Today I am pleased to offer to readers
another guest commentary by Mr. Darren Seacliffe, from Singapore. Darren is an
undergraduate student in his early 20's, pursuing a degree in a private
university in Singapore. His interest in both opera and operetta spans a wide
variety of genres, from Rossini to German operetta to Wagner! I will only add
that Mr. Seacliffe's knowledge of opera, especially for one so young, is truly
extraordinary! Today, he presents a
detailed analysis and comparative study of two great Heldentenors, Max Lorenz
and Lauritz Melchior, dwelling principally upon German tenor Max Lorenz!.
Lauritz
Melchior, the Great Dane, is unanimously regarded by most critics and
connoisseurs, especially those in the Anglo-American musical circles, to have
been the greatest Heldentenor of all time. However, in recent years, the name
of another Heldentenor, Max Lorenz, a contemporary of the Great Dane, has been
brought up as an alternative candidate for this illustrious title. Like all
great men, Max Lorenz remains surrounded by controversy even to this very day.
To the Germans, he was the greatest Heldentenor they ever had. To the English
and the Americans, he was an overrated
Heldentenor who supposedly only got his big break because Lauritz Melchior had
abandoned Germany for the US. .
Being the
most prominent representatives of 2 starkly contrasting approaches to
performing Wagner, Max Lorenz and Lauritz Melchior can both be described as
antipodes to one another. A Lauritz
Melchior Wagner performance is a considerably different listening experience from
a Max Lorenz one. A Melchior performance
is like a wandering down a meandering river to Asgard, the world of the gods in Teutonic mythology. With his superhuman stamina and velvety rich
voice, Melchior renders each Heldentenor role he sings deceptively lyrical.
From start to finish, he is able to deliver lyrics so smoothly and easily that
he makes the ‘killer’ roles of Tristan
and Siegfried sound no less difficult than the much more commonly performed
roles of Lohengrin and Siegmund. In comparison, a Max Lorenz performance is
like a bumpy boat trip to Asgard down a surging river current. Lorenz’s singing
may not have been as smooth or as easy on the ear as Lauritz Melchior’s, but I
feel that his interpretations of the great Heldentenor roles gave more life to
the characters he played than Melchior did. As a creature of the stage, Max
Lorenz was more imaginative in his characterization. He was less restrained,
more passionate and showed more conviction in his performances. More importantly,
as a natural tenor, Max Lorenz seemed to have a higher top which made him sound
more powerful and heroic than the baritone-turned-tenor Lauritz Melchior.
With such
different approaches in singing Wagner, one might be inclined to think that Max
Lorenz and Lauritz Melchior had different singing teachers. The truth, however,
was quite different. Both great Heldentenors actually had the same singing
teacher, Ernst Grenzebach. As a result, Lorenz was capable of singing passages
with almost the same amount of smoothness and ease his fellow student did. Listen to
this extract from Lohengrin sung by Max Lorenz with Kate Heidersbach in 1929, and
see if you don’t you find his performance uncannily similar to the one by Melchior. Lorenz’s singing may not be as poetic as
Melchior’s but I feel he sounds slightly more romantic than Melchior in his
interpretation of the role. I find
Lorenz’s performance almost as beautiful and as powerful as Melchior’s classic
version with Lotte Lehmann. Some might
find this Lorenz rendition surprisingly
different from the one they’ve heard. I think one reason could be the fact he
was still using the technique Grenzebach taught him then.
After the
above performance, Max Lorenz’s singing
technique would begin to deviate from the one Grenzebach had taught him. This
was because Max Lorenz always felt that expression was much more important than
the beauty of the sound he made. As the man himself once said, ‘I didn’t care
much if a tone wasn’t absolutely exquisite. For me, expression was the main
thing.’’ To make the dramatic outbursts so typical of his singing, he was
sometimes forced to sacrifice single notes and even the musical line. He would
drag or chop up the lyrics and/or strain his voice from time to time to make a
theatrical statement during his performances. Periodically, he would strain his
voice so much, and it became so raw, that some of the notes he produced came
out ugly or even ridiculous. On top of that, there were some over-generous
helpings of sobbing and declaiming . To the Germans, all these would make his
performances sound more powerful and intense than anybody else’s. To the English
and the Americans, they made them” hammy.”
