Word: wagnerians
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Kirsten Flagstad, one of the greatest of all Wagnerian sopranos, had about completed her comeback. Her manager was already lining up twelve U.S. engagements, had found that while some cities (e.g., Minneapolis) no longer wanted to hear Flagstad, many others, such as Boston, Chicago and Milwaukee, did. No recital was scheduled for New York. The Metropolitan Opera, whose season is about over anyway, waited to see how the rest of the U.S. reacted to its former star...
...Wagnerian Soprano Kirsten Flagstad came to grips with the postwar world in Paris. For her first big postwar concert outside Norway (where her husband died in prison, charged with collaboration), she was booked into the theater where ex-Vichyman Alfred Cortot had played the piano to mixed cheers and boos (TiME, Jan. 27). When Flagstad walked onstage, the crowd was silent a moment-then broke into applause. To more applause, and tumultuous cheers, she sang some Grieg songs, and excerpts from Wagner in German. Said Flagstad, heading for London: "My conscience is clear...
...because . . . Boston would not allow German opera to be given here during the war." He said it was "nothing personal . . . simply a principle ... I believe that art has nothing to do with politics." Three nights later Tenor Melchior sang in concert in Boston, where the Met had given three Wagnerian operas in 1945 and Melchior had sung...
Since the days of Gigli, Martinelli and Tito Schipa, the Met's Italian wing has been singing second place to the stronger-lunged Wagnerian team. Last week it appeared that the Italians might be on the way to a bel canto comeback...
Last week the chance came. Wagnerian Soprano Marjorie Lawrence (Australian-born, but a U.S. star) turned up in Berlin to sing for U.S. troops. With her as the attraction, the U.S. Military Government hastily sponsored its first concert for a mixed Allied-German audience. She agreed to perform without pay; so did the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and a Rumanian conductor named Sergiu Celibidache. The audience was mostly U.S. brasshats and diplomatic high-hats, along with some carefully screened Germans...