Kirsten Flagstad
Encyclopedia
Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad (12 July 1895 – 7 December 1962) was a Norwegian
opera
singer and a highly regarded Wagnerian
(dramatic) soprano
. She ranks among the greatest singers of the 20th century; indeed, many opera critics called hers "the voice of the century." To quote Desmond Shawe-Taylor
in New Grove Dictionary of Opera
: "No one within living memory surpassed her in sheer beauty and consistency of line and tone."
in her grandparents' home. Though she never actually lived in Hamar, she always considered it her home town. She was raised in Oslo within a musical family; her father was a conductor and her mother a pianist. She received her early musical training in Oslo
and made her stage debut at the National Theatre in Oslo as Nuri in Eugen d'Albert
's Tiefland
in 1913. Her first recordings were made between 1913 and 1915.
After further study in Stockholm
with Dr. Gillis Bratt, she pursued a career in opera and operetta in Norway. In 1919, she married her first husband Sigurd Hall and a year later gave birth to her only child, a daughter, Else Marie Hall. Later that year she signed up with the newly created Opera Comique in Oslo, under the direction of Alexander Varnay and Benno Singer. Varnay was the father of the famous soprano Astrid Varnay
. Her ability to learn roles quickly was noted, as it often took her only a few days to do so. She sang Desdemona opposite Leo Slezak
, Minnie, Amelia and other lesser roles at the Opera Comique.
She sang at the Stora Theater of Göteborg, Sweden, between 1928 and 1934. Flagstad made her debut there singing Agathe in Der Freischütz
by Weber
. In 1930, a revival of Carl Nielsen's
Saul and David
featured Flagstad singing the role of Michal
. On 31 May 1930 she married her second husband, the Norwegian industrialist and lumber merchant Henry Johansen, who subsequently helped her in expanding her career. In 1932 she made her debut in Rodelinda by George Frideric Handel
.
After singing operetta and lyric roles such as Marguerite in Faust
for over a decade, Flagstad decided to take on heavier operatic roles such as Tosca
and Aida
. The part of Aida helped to unleash Flagstad's dramatic abilities. In 1932, she took on the role of Isolde in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde
and appeared to have found her true voice. Ellen Gulbranson
(1863–1946), a Norwegian soprano at Bayreuth, convinced Winifred Wagner
to audition Flagstad for the Bayreuth Festival
. Flagstad sang minor roles in 1933, but at the next season in 1934, she sang the roles of Sieglinde in Die Walküre
and Gutrune in Götterdämmerung
at the Festival, opposite Frida Leider as Brunnhilde.
, then Chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Opera, on a trip to Scandinavia in 1929, and Met management made overtures soon after. Their letters were never answered, however. At the time, Flagstad had just met her soon to be 2nd husband and had even briefly considered giving up opera altogether. Then, in the summer of 1934, when the Met needed a replacement for Frida Leider
, Flagstad agreed to audition for conductor Artur Bodanzky
and Met general manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza
in St. Moritz in August 1934, and she was engaged immediately. Upon leaving St Mortiz, Bodanzky's parting words for Flagstad were "Come to New York as soon as you know these roles (Isolde, the 3 Brunnhildes, Leonore in Fidelio, and Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier). And above all do not go and get fat! Your slender, youthful figure is not the least reason you were engaged."