While the
talent of the great Lauritz Melchior (1890-1973) was discovered relatively
early, Max Lorenz (1901-1975) was, in comparison, a late bloomer. Unlike
Melchior, who sang in a boys’ choir at an English church, Lorenz at one time got
himself thrown out of choir practice for bellowing, roaring and singing
off-key. Despite this early setback, however, he never gave up. His deep love
of singing made him determined to make a career for himself as an opera singer.
Nevertheless, he had to contend with his father’s opposition. Lorenz’s father
felt that a musical education was nothing more than a waste of money so Lorenz
was forced to take his singing lessons on the sly, with the support and
encouragement of his mother. Lorenz initially studied under Prof. Pauli in
Cologne. After failing an audition at the Wiesbaden State Opera House, he
decided to seek further instruction. In spite of his father’s strong
disapproval. However, through the intercession of his mother, Lorenz was able
to go to Berlin where he studied under the highly regarded Ernst Grenzebach,
who would transform this boy into a master singer.
After going
through a rigorous 2-year training regime under the hard taskmaster Grenzebach,
in 1926, Max Lorenz was allowed to take part in a singing competition held by a
popular magazine, where he won first prize. Shortly after, he was given a
contract by Fritz Busch of the Dresden State Opera. During his tenure at the
Dresden State Opera, Lorenz initially sang minor roles like Walther von der
Vogelweide in Tannhauser. It didn’t take long, however, for Lorenz to get his
first big break. After a performance of Richard Strauss’ Salome under the baton of its composer, Strauss was so impressed he
offered Lorenz the technically difficult (but unrewarding) role of Menelaus in the opera Die
Aegyptische Helena. Lorenz was to obtain his first big success in this
role. He continued to prove successful in singing roles from Richard
Strauss’ operas. Some of the roles he sang included Herodes (Salome), Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos) and Aeghist (Elektra).
It’s a great pity that there are no
recordings of Lorenz’s Menelaus, as far as I know. However, fortunately, Lorenz
was captured in his other prime Strauss tenor role, Bacchus, in a 1944
performance of Ariadne staged in
celebration of the composer’s 80th birthday. Here is the best part
of his performance in this opera, the finale with the legendary soprano Maria
Reinin, in the title role:
Lorenz’s
successful performance in Ariadne auf
Naxos took him to the Berlin State Opera and the Vienna State Opera, where
his Radames brought him the attention of the Met’s German wing conductor, Artur
Bodanzky. Bodanzky would later invite Lorenz to sing at the Met, where he would
score his first international success. During Lorenz’s stay at the Met (1931 –
1933), he sang Walther (Die Meistersinger
von Nurnberg), Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Siegmund (Die Walkure) and Siegfried . The Americans were especially taken by
Lorenz’s youthful Siegfried. His success in America was to earn him an
invitation to Bayreuth in 1933, where he would become the finest Heldentenor of
his age. (Note: It’s true that by 1933, Lauritz Melchior was no longer
performing in Bayreuth. There’s a misconception I heard in some quarters that
Max Lorenz only got his chance to perform at Bayreuth because he was the sole
Heldentenor in Germany after Melchior’s departure. This is untrue. There were
still several other great Heldentenors left in Germany like Set Svanholm,
Joachim Sattler and August Seider. Though not as good as Lorenz and Melchior,
they were still first-class.)
Besides
singing Wagner and Strauss, Max Lorenz was known to make periodic excursions
into the non-German operatic repertory. Among his most successful roles in the
non-German operatic repertory were the previously-mentioned Radames (Aida), Don Alvaro (La Forza del Destino) and his most famous role after the great
Wagner tenor roles, Verdi’s Otello. Lorenz was such a successful Otello that he
was repeatedly invited by La Scala to sing the role in Italian there. (Lorenz
would ultimately reject La Scala’s invitation because he felt his Italian
wasn’t good enough to sing Otello in Italy.) Compare that to
Lauritz Melchior, whose repertoire became exclusively limited to Wagner after
his move to the Met. It wasn’t that Melchior couldn’t sing the non-German
operatic repertoire;before Melchior moved to the Met, he sang a few non-German
tenor roles like Otello and Radames in Europe. When he moved to the Met, being
a member of its German wing meant that he wasn’t given the chance to sing anything
but Wagner there.
