Word: nilsson
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...time and by the fact that the Lyric Opera's orchestra is a competent but far from first-rate pickup group. But he kindled a performance of ravishing warmth and coloration, better by far than anything previously heard from the Lyric Opera's pit. With Soprano Birgit Nilsson as Isolde, Tenor Karl Liebl as Tristan, and Mezzo Grace Hoffman as Brangaene, Rodzinski shaped a youthfully vibrant production, as remarkable for its knotted dramatic tensions as it was for its moments of shadowed repose...
...often inspired performances. They include Victoria de los Angeles, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Antonietta Stella, Eleanor Steber, Sena Jurinac, Lisa Delia Casa, Irmgard Seefried, Leonie Rysanek, Risë Stevens. Backing them up is a promising and fast-rising crop of newer stars: Lucine Amara, Anna Moffo, Gloria Davy, Leontyne Price, Birgit Nilsson, Anita Cerquetti, Aase Nordmo-Lovberg, Rosalind Elias, Irene Dalis...
From the first night (Faust, sung in Italian, with Christine Nilsson as Marguerite, Campanini in the title role, and Franco Novarro as Mephistopheles), regular seat holders howled about obstructed views, and singers complained about the strenuous demands the huge house placed on their voices. But nobody ever complained about the acoustics: Architect Cady had the good sense to face the auditorium with wood and to build an egg-shaped masonry sound chamber beneath the orchestra pit. During its early years, the Met removed the seats, held charity balls and a flower show on the orchestra floor. When Impresario Henry Abbey...
...first-night flaws. During the second-act love duet, the word über-mächtig "vanished without trace" from Tenor Wolfgang Windgassen's memory. With a series of semaphore cues that almost sent him clambering on the stage, Sawallisch brought order out of chaos while Soprano Birgit Nilsson improvised for several measures. But the third act went off with well-oiled precision, and the audience responded with cheering, stamping, and a thunderclap of applause...
...cast, chorus and orchestra from 9 a.m. till midnight. Ruthlessly he excised musical sentimentalities, toned down the deathbed exuberance of handsome Tenor Windgassen ("You're practically dead. You can hardly talk, let alone sing"). On opening night last week, a big share of the applause went to Soprano Nilsson, who was compared to the great Kirsten Flagstad. But the star of the occasion was Rodzinski himself. Perched on a high stool in the pit, he mimed every emotion, sprang up repeatedly to sustain notes with sure baton sweeps. During breaks in the four-hour, 50-minute evening he changed...