Flagstad's debut at the Met
, as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre
on the afternoon of February 2, 1935, created a sensation, though it was not planned as a special event. By this time, after weeks of rehearsals, Met management already knew what they had, but they nonetheless decided on a low key debut. Flagstad was unknown in the United States at the time. The performance was, however, broadcast nationwide on the Met's weekly syndicated radio program, and the first inkling of the deluge of critical praise to come was given when intermission host and former Met star Geraldine Farrar
discarded her prepared notes, overwhelmed by what she had just heard, and breathlessly announced that a new star had just been born. Days later, Flagstad sang Isolde, and later that month, she performed Brünnhilde in Die Walküre
and Götterdämmerung
for the first time. Before the end of the season, Flagstad sang Elsa in Lohengrin
, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
, and her first Kundry in Parsifal
. Almost overnight, she had established herself as the pre-eminent Wagnerian soprano of the era. According to most critics, she still remains the supreme Wagnerian dramatic soprano on disc by virtue of her unique voice. It has been said that she saved the Metropolitan Opera from looming bankruptcy. Her performances, sometimes 3 or 4 a week in her early days at the Met, quickly sold out at the box office as soon as they went on sale. Her services to the Met were not from box office receipts alone; her nationwide personal appeals to radio listeners during Saturday matinee intermissions brought thousands of dollars in donations to the Met's coffers. Fidelio
(1936 and later) was her only non-Wagnerian role at the Met before the war. In 1935, she performed all three Brünnhildes in the San Francisco Opera
's Ring cycle
. In 1937, she first appeared at the Chicago City Opera Company
.
In 1936 and 1937, Flagstad performed the roles of Isolde, Brünnhilde, and Senta at the Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden
, under Sir Thomas Beecham
, Fritz Reiner
and Wilhelm Furtwängler
, arousing as much enthusiasm there as she had in New York. She also toured Australia in 1938. Hollywood also tried to cash in on Flagstad fever, after her sudden popularity in the US in the mid 1930's, with her many appearances on NBC Radio, The Kraft Music Hall
with Bing Crosby, and regular appearances on CBS's The Ford Sunday Evening Hour
. Though Flagstad was not interested in stardom or Hollywood contracts per se, she did make trips to Hollywood during the late 1930s for publicity photo shoots, public appearances, concerts at the Hollywood Bowl
, and she filmed a rendition of Brünnhilde's Battle Cry from Wagner's Die Walküre
for the Hollywood variety show anthology The Big Broadcast of 1938
, in which she was introduced to American film audiences by Bob Hope
. Flagstad is one of two Norwegians, along with Sonia Henie, to have her own star on Hollywood's walk of fame.
Her career at the Met, however, was not without its ups-and-downs. Flagstad got involved in a long-running feud with tenor
co-star Lauritz Melchior
after Melchior took offense to some comments Flagstad made about "stupid publicity photos" during a game of bridge in Flagstad's hotel suite while the two were on tour together in Rochester, NY. Present during the infamous bridge game were Flagstad, Melchior and his wife, and Edwin McArthur
. Afterwards, Melchior fanned the flames further by insisting that there be no solo curtain calls for Flagstad when the two performed together. Audiences had no clue that, despite the marvelous and sometimes historic performances, the two never said a word to each other off stage for the next two years. It was Flagstad's husband Henry Johansen who finally brought the two together to make peace. Flagstad also feuded with the Met's general manager, Edward Johnson
, after conductor Artur Bodanzky
's death, when she asked to be conducted for a few performances by her accompanist, Edwin McArthur
, rather than by the Met's new conductor Erich Leinsdorf
. Flagstad had wanted this for McArthur, whom she had taken under her wing. Johnson refused and would not hear of it any further. Flagstad did get her way, though; she went over Johnson's head and discussed the matter with the Met's board of directors, particularly David Sarnoff
, RCA and NBC founder and chairman. It was Sarnoff who made the arrangements for McArthur to begin conducting Met productions on a limited basis. Her relationship with Johnson improved, however; just before Flagstad left the Met in 1941, on the night of her 100th performance of Tristan, she received 100 roses, courtesy of Melchior and Johnson. Having received repeated and cryptic cablegrams from her husband, who had returned to Norway a year and a half earlier, Flagstad was forced to consider leaving the United States in 1941. Though unaware of the political implications of the departure of someone of her fame from the United States to German-occupied Norway, it was nonetheless a difficult decision for her. She had many friends, colleagues, and of course many fans all over the USA. Even more importantly, her 20-year old daughter Else had married an American named Arthur Dusenberry and was living with her new husband on a dude ranch in Bozeman, Montana. It was Edwin McArthur who gave the bride away at the wedding in Bozeman a year earlier. Nonetheless, against the best advice of her friends and colleagues, including former president Herbert Hoover
, who pleaded with her during a lunch the two had together to stay out of Europe, she returned to Norway via Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Marseille, and Berlin in April, 1941. Though she only performed during the war in Sweden and Switzerland, countries unoccupied by German forces, this fact did not temper the storm of public opinion that hurt her personally and professionally for the next several years. Her husband was arrested after the war for war-time profiteering in German-occupied Norway that involved his lumber business. This arrest, together with her decision to remain in occupied Norway, made her unpopular, particularly in the United States. The Norwegian ambassador and the columnist Walter Winchell
spoke out against her. In 1948, she performed several benefit concerts for the United Jewish Appeal. In defense of Flagstad's husband, Henry Johansen, it should be noted that facts surfaced after his death that showed that he was arrested by the German Gestapo during the occupation and was released after 8 days. It then came to light, many years later, that Johansen's son by his first marriage, Henry Jr, had been a member of the Norwegian underground throughout World War 2.