Unlike Melchior, who was only able to leave a few
selections from Pagliacci, Aida, Otello
and L’Africaine as mementoes of his
work in the non-German repertoire, Max Lorenz was captured in substantially
complete performances of Aida and Un Ballo in Maschera. Sadly, there
aren’t any recordings of his Otello
apart from a few excerpts). Here are samples of his work in each of these
operas. First, the young Max Lorenz’s rendition of “Celeste Aida” in German. It is what I would call
truly heroic. He might not be as
thrilling as in some his later performances but his vocal display demonstrates
considerable power, a portent of a great
dramatic tenor. Notwithstanding his formidable vocal instrument, he was able to
scale it down to sound appropriately delicate and tender in the lyrical moments
of the aria, a feat few other tenors could replicate:
The following
excerpt from Un Ballo is most definitely
unusual. How often do you hear a fully-fledged Heldentenor attempt a lyric
role? At this point, Max Lorenz was already an experienced Siegfried. Though he
may sound throaty here, he absolutely
convinces in the tragic role of Riccardo (Gustavus III) with his tearful
performance. He sounds as though he’s being torn apart by his love for Hilde
Konetzni’s Amelia:
Lorenz’s
arrival in Bayreuth could not have come at a more opportune time for the opera
festival. At that time, Winifred Wagner, the woman in charge of the festival,
was trying to re-establish Bayreuth as the premier venue for Wagner
performances. Furthermore, the festival’s artistic director, Heinz Tietjen, and
its scenic director Emil Pretorius, were trying to stage groundbreaking Wagner
performances that were as near to Wagner’s conception as possible. Combining
heroic stature and a formidable stage presence, Max Lorenz was the man of the
moment, the right man to help them realize these noble aspirations. Heinz
Tietjen was to be the man who would bring about the turning point in Max
Lorenz’s career. For months, he worked with Lorenz for two to three hours every
day, rehearsing every gesture and move with him a hundred times over. Lorenz
would become the finest Heldentenor of his age under his mentorship. He was
proven to be a success at Bayreuth. With his incredibly expressive voice and
his vast reserves of natural energy, Lorenz was the heart and soul of every
performance, leaving a lasting impact on his audiences. People thronged to see
him and he found himself swamped with wedding proposals. (One American lady was
so desperate to marry him that she offered to buy him off his wife for 1
million dollars!)
While Max
Lorenz personified the Wagnerian hero in Bayreuth, in the US, Lauritz Melchior
was keeping the Wagner dream alive and more importantly, helping the Met stay
in business, during the Depression and World War II. Lauritz Melchior’s
reputation has survived largely intact into the modern day because of the
standard-setting excerpts he recorded in the studios of big recording companies
like HMV and RCA Victor, and the considerable number of broadcasts in the Met
archives from his heyday. On the other hand, Max Lorenz’s reputation has proven
vulnerable to the ravages of time. One reason why his reputation didn’t last as
long as Melchior’s did was because until recently, his recordings weren’t as accessible
as Melchior’s. Ever since Melchior’s recordings were first released during his
lifetime, they have been in circulation. In the case of Max Lorenz’s
recordings, as far as I know, they have only been reintroduced to the public
not too long ago. Another reason was that while all of Lauritz Melchior’s
recordings betray no sign of vocal decline, most of Lorenz’s complete performances were from the
period of his vocal decline, namely the period after 1945. The last reason is
because Lorenz has never been well-received by the Anglo-American music critics
who continue to hold sway until today, for reasons that I’ve described earlier.
Max Lorenz’s greatness was lost on them because they couldn’t understand the
words on which he placed so much emphasis in his work.
