Taut Conviction Wagner's 'Lohengrin' - reviewed by ROBERT ANDERSON '... a delight to watch.'

This Baden-Baden production is sufficiently muddle-headed not to trouble the music. As stage director, Nikolaus Lehnhoff has rightly observed that in Solveig Kringelborn he has an Elsa who may indeed be fatally inquisitive but is so visually captivating that in the prelude she may as well play the part of the grail itself. Her gradual emanation from the shadows is a delight to watch [DVD1 chapter 2, 2:59-4:37]. Perhaps she is dreaming of the grail or indeed its knight, who will defend her against the appalling charge of fratricide. In this matter she is monomaniac against all odds, as was Chaplain's Hitler, when he played with the world-balloon to the same accompaniment.

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