Max Lorenz: Wagner's Mastersinger, Hitler's (Gay) Siegfried

Made for German (SWR) and Austrian (ORF) television, "Wagners Meistersinger, Hitlers Siegfried - Auf den Spuren von Max Lorenz" (the title and subtitle are reversed in English to "Max Lorenz: Wagner's Mastersinger, Hitler's Siegfried") makes the case for the supremacy of Max Lorenz (1901-1975) as the premier heldentenor (heroic tenor) in the German-speaking world during the "thousand-year Reich" and the decade after its end. (In North America, Lauritz Melchior was the premier heldentenor, though Lorenz did sing at the Metropolitan Opera both before and after WWII.) A fixture at Bayreuth as Siegfried, there is audio evidence (radio broadcasts and a tv appearance) that Lorenz was a mighty Verdi singer as well as the Wagnerian hero of choice of, among others, Adolf Hitler.

As is mentioned in passing, Hitler himself banned Lorenz from Bayreuth after Lorenz was caught in flagrante delicto with a young man at Bayreuth. Winnifred Wagner, the widow of Richard Wagner's gay son Siegfried and as fervent a Nazi as Hitler said that without Lorenz she would have to shutter Bayreuth and the case went away.

As if being gay were not enough of an impediment to surviving in Nazi Germany, Lorenz had a Jewish wife, Charlotte (Lotte) Appel, whom he depended upon in ways other than sexual ones. With the assistance of Hermann G¶ring (through G¶ring's sister), the SS was ordered to leave both Lotte and her mother alone.

The drama of protecting the two Jewish women is covered in detail, Lorenz's homosexuality ignored except for the 1937 case. Neither the film-makers nor the singers who discuss Lorenz for them delve into his sexuality, not even to how it affected his interpretations of Siegfried, Tristan, Ramades, Otello, et al.

In the video footage Lorenz looks like a big queen, by which I mean both bulky (a big chest held a lot of air!) and fey. An idealized Lorenz appeared frequently in illustrations by gay art nouveau painter Franz Stassen (1869-1949) who had been a good friend of Siegfried Wagner. The cover photo (shown here) looks dandyish and limp-wristed to me.

I am more interested in how Lorenz managed to survive and flourish (and save his wife and mother-in-law) than in watching singers listening to recordings of Lorenz. Hilde Zadek Ren© Kollo, Waldemar Kmentt, and (especially) Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau have discerning things to say about Lorenz's "clarion" voice and "pouncing on the notes, and the recordings are compelling, even for someone like me for whom a little Wagner goes a long way. I thought the staging that was included was ultra-kitschy, but Lorenz's singing from "Rienzi" and "Otello" made me understand the esteem in which he was held by great German singers as well as operaphiles.

The brief documentary is packaged with a CD of previously unreleased recording of parts (Act I and "Forest Murmurs" from Act II) of a live "Siegfried" made in Buenos Aires in 1938, conducted by Erich Kleiber. The sound engineering is hideous, but one can still hear Lorenz's passion through the scratches. I don't know if it is remasterable, but it leaves a lot to desire.

As does the documentary, though it succeeds in introducing Lorenz to a new generation and whetting the appetite for more'"more information about his life and more recordings of his singing. (See trailer here.)