Word: nilsson
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...roughly equivalent to a gargle with sulphuric acid. Modern composers, singers say, don't know how to write. They ruin voices by demanding odd and un-vocal sounds. Though this attitude is widespread, there is evidence that it is less a matter of fact than fashion. Birgit Nilsson, though she sings no contemporary opera at all, points out that composers are usually ahead of performers. Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, she observes, was abandoned as un-performable, "yet nowadays no dramatic soprano can be considered accomplished if she is incapable of singing an Isolde." Beverly Sills, who sang...
VERONA (through Aug. 17). Italy's oldest summer opera, now in its 47th year, offers Turandot, Aida and Don Carlo in an acoustically perfect Roman amphitheater. Tenors Carlo Bergonzi and Placido Domingo, Sopranos Birgit Nilsson and Montserrat Caballé highlight the excellent casts...
Last week, in the temperamental tradition of opera's prima donnas, Miss Nilsson did indeed walk out on the Met. She not only refused to sing as Brünnhilde in the 1970 premiere of the new Von Karajan production of Götterdämmerung, but also canceled her scheduled performances next season in Ariadne auf Naxos. Her reason: the Met was letting that nasty Von Karajan whittle down the number of her performances in order to introduce a younger Viennese protegee, Soprano Helga Dernesch, to New York audiences. "When the birds are not happy," throbbed Miss Nilsson...
Still scarred by memories of his war with the tempestuous Maria Callas, Impresario Bing tried to absolve his conductor and soothe his diva. Miss Dernesch, he explained, had merely been engaged as an understudy: "Even Madame Nilsson, as immortal as she is, can get sick occasionally." But since the Austrian soprano was coming all the way to New York, he added, she at least deserves the chance to give one performance in Von Karajan's critically acclaimed production of the Ring. From Vienna, the conductor supplied an obbligato of support to Bing's explanation...
Following a different libretto, the ordinarily affable Nilsson charged that the Met had in fact unilaterally cut her Wagner schedule nearly in half, added vocally taxing side-by-side performances of Aida and Götterdämmerung, and rudely notified her of the changes by a brusque note left by a porter at her hotel room. What miffed her even more was the fact that the Met had added three more Italian roles-she wanted to devote her voice to the Ring-and even carelessly scheduled one performance on the very day she was flying in from Europe. True...