, invited by its new general manager, Rudolf Bing, who was furiously criticized for this choice: "The greatest soprano of this century must sing in the world's greatest opera house", he replied. She also returned to Covent Garden following its reopening in 1947 (a rare exception- the Opera House, in lean financial straits following the war-time closure, was attempting to build up a house company of English nationals, principally singing in English, in preference to expensive guest stars), singing in four consecutive seasons from 1948 to 1952 in all her regular Wagnerian roles, including Kundry and Sieglinde. She toured South America in 1948 and returned to San Francisco in 1949, and finally returned to the Met . In the 1950-1951 season, although she was aged well into her 50s, Flagstad showed herself still in remarkable form as Isolde, Brünnhilde and Leonore.
Despite the great fanfare surrounding her return to the Met in early 1951, and her success in resuming her roles there, Flagstad decided that it would be her final year singing Wagner on the stage. She had gained quite a bit of weight since her pre-war years at the Met when she sang those long and physically demanding roles night after night. In 1950, when she accepted Bing's invitation, she felt she did not have the stamina she had had as a younger woman. She had also developed an arthritic hip in mid 1951 and had consulted doctors in NY; this further made the operatic stage, especially when singing Wagner, difficult for her. She gave her farewell operatic performance at the Met on 1 April 1952, not as Brunnhilde or Isolde but in the title role of Gluck's
Alceste
, a role she had learnt in the war years in Norway. In London she appeared as Dido (another recently learnt role) in Purcell
's Dido and Aeneas
at the Mermaid Theatre
(in the 1951 Festival of Britain
season): the portrayal was recorded (in studio), and issued by EMI
in January 1953 (see: Recordings). Her last operatic appearance was as Dido in Oslo on June 5, 1953.
During the post-war years, Flagstad was also responsible for the world premiere of Richard Strauss
's "Vier letzte Lieder". Strauss had written the pieces during his exile in Switzerland following WWII (like Flagstad, he had been vilified as a collaborator with the Nazis), and intended them to be premiered by Flagstad - less because he had her voice in mind (the songs are better suited to the lyic soprano voice he idealised throughout his life, as exemplified by Elisabeth Schumann and ultimately his wife Pauline; Strauss, moreover, had heard praise for Flagstad over the years, but had not heard her sing in person since casting her as the soprano soloist in the 1933 Bayreuth Festival performance of the Beethoven Choral Symphony), more out of sympathy for her difficulties. He sent to Flagstad a letter, accompanied by a collection of his own works which he desired her to consider adding to her repertoire, and requested that she give the premiere - together with "a first-class conductor and ensemble" - of the four recently written orchestral lieder, at that point still in the publication process. Flagstad accepted the commission, although Strauss did not live to see the premiere; as a conductor, she chose not McArthur (who, though an excellent piano accompanist, was not considered a ‘first-class’ orchestral conductor) but Wilhelm Furtwangler (also experiencing the repercussions of suspect wartime conduct), and the pair chose Walter Legge
’s Philharmonia Orchestra, with which they both worked well, to provide the accompaniment. By the time of the premiere, 22 May 1950, Flagstad was almost 55 years old. Her voice by this point was darker, heavier, and more inflexible than when she had sung for Strauss at Bayreuth, and she was becoming reluctant to venture above the stave, as would be notoriously demonstrated in the recording of ‘’Tristan’’ two years later; the Strauss songs, particularly the Heine settings, were thus not ideally suited to her resources, and she found herself tested to her limits. Fruhling, indeed, gave such trouble that Legge, in promoting the concert, was two days before the event advertising the Strauss as “three songs with