Max Lorenz: Wagner's Mastersinger - Hitler's Siegfried DVD & CD Set / Recorded live in Buenos Aires in 1938 (mono) / Produced by Paul Smaczny and frank Gerdes / DVD

Format: NTSC

Run time: 128 Minutes

UPC: 880242569288

• Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.33:1
• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
• Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.75 x 5.75 x 0.53 inches; 5.6 Ounces
• Director ‏ : ‎ Eric Schulz, Claus Wischmann
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ Multiple Formats, Color, Full Screen, NTSC, Classical
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 53 minutes
• Release date ‏ : ‎ January 27, 2009
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Max Lorenz, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Klaus Geitel, Walter Herrmann, Waldermar Kmentt
• Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ German, English, French, Spanish
• Language ‏ : ‎ German (PCM Stereo)
• Studio ‏ : ‎ EuroArts
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 2

Max Lorenz was at the height of his career as a heldentenor in 1941. As a homosexual with a Jewish wife in Nazi Germany, who also protected his wife s mother, he would have faced deportation. However, as Hitler s favourite tenor and a symbol of his times, he was able to survive due to the protection of Hitler and Göring. This gripping, well-researched documentary which is nominated for the FIPA festival boasts original footage of Max Lorenz, Haus Wahnfried and Hitler s visits to Bayreuth (e.g. the first coloured picture of Hitler). Includes interviews with great artists such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and René Kollo. Includes a bonus CD with previously unreleased material of Max Lorenz.

In this 2008 documentary for Swiss television, producers Eric Schulz and Claus Wischmann take a fascinating look at the principal German heldentenor of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. The documentary analyzes the way the Third Reich combined its own heroic ideal and its attitude to the Wagnerian operas. It also seeks answers about Lorenz's career and complications caused by his private life. In public Lorenz was out-going, exuberantly secure, but privately he was plagued by insecurity, inhibitions and shyness. He also was married to a Jew and was homosexual, a fact that had to be hidden from Hitler. Winifred Wagner's intercession on behalf of Lorenz and his wife allowed both to continue unharassed. The episode of Lady Chichester is smilingly revealed.

Archival footage from four decades gives glimpses of Bayreuth and its Wagner Festival, the political machinations of the time, eyewitness accounts from colleagues and interviews with Lorenz. A treasure trove of photographs illustrates the story. Commentary (in German) by singers Hilde Zadek, Dietrich Fischer- Dieskau, Waldemar Kmentt, and Rene Kollo are supplemented by insights by Walter Herrmann (Lorenz's biographer), Klaus Geitel, and Michael Wessolowski, writers on music, and dancer Lieslott Tietjen. The narration is in English with subtitles for the interviews. A 74 minute CD is included of Lorenz at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires at the height of his powers (1938). From Siegfried Lorenz is heard in the complete first act and excerpts from Act 2. The sound is quite wretched sometimes, but well worth the trouble.

Max Lorenz (1901-75) was a great Wagnerian heldentenor in Nazi-era Germany--a favorite of Hitler and many of his top lieutenants. Lorenz also happened to be a homosexual with a Jewish wife (when Lorenz was brought up on charges for a dalliance with a young man, the highest authorities intervened to block the prosecution, and when the SS tried to arrest his wife and mother-in-law, Hermann Goering himself gave the order to desist). As Eric Schulz and Claus Wischmann's documentary makes clear, however, Lorenz was first and foremost an extraordinary actor-singer who practically owned the role of Siegfried in the 1930s. Combining extensive archival stills and footage together with recordings of Lorenz in his prime and excerpts from a late-in-life interview, Wagner's Mastersinger presents a remarkably thorough and insightful portrait of the life and career of Lorenz, peppered with appreciative comments from great singers--soprano Hilde Zadek, tenors Waldemar Kmentt and René Kollo, and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau--as well as dancer Lieselott Tietjen, biographer Walter Herrmann, and writers Klaus Geitel and Michael Wessolowski. Presented in PCM stereo, the DVD is bundled with an audio CD featuring excerpts from a 1938 Buenos Aires performance of Wagner's Siegfried with Lorenz.