Siegfried was
the Wagner tenor role which was associated with Max Lorenz during his time at
Bayreuth in the 1930s. According to the great Fischer-Dieskau, Lorenz was the
only one then who had the immediacy, the fiery temperament and conviction
required to play the role. In fact, Lorenz identified so much with the
character that he eventually became one with Siegfried when he was singing the
role. You can hear it for yourself in these two excerpts I’ve selected.Here is Max
Lorenz’s Forging Song, from Siegfried, recorded in 1936, during his prime:
And here is his
rendition of Siegfried’s Narrative from Gotterdammerung,
recorded live under Wilhelm Furtwangler with Ludwig Weber as Hagen. Please bear
with the sound. Note that this performance in 1950 was from Lorenz’s twilight
years:
I can’t deny
that Lauritz Melchior’s version of the Forging Song is easier on the ear and
sweeter but is Lorenz’s version more gripping? Though Lorenz may not sound as
smooth and easy on the ear as Melchior did, with the fire and poetry he imbues
in his performance, his characterization of Siegfried becomes more potent than
Melchior’s. If you watch the documentary on Max Lorenz, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQKmK9EUAjc, you will find a small part of the
Forging Song in better sound. When you listen to it, you can understand how
thrilling his performance could be. Even when Max Lorenz was in his late career,
and though his voice had become rawer and drier, in the more tender and more
delicate parts of the scene, some poetry still shines through in his singing.
In this
performance, I’ll say that Max Lorenz isn’t too far away from the standards
Melchior set in the role. This is no small praise considering the fact that
Melchior was such a successful Tristan that he has become synonymous with the
role.
It’s incredible
how Max Lorenz was able to scale down his loud voice to make his Tristan sound
tortured by love. The way he expresses his feelings for his Isolde, Paula
Buchner, is so sentimental that one can’t help feeling sorry for this
ill-starred pair of lovers. This is truly a first-class rendition of the
heartbreaking duet.
This excerpt
is the best sample of Max Lorenz’s work to show how expressive his singing
could be. In hindsight, it’s true that Max Lorenz’s rendition of the Rome
Narrative from Wagner’s Tannhauser isn’t conventionally beautiful. Even so, you
can’t deny how dramatic it is. I believe that the impassioned nature of his
artistry can be traced to his personality. Though always good for a joke in
company, Lorenz, in private, like Franco Corelli and several other great
singers, was a man plagued by insecurities. He felt the stage compensated for
his innate shyness. If you take this into account, I feel one can understand
why his performances have such an impact on me. A man afflicted with doubt
who drew on the stage for support is an artist well capable of making a
character’s last tormented moments sound sickeningly realistic. The stage is
the means for him to channel his negative feelings. Here, I’m sure Max Lorenz
made full use of that.
The end of
Max Lorenz’s singing career was not the only blow to come to the great singer.
Another blow would come when he lost his wife in 1964. It was a blow from which
he would never recover. After his retirement, Lorenz was to become a mentor
to young singers like Jess Thomas, Jean Cox and most importantly, the great
American Heldentenor, James King, with whom he went through all the major
Wagner tenor roles and to whom he was closest. He also received visits from
former colleagues from time to time. Even so, Lorenz became a very lonely person.
Time was certainly not kind to him. Once he had been the No. 1 Heldentenor in
Germany, now he was reduced to being a nonentity. His reputation has barely
recovered since. If that was not bad enough, he would even find himself
classified as something he had never been: a Nazi singer. The misclassification
unfortunately remains to this very day in some circles. Only Death would release
Max Lorenz from all his woes,on 11 Jan 1975.
To end, if
you’re in the mood for adventure or something extreme, please allow me to
present to you a sample of Lorenz’s work in modern operas from the final stage
of his eminent career. We have a short duet from Berg’s Wozzeck with Christel Goltz. Here, Max Lorenz plays the role of the
boorish Drum Major. Doesn’t his raw and dry voice suit the pungent music? He
makes his voice so harsh that he sounds as crude as his character here.