orchestra”. In the event, Flagstad rose to the occasion and included Fruhling (with, however, several downward transpositions), and the close of ‘’Im Abendrot’’ was followed by a respectful silence in memory of Strauss. The concert, which aside from the Strauss songs consisted of Wagner (including Isolde’s Liebestod and Brunnhilde’s Immolation), received favourable reviews; recordings of Flagstad’s contributions were made from the radio broadcast, and are today commercially available. Flagstad proceeded to add ‘’September’’, ‘’Beim Schlafengehen’’, and ‘’Im Abendrot’’ to her repertoire, and recordings (technologically superior to those taken at the premiere) exist of these performed in concert; she did not, however, venture ‘’Fruhling’’ again.
After her retirement from the stage, she continued to give concert performances and record – first for EMI (setting down her definitive account of Isolde in the first commercially released account of ‘’Tristan’’), and then for Decca Records
. She even made some stereophonic recordings, including excerpts from Wagner's operas with Hans Knappertsbusch
and Sir Georg Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
. In 1958, she sang the part of Fricka in Wagner's Das Rheingold
, the first instalment in Solti's complete stereophonic set of the Ring Cycle, released by Decca
on LP and reel-to-reel tape. She also spent time mentoring young singers in her native country, including contralto Eva Gustavson
.
From around 1952 when she gave her Met farewell until she died 10 years later, Flagstad's health steadily deteriorated. She was in and out of hospitals on an increasing basis both in the number and the length of her stays for a variety of ailments. She even joked with an interviewer in 1958 that Oslo hospital had become her home away from home. From 1958 to 1960, Flagstad was the first Director of the Norwegian National Opera. In her last years she gave many benefit concerts throughout Norway. She was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in 1960 and died of the disease on Dec 7th, 1962. At her own request she was buried in an unmarked grave in Vestre Gravlund
Cemetery in the Frogner borough of Oslo. The largest floral arrangement at her funeral was sent by none other than Lauritz Melchior
.
, Norway, contains a private collection of opera artifacts. Her costumes draw special attention, and include several examples on loan from the Metropolitan Opera Archives. Her portrait appears on the Norwegian 100 kroner
bill and on the tail section of Norwegian Air Shuttle
planes. "That voice! How can one describe it?" wrote opera critic Harold Schonberg in his New York Times obituary of Flagstad. "It was enormous, but did not sound enormous because it was never pushed or out of placement. It had a rather cool silvery quality, and was handled instrumentally, almost as though a huge violin was emitting legato phrases." Incredibly, Flagstad sang the role of Isolde 70 times on the Met stage from 1935 to 1941, nine of those performances were Saturday matinee radio broadcasts, making Tristan und Isolde
one of the greatest box office attractions in Metropolitan Opera history.
Her pre-war recordings, which show her voice in its freshest brilliance and clarity, include studio recordings of Wagner arias, Beethoven arias, and Grieg songs, as well as duets from Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Tristan und Isolde with Lauritz Melchior. These have been (and probably still are) available on RCA/BMG CDs, as well as on good CD transfers from the Naxos, Preiser and Romophone companies.
Many Metropolitan Opera broadcasts also survive and have circulated among collectors and more recently on CD. These include:
After World War II, many important studio recordings followed including:
Perhaps her most famous operatic recording is the 1952 Tristan with Furtwängler, which has never been out of print. It is available from EMI and Naxos, among others. Another Tristan of note is the live performance from the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires
), with Viorica Ursuleac
as Brangäne, Set Svanholm
as Tristan, Hans Hotter
as Kurvenal, conducted by Erich Kleiber
.
