistic self-absorption. Lehnhoff's accumulation of images is trenchantly delivered onstage by his two leading ladies, both wide-ranging, attention-holding actresses: Kringelborn in her vocal prime, strong, pure, never forcing; Meier in her vocal Indian summer, strong, impure, sometimes forcing, but always wholly in the service of this sexy, brainy Ortrud. Vogt, in his silver-blue zoot suit, is a charismatic enigma (hence ideal for this role), an apparently super-light voice but one with both stamina and sustaining power. The lower male voices also make their mark: Fox creates sympathy for this Macbeth without a brain; Trekel's Herald has power and attitude; König is a subtly eponymous, weak liberal Henry. The chorus(es) sound undernourished, acting better than they keep together (in the tricky vocal helter- skelter of Lohengrin's arrival) with the pit. It sounds like early days for Kent Nagano at maintaining pace and flow through the weighty fourin- a-bar recitative-like passages. Thomas Grimm gets his cameras in close, leaving the singers to track reactions to solo utterances but missing some crucial interplay. Within a natural sound spectrum, some tweaking has been done to pull out solo lines in ensemble, but the emotions of Lehnhoff's vision ring true and will give pleasure.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Elsa remains constantly onstage to narrate and to dream. The cast includes the sexy, brainy Ortrud of Waltraud Meier and the controversially light-toned Klaus Florian Vogt in the title-role.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2010

“The whole show takes its tone from Alagna's lovable Nemorino” BBC Music Magazine, January 2010

“Frank Dunlop's witty, unvarnished view of Donizetti's country comedy, updated to the 1930s, is delightful to see, wondrous to hear.
Gheorghiu and Alagna make an ideal partnership as capricious girl and shy bumpkin. They both act and sing their roles to near perfection in a staging that exposes the heart and heartlessness as much as the fun of this work.
Singing with every care for tone and nuance, Gheorghiu presents Adina as by turns, haughty, flighty, concerned, annoyed when the other girls paw him, and finally tender when love at last triumphs, and she finds the vocal equivalent for each mood. Not so versatile vocally, but always tidy and responsive to the text, Alagna makes an attractively naive, emotionally vulnerable Nemorino.
Scaltriti's Belcore is made deliberately unsympathetic by Dunlop and at times he seems to be overblowing his basically attractive voice. There need be no reservations about Alaimo's witty yet genial Dulcamara: all the buffo elements of the part are there but never exaggerated. Evelino Pidò conducts a trim account of the score, his often fast speeds justified by the way his singers enjoy them in terms of athletic delivery. Brian Large's video direction is predictably exemplary. The sound and widescreen picture make us feel present at an obviously enjoyable night at the opera.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Elsa remains constantly onstage to narrate and to dream. The cast includes the sexy, brainy Ortrud of Waltraud Meier and the controversially light-toned Klaus Florian Vogt in the title-role.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2010

“Nikolaus Lehnhoff's new Lohengrin is a calculated distillation of both the work's dramatic contents and its production history. The hand of his old master Wieland Wagner lies beneficially over the outer acts' terraced ranks of Brabantine courtiers and Saxon soldiers, as it does on the chessboard movements of the principals around a central disc. (The sets here are by the noted German architect Stephan Braunfels, whose recreation of a giant Svoboda staircase for the Act 2 processions is memorable.) The (swanless) appearance and departure of Lohengrin into a thin, central beam of light recall the imagery of Bayreuth's recent Keith Warner/Stefanos Lazaridis staging, while the promotion of Elsa to a constantly onstage narrator/dreamer continues an idea of Götz Friedrich's in an earlier Bayreuth production.
Yet, although Bettina Walter's costumes are modern-ish – somewhere between Juan Carlos's ceremonial Spain and a Hollywood Prisoner of Zenda – Lehnhoff's direction, as always, remains narrative-based and essentially traditional. Only once, in the bridal chamber scene of Act 3 does this director allow himself a conceit, showing Lohengrin, Wagner-like, at a reversed keyboard piano, composing and playing the wedding march. It's a strange and acute image, revealing at a stroke the hero's narcissistic and chauvinistic self-absorption.
Lehnhoff's accumulation of images is trenchantly delivered onstage by his two leading ladies, both wide-ranging, attention-holding actresses: Kringelborn in her vocal prime, strong, pure, never forcing; Meier in her vocal Indian summer, strong, impure, sometimes forcing, but always wholly in the service of this sexy, brainy Ortrud. Vogt, in his silver-blue zoot suit, is a charismatic enigma (hence ideal for this role), an apparently super-light voice but one with both stamina and sustaining power. The lower male voices also make their mark: Fox creates sympathy for this Macbeth without a brain; Trekel's Herald has power and attitude; König is a subtly eponymous, weak liberal Henry. The chorus(es) sound undernourished, acting better than they keep together (in the tricky vocal helter- skelter of Lohengrin's arrival) with the pit. It sounds like early days for Kent Nagano at maintaining pace and flow through the weighty fourin- a-bar recitative-like passages.
Thomas Grimm gets his cameras in close, leaving the singers to track reactions to solo utterances but missing some crucial interplay.
Within a natural sound spectrum, some tweaking has been done to pull out solo lines in ensemble, but the emotions of Lehnhoff's vision ring true and will give pleasure.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010