Polish conductor Marek Janowski is recording all Wagner mature operas for Pentatone to commemorate Wagner´s bicentenary next year (it´s Verdi´s too!). So far he has recorded Meistersinger, Fliegende Hollander, Parsifal and Lohengrin. A new Ring (Janowski already has an early digital cycle with the Dresden Staatskapelle in Eurodisc) Tannhäuser and Tristan are in the works.
All these are being recorded live in concert in the Berlin Philharmonie.
The Berlin Radio Symphony is a competent orchestra, but it´s not the Berlin Philharmonic, and Janowski is a reliable maestro, but the competition is very stiff of course.
First of all, and in spite of the Super Audio sound, I was not impressed with the quality of sound, there are occasional problems with balance between singers and orchestra, and overall the sound should be warmer.
The real interest in this recording is tenor Klaus Florian Vogt, one of the most interesting Wagner singers to appear in recent years. He is not your typical Heldentenor, his is a more lyrical and Italianate voice than usual for Wagner. Wagner of course didn´t compose for Heldentenors, the vocal category didn´t exist in his time, that is something that came much later. The very first Lohengrin was a Donizetti tenor, a tenor with Lucia and Poliuto in his repertoire, so a voice like Vogt´s shouldn´t be ruled out. Besides, his luminous, light tone and his musicianship make him a perfect knight.
My favourite Lohengrins are the Abbado and Kempe recordings. Abbado has a masterful grip of the score, and he is blessed with a wonderful tenor: Siegfried Jerusalem, and if you add the Vienna Philharmonic and excellent digital sound (it´s much better recorded than this new one), that´s probably the Lohengrin to have. Then there´s the Kubelik, also in DG and very well recorded for it´s time, but somehow James King is a rather dull knight.
Even more dull is Johan Botha in the recent Bychkov recording. And it´s a great pity because Bychkov conducts a more magisterial and dramatic Lohengrin than Janowski, and he is much better recorded too, if only he had had Klaus Florian Vogt.