Two live concerts are of particular historical significance:
In 1956, she moved to Decca where in the autumn of her career further important studio recordings followed:
Almost to the end of her life, Flagstad continued to sing in fine voice, although she increasingly sang Mezzo-Soprano material or in a Mezzo range: besides the Rheingold Fricka (a Mezzo role), Decca planned to cast her also as the Walkure Fricka and the Gotterdammerung Waltraute for its complete Ring (in the event, the roles were sung by Christa Ludwig
), and also to record her in Brahms’ ‘’Four Serious Songs’’ and Alto Rhapsody
; that these plans were shelved only by her final illness and death stands as a testament to her superbly consistent vocal abilities, and to the respect and affection in which she was held to the end by record companies and the public.
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer and a highly regarded Wagnerian
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
(dramatic) soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
. She ranks among the greatest singers of the 20th century; indeed, many opera critics called hers "the voice of the century." To quote Desmond Shawe-Taylor
Desmond Shawe-Taylor (music critic)
Desmond Christopher Shawe Taylor, , was a British writer, co-author of The Record Guide, music critic of The New Statesman, The New Yorker and The Sunday Times and a regular and long-standing contributor to The Gramophone.-Biography:Shawe-Taylor was born in Dublin, the elder of two sons of...
in New Grove Dictionary of Opera
New Grove Dictionary of Opera
The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes....
: "No one within living memory surpassed her in sheer beauty and consistency of line and tone."
Early life and career
Flagstad was born in HamarHamar
is a town and municipality in Hedmark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Hedmarken. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Hamar. The municipality of Hamar was separated from Vang as a town and municipality of its own in 1849...
in her grandparents' home. Though she never actually lived in Hamar, she always considered it her home town. She was raised in Oslo within a musical family; her father was a conductor and her mother a pianist. She received her early musical training in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
and made her stage debut at the National Theatre in Oslo as Nuri in Eugen d'Albert
Eugen d'Albert
Eugen Francis Charles d'Albert was a Scottish-born German pianist and composer.Educated in Britain, d'Albert showed early musical talent and, at the age of seventeen, he won a scholarship to study in Austria...
's Tiefland
Tiefland
Tiefland may refer to:* Tiefland a 1903 opera by Eugen d'Albert* Tiefland , a 1954 film by Leni Riefenstahl...
in 1913. Her first recordings were made between 1913 and 1915.
After further study in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
with Dr. Gillis Bratt, she pursued a career in opera and operetta in Norway. In 1919, she married her first husband Sigurd Hall and a year later gave birth to her only child, a daughter, Else Marie Hall. Later that year she signed up with the newly created Opera Comique in Oslo, under the direction of Alexander Varnay and Benno Singer. Varnay was the father of the famous soprano Astrid Varnay
Astrid Varnay
Ibolyka Astrid Maria Varnay was an American dramatic soprano of Hungarian heritage and Swedish birth, who did most of her work in the United States and Germany. She was one of the best-known Wagnerian heroic sopranos of her generation...
. Her ability to learn roles quickly was noted, as it often took her only a few days to do so. She sang Desdemona opposite Leo Slezak
Leo Slezak
Leo Slezak was a world-famous Moravian tenor. He was associated in particular with German opera as well as the title role in Verdi's Otello.- Beginnings :...
, Minnie, Amelia and other lesser roles at the Opera Comique.
She sang at the Stora Theater of Göteborg, Sweden, between 1928 and 1934. Flagstad made her debut there singing Agathe in Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
by Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
. In 1930, a revival of Carl Nielsen's
Carl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
Saul and David
Saul og David
Saul og David is the first of the two operas by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen. The four-act libretto, by Einar Christiansen, tells the Biblical story of Saul's jealousy of the young David, taken from the Book of Samuel. The first performance was at Det Kongelige Teater, Copenhagen on 28...
featured Flagstad singing the role of Michal
Michal
Michal was a daughter of Saul, king of Israel, who loved and became the wife of David, who later became king of Judah, and later still of the united Kingdom of Israel....
