Knight Watchmen: David Breckbill compares the only known recordings of ‘Lohengrin’ by two leading mid-20th century Wagnerians

Reviews of Lohengrin, conducted Knappertsbusch, Munich, 1963 (Orfeo, 3 CDs); Lohengrin, conducted Böhm, Vienna, 1965 (Orfeo, 3 CDs).

July 2016, Volume 10, Number 2, 69–73.

The first of these releases demonstrates yet again, if any proof were needed, that the archives can continue to spill forth previously unknown and undreamt-of treasures. The Wagnerian legacy of Hans Knappertsbusch would seem to have been well mined, but even Jonathan Brown’s conscientious documentation of the conductor’s recorded legacy found no trace f this performance from late in his career, a production by the Bavarian State Opera given in Munich’s Prinzregententheater only weeks before the post-war re-opening of the Staatsoper itself.