Word: tristan
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BIRGIT NILSSON, 43, is the big Wagnerian soprano the Met started searching for as soon as Kirsten Flagstad retired. Nilsson displayed her vibrant, flashing voice for the first time at the Met two years ago in a performance of Tristan und Isolde. She has triumphed in most of the Wagnerian repertory, impressing not only with her ringing power but with a precision of phrasing and general musicianship that is not always found in Wagnerian opera. Best of all, at 5 ft. 8 in. and 150 Ibs., Swedish Farm Girl Nilsson is capable of lending an air of physical credibility...
...ROMANCE OF TRISTAN AND ISEULT, retold by Joseph Bédier; translated from the French by Hilaire Belloc and Paul Rosenfeld; illustrated by Serge Ivanoff (172 pp.; Heritage; $6). If 13-year-old girls still come in the shy, quiet variety, this prettily done-up edition of the old Celtic tale should be an ideal present. It is full of sadness and magic, and it rings (as Padraic Colum observes in his introduction ) with the voice of the singer and the sound of the harp...
...Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Birgit Nilsson, Fritz Uhl, Regina Resnik, Tom Krause; the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Georg Sold; London, 5 LPs). This first complete recording of the opera in stereo comes close to equaling London's celebrated stereo recording of Das Rheingold. The sound of the orchestra is glowing and massive, and Nilsson's voice soaring through it and over it is a delight. For those anxious to peek behind the scenes, London has included a bonus recording of a rehearsal explaining how it was done...
...them written during his Leipzig student days, when he was 18. Although the early exercises in this first recording reveal a Wagner with an ear still attuned to Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert, the later pieces-Arrival at the Black Swans (1861), Album Leaf for Betty Schott (1875)-sound intriguing, Tristan-like echoes of the curving melody that surges through his operas...
...augmented orchestra, including four harps and a celesta (in last week's performance, Stokowski managed with a standard-sized orchestra and only one choir). All this musical effort supports a series of songs linked by orchestral interludes and based on a medieval Danish story somewhat similar to the Tristan and Isolde legend. King Waldemar has married for political reasons but continues to pine for the Princess Tove. to whom he has presented his castle at Gurre. Tove is put to death by the queen, and Waldemar, as punishment for blaspheming against the gods in his grief, is condemned...