. On 31 May 1930 she married her second husband, the Norwegian industrialist and lumber merchant Henry Johansen, who subsequently helped her in expanding her career. In 1932 she made her debut in Rodelinda by George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
.
After singing operetta and lyric roles such as Marguerite in Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
for over a decade, Flagstad decided to take on heavier operatic roles such as Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
and Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
. The part of Aida helped to unleash Flagstad's dramatic abilities. In 1932, she took on the role of Isolde in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
and appeared to have found her true voice. Ellen Gulbranson
Ellen Gulbranson
Ellen Gulbranson was a Swedish operatic soprano with a strong, dramatic voice best suited to the works of Richard Wagner. She was a leading figure among the second generation of Bayreuth singers and her voice is preserved on a few acoustic recordings that she made for Edison Records and Pathé...
(1863–1946), a Norwegian soprano at Bayreuth, convinced Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner was an English woman married to Siegfried Wagner, Richard Wagner's son. She was the effective head of the Wagner family from 1930 to 1945, and a close friend of German dictator Adolf Hitler....
to audition Flagstad for the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
. Flagstad sang minor roles in 1933, but at the next season in 1934, she sang the roles of Sieglinde in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
and Gutrune in Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
at the Festival, opposite Frida Leider as Brunnhilde.
Career at the Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere
Flagstad was first noticed by Otto Hermann KahnOtto Hermann Kahn
Otto Hermann Kahn was an investment banker, collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts.-Life and career:He was born on February 21, 1867, and raised in the city of Mannheim, Germany, to Jewish parents...
, then Chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Opera, on a trip to Scandinavia in 1929, and Met management made overtures soon after. Their letters were never answered, however. At the time, Flagstad had just met her soon to be 2nd husband and had even briefly considered giving up opera altogether. Then, in the summer of 1934, when the Met needed a replacement for Frida Leider
Frida Leider
Frida Leider was a German opera singer.Leider was one of the most important dramatic sopranos of the 20th century. Her most famous roles were Wagner's Isolde and Brünnhilde, Beethoven's Fidelio, Mozart's Donna Anna, and Verdi's Aida and Leonora...
, Flagstad agreed to audition for conductor Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky was an Austrian-American conductor particularly associated with the operas of Wagner.- Career :...
and Met general manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza
Giulio Gatti-Casazza
Giulio Gatti-Casazza was an Italian opera manager. He was general manager of La Scala in Milan, Italy and later the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.-Life and career:...
in St. Moritz in August 1934, and she was engaged immediately. Upon leaving St Mortiz, Bodanzky's parting words for Flagstad were "Come to New York as soon as you know these roles (Isolde, the 3 Brunnhildes, Leonore in Fidelio, and Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier). And above all do not go and get fat! Your slender, youthful figure is not the least reason you were engaged."
Flagstad's debut at the Met
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
on the afternoon of February 2, 1935, created a sensation, though it was not planned as a special event. By this time, after weeks of rehearsals, Met management already knew what they had, but they nonetheless decided on a low key debut. Flagstad was unknown in the United States at the time. The performance was, however, broadcast nationwide on the Met's weekly syndicated radio program, and the first inkling of the deluge of critical praise to come was given when intermission host and former Met star Geraldine Farrar
Geraldine Farrar
Geraldine Farrar was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".- Early life and opera career :Farrar was born in Melrose,...
