Word: birgit
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Sweden's Birgit Nilsson is the world's reigning Wagnerian soprano. Austria's Herbert von Karajan has no superior as a conductor of the Ring cycle. Alas, two great melodies do not always pro duce a single pleasing harmony. Ever since she began singing under his demanding baton, Miss Nilsson's relation ship with the Salzburg-born maestro has become increasingly sour. Among other things, she has been irked by his insistence on unusually time-consuming rehearsals and is not too keen about his dark, brooding lighting effects, which often keep the singers in the shadows...
...their voice. But careers move so fast now adays that few singers can afford to interrupt them. The result, says Melchior, is that "the breed has practically vanished." Most of the tenors who attempt these heroic roles are a bit jugendlich (youthful-sounding). Meantime, great dramatic sopranos like Birgit Nilsson are Isoldes in search of Tristans, and some of Wagner's finest music is scant ed in the repertory...
...winsome, fat slut, but the virtuosity of her singing and acting for the rest of the opera made it easy to believe every man in sight found her irresistible. Her sensuous voice moved with perfect flexibility from the dark richness of a Leontyne Price to the brilliance of a Birgit Nilsson. The weight of her low register in the Tarot Scene was miraculous, and the delicacy of her flirtation dance before Jose no less so. Her characterization omitted no details, from the Third Act baiting of Jose to the seductively hoarse suggestion of "L'amour...
VERDI: ATDA (Angel; 3 LPs). Who can be nostalgic for the Golden Age while singers like Franco Corelli and Birgit Nilsson are around? Both are near legends-though they are still in their prime. Both have very big voices. And both sing as if they were competing for top billing-which of course they are. Whether Verdi envisaged his heroic opera the way Nilsson and Corelli do it is another question. In any case, the rest of the cast is well-nigh unnoticeable behind all that star sound, and Zubin Mehta's conducting is efficient but not especially revealing...
...realm by conducting and staging Die Walküre, first item in a new Ring that he will produce at the Met over the next four years. Since certain natural laws prevented him from singing all the roles, he drew considerable assistance from a superlative cast headed by Supersoprano Birgit Nilsson. Otherwise, it was Von Karajan all the way, in a performance of stunning quality...