Word: flagstad
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...round. Of the Met's eight most frequently heard operas, four are his-Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre. From Caruso's debut (1903) until eleven years ago, the Met had a thick Italian accent. Then came the great Norwegian, Kirsten Flagstad, to join the great Dane, Lauritz Melchior-two singers with the bellows and brawn to shout down the batteries of trumpets and trombones that Wagner put to work in the pit. Since Flagstad went home to her quisling husband and semi-retirement in 1941, the Met's Wagnerian first...
Home-Grown Wagnerian. At first by default, and increasingly by merit, Helen Traubel has become the greatest Wagnerian soprano singing in the world today. She is the first great soprano at the Met to sing Wagner and nothing but (Flagstad sang Beethoven's Fidelia). She is also the first American-born Brünnhilde and Isolde who didn't study at the Wagnerian shrine at Bayreuth. Until 1940, when she sang in Canada, Helen Traubel had never been out of the U.S. She has never crossed the Atlantic...
...recital in Manhattan's Town Hall, Traubel sang the Immolation Scene from Göterdämerung with the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. She was quickly offered a Metropolitan contract; this time she was ready. In her Met debut as Sieglinde in Die Walküe, Flagstad sang Brünnhilde and Lauritz Melchior Siegmund. Traubel's opulent tones sent critics away raving. Said the New York Times: "The voice is a glorious one." After an Ann Arbor concert, a reviewer put it in good plain Michigan talk: "Miss Traubel hoisted a couple of tones across...
...years Traubel and Flagstad divided most of the leading Wagnerian roles. In Die Walküre, Traubel sang a dozen Sieglindes to Flagstad's Brünnhildes. The usually aloof Flagstad finally said to Traubel: "I think it is now time we turn this around and I sing Sieglinde and you sing Brünnhilde." The change never came off. Shortly afterwards Flagstad returned to German-occupied Norway...
...doubtful whether Kirsten Flagstad's great voice would ever again be heard in the U.S. In her native Norway, 49-year-old Soprano Flagstad was an unrespected citizen. Norwegians regard their fellow countrymen as either politically allgood or all-bad (everyone either collaborated with the Nazis or worked underground against them)-and most Norwegians are convinced that Flagstad was more loyal to her quisling husband than to her country. Now, as her husband frets in jail, she has found little encouragement from the U.S.; the Metropolitan's Edward Johnson has said: "I see no reason...