discarded her prepared notes, overwhelmed by what she had just heard, and breathlessly announced that a new star had just been born. Days later, Flagstad sang Isolde, and later that month, she performed Brünnhilde in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
and Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
for the first time. Before the end of the season, Flagstad sang Elsa in Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
, and her first Kundry in Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
. Almost overnight, she had established herself as the pre-eminent Wagnerian soprano of the era. According to most critics, she still remains the supreme Wagnerian dramatic soprano on disc by virtue of her unique voice. It has been said that she saved the Metropolitan Opera from looming bankruptcy. Her performances, sometimes 3 or 4 a week in her early days at the Met, quickly sold out at the box office as soon as they went on sale. Her services to the Met were not from box office receipts alone; her nationwide personal appeals to radio listeners during Saturday matinee intermissions brought thousands of dollars in donations to the Met's coffers. Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
(1936 and later) was her only non-Wagnerian role at the Met before the war. In 1935, she performed all three Brünnhildes in the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
's Ring cycle
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
. In 1937, she first appeared at the Chicago City Opera Company
Chicago City Opera Company
The Chicago City Opera Company was a grand opera company in Chicago, organized from the remaining assets of the bankrupt Chicago Grand Opera Company, that produced four seasons of opera at the Civic Opera House from 1935 to 1939 before it too succumbed to financial difficulties...
.
In 1936 and 1937, Flagstad performed the roles of Isolde, Brünnhilde, and Senta at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, under Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
, Fritz Reiner
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
and Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
, arousing as much enthusiasm there as she had in New York. She also toured Australia in 1938. Hollywood also tried to cash in on Flagstad fever, after her sudden popularity in the US in the mid 1930's, with her many appearances on NBC Radio, The Kraft Music Hall
Kraft Music Hall
The Kraft Music Hall was a popular variety program, featuring top show business entertainers, which aired on NBC radio and television from 1933 to 1971....
with Bing Crosby, and regular appearances on CBS's The Ford Sunday Evening Hour
The Ford Sunday Evening Hour
The Ford Sunday Evening Hour was an hour-long concert music radio series, sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, which was broadcast from 1934 to 1946, with a hiatus from 1942 to 1945...
. Though Flagstad was not interested in stardom or Hollywood contracts per se, she did make trips to Hollywood during the late 1930s for publicity photo shoots, public appearances, concerts at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
, and she filmed a rendition of Brünnhilde's Battle Cry from Wagner's Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
for the Hollywood variety show anthology The Big Broadcast of 1938
The Big Broadcast of 1938
The Big Broadcast of 1938 is a Paramount Pictures film featuring W.C. Fields and Bob Hope. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, the film is the last in a series of Big Broadcast movies that were variety show anthologies...
, in which she was introduced to American film audiences by Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
. Flagstad is one of two Norwegians, along with Sonia Henie, to have her own star on Hollywood's walk of fame.
Her career at the Met, however, was not without its ups-and-downs. Flagstad got involved in a long-running feud with tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
co-star Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...
after Melchior took offense to some comments Flagstad made about "stupid publicity photos" during a game of bridge in Flagstad's hotel suite while the two were on tour together in Rochester, NY. Present during the infamous bridge game were Flagstad, Melchior and his wife, and Edwin McArthur
Edwin McArthur
Edwin McArthur was a celebrated American classical music conductor, pianist and accompanist. From 1935 until her retirement in 1955 he was the usual accompanist of the Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad....
. Afterwards, Melchior fanned the flames further by insisting that there be no solo curtain calls for Flagstad when the two performed together. Audiences had no clue that, despite the marvelous and sometimes historic performances, the two never said a word to each other off stage for the next two years. It was Flagstad's husband Henry Johansen who finally brought the two together to make peace. Flagstad also feuded with the Met's general manager, Edward Johnson
Edward Johnson (tenor)
Edward Patrick Johnson CBE was a Canadian operatic tenor who was billed outside North America as Edoardo Di Giovanni, and became director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.- Early life :...
, after conductor Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky was an Austrian-American conductor particularly associated with the operas of Wagner.- Career :...
's death, when she asked to be conducted for a few performances by her accompanist, Edwin McArthur
Edwin McArthur
Edwin McArthur was a celebrated American classical music conductor, pianist and accompanist. From 1935 until her retirement in 1955 he was the usual accompanist of the Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad....
, rather than by the Met's new conductor Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
. Flagstad had wanted this for McArthur, whom she had taken under her wing. Johnson refused and would not hear of it any further. Flagstad did get her way, though; she went over Johnson's head and discussed the matter with the Met's board of directors, particularly David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff
David Sarnoff was an American businessman and pioneer of American commercial radio and television. He founded the National Broadcasting Company and throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his...
, RCA and NBC founder and chairman. It was Sarnoff who made the arrangements for McArthur to begin conducting Met productions on a limited basis. Her relationship with Johnson improved, however; just before Flagstad left the Met in 1941, on the night of her 100th performance of Tristan, she received 100 roses, courtesy of Melchior and Johnson. Having received repeated and cryptic cablegrams from her husband, who had returned to Norway a year and a half earlier, Flagstad was forced to consider leaving the United States in 1941. Though unaware of the political implications of the departure of someone of her fame from the United States to German-occupied Norway, it was nonetheless a difficult decision for her. She had many friends, colleagues, and of course many fans all over the USA. Even more importantly, her 20-year old daughter Else had married an American named Arthur Dusenberry and was living with her new husband on a dude ranch in Bozeman, Montana. It was Edwin McArthur who gave the bride away at the wedding in Bozeman a year earlier. Nonetheless, against the best advice of her friends and colleagues, including former president Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
, who pleaded with her during a lunch the two had together to stay out of Europe, she returned to Norway via Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Marseille, and Berlin in April, 1941. Though she only performed during the war in Sweden and Switzerland, countries unoccupied by German forces, this fact did not temper the storm of public opinion that hurt her personally and professionally for the next several years. Her husband was arrested after the war for war-time profiteering in German-occupied Norway that involved his lumber business. This arrest, together with her decision to remain in occupied Norway, made her unpopular, particularly in the United States. The Norwegian ambassador and the columnist Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
spoke out against her. In 1948, she performed several benefit concerts for the United Jewish Appeal. In defense of Flagstad's husband, Henry Johansen, it should be noted that facts surfaced after his death that showed that he was arrested by the German Gestapo during the occupation and was released after 8 days. It then came to light, many years later, that Johansen's son by his first marriage, Henry Jr, had been a member of the Norwegian underground throughout World War 2.
Later career
Flagstad eventually returned to the Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, invited by its new general manager, Rudolf Bing, who was furiously criticized for this choice: "The greatest soprano of this century must sing in the world's greatest opera house", he replied. She also returned to Covent Garden following its reopening in 1947 (a rare exception- the Opera House, in lean financial straits following the war-time closure, was attempting to build up a house company of English nationals, principally singing in English, in preference to expensive guest stars), singing in four consecutive seasons from 1948 to 1952 in all her regular Wagnerian roles, including Kundry and Sieglinde. She toured South America in 1948 and returned to San Francisco in 1949, and finally returned to the Met . In the 1950-1951 season, although she was aged well into her 50s, Flagstad showed herself still in remarkable form as Isolde, Brünnhilde and Leonore.
Despite the great fanfare surrounding her return to the Met in early 1951, and her success in resuming her roles there, Flagstad decided that it would be her final year singing Wagner on the stage. She had gained quite a bit of weight since her pre-war years at the Met when she sang those long and physically demanding roles night after night. In 1950, when she accepted Bing's invitation, she felt she did not have the stamina she had had as a younger woman. She had also developed an arthritic hip in mid 1951 and had consulted doctors in NY; this further made the operatic stage, especially when singing Wagner, difficult for her. She gave her farewell operatic performance at the Met on 1 April 1952, not as Brunnhilde or Isolde but in the title role of Gluck's
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
Alceste
Alceste (Gluck)
Alceste is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1767. The libretto was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi and based on the play Alcestis by Euripides. The premiere took place in Vienna.-Preface and reforms:...
, a role she had learnt in the war years in Norway. In London she appeared as Dido (another recently learnt role) in Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
's Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas
Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...
at the Mermaid Theatre
Mermaid Theatre
The Mermaid Theatre was a theatre at Puddle Dock, in Blackfriars, in the City of