Word: flagstad
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...front-page reviews of both the Times and Herald Tribune enthusiastically announced, Miss Nilsson's enormously powerful voice is superbly controlled and especially well-suited to Isolde's demanding music. In fact, many musicians have cited her bright, clear soprano as more appropriate even than Flagstad's to the role. Irving Kolodin, the musical pundit of the Saturday Review, added his share to the heroine-worship of Nilsson, now the fashion among New York critics, by pointing out her superb acting and imposing stage deportment. All in all, one can find few flaws in her tempestuous, queenly Isolde. Though...
Because Nilsson's voice is so indestructible, the public, happily, will have all the more opportunity to hear it. One looks forward to further demonstrations of her singing, especially in the Wagnerian repertoire which, since Flagstad's retirement from the stage, has been handled by second-rate sopranos. Wagner days are probably back at the Met, even if a Heldentenor remains lacking. Wagnerities, rejoice, there is a new heroine for you to acclaim! IAN STRASFOGEL
When Kirsten Flagstad in 1935 made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Wagner's Die Walkuere, the audience cheered and the press groped for comparisons with "the irrecoverable magic" of Swedish-born Soprano Olive Fremstad.* Last week another Swedish Wagnerian soprano strode the Met's stage, and this time the comparison was to the "incomparable" Flagstad herself. The debutante: 41-year-old Birgit Nilsson, whose appearance in a new production of Tristan und Isolde touched off the kind of debut furor the Met's Wagnerians have not witnessed in a quarter-century...
...Spoleto. Last week she received the most cherished honor of all: an invitation to sing with the Metropolitan Opera. Next season, Met Manager Rudolf Bing announced, null will be cast in the title role of Gluck's Alcestis. an opera last heard at the Metropolitan at Kirsten Flagstad's emotion-packed farewell performance in 1952. Said Soprano Farrell"I guess there wasn't anyone else around who could...
Less rare than any of these items, but never before recorded in full, is Das Rheingold, Wagner's thunder-throated masterpiece, presented by London (3 LPs, mono and stereo) in a superb performance. Conductor Georg Solti leads the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with anvil-stroking power; Kirsten Flagstad sings with serene beauty; and George London's Wotan towers with granitic strength. The majestically rolling accompaniment of the gods' procession to Valhalla is sure to lift almost any listener out of his seat...