Rudolf Kempe's strengths as a Wagner conductor are fully displayed in this recording. He can make quite extreme (though never exaggerated contrasts of speed seem perfectly natural. Only in the accelerating tempo of the final stages of Act 1 do we sense a degree of impatience with one of Wagner's more repetitive ensembles, and only in the slightly awkward change of gear between the brief orchestral postlude to Lohengrin's Act 3 monologue ''In fernem Land'' and the ensuing ensemble does the flow seem less than spontaneous. Moreover, Kempe performs the work in full, without those cuts (principally in the later stages of Act 3) which remove some relatively routine music but excise vital passages of text and severely damage the formal proportions of the dramahs denouement.
Kempe's Lohengrin has the further advantage of an excellent mid-1960s cast. Elisabeth Grummer's Elsa has never been surpassed for its projection of dreamy innocence turning to petulant bewilderment and ultimate despair. As Telramund, Fischer-Dieskau balances anger and anguish in a way that is vivid dramatically and distinguished vocally, while Christa Ludwig gives a virtuoso display of singing—Martha Modl-like—as much across Ortrud's words as through them: mannered, but also memorable. Gottlob Frick may not reach all King Henry's higher notes without strain, but the character's nobility and humanity are unmistakable: and Otto Wiener is a suitably forthright, if rather dry-voiced Herald.
In the title-role Jess Thomas has vocal honey as well as steel, and much of the character's blend of vulnerability and authority comes across. Less, perhaps, than in Thomas's earlier, 1962 Bayreuth performance under Sawallisch on Philips (6747 241, 7/76—nla). In that recording (with the usual Bayreuth cuts) there was that much more space round the voices, and while the digitally remastered sound on HMV is fresh and clean, it cannot transform the relatively narrow range of the original, with chorus and orchestra very subordinate to the rather close, confined solo voices. Not surprisingly, all the principals sound effortful at times under these studio conditions, and this is one reason why Thomas may seem rather too matter-of-fact in places, compared with Rene Kollo under Karajan on the full-price HMV set (SLS5237, 1/83) or Wolfgang Windgassen on the 1953 Bayreuth set under Josef Keilberth which was AB's personal preference the last time he surveyed the field (Decca France 411 780-1, 4/85). There are nevertheless no serious blemishes in this welcome reissue, and the overall interpretation, under Kempe's alert and sensitive guidance, has a generous measure of theatrical immediacy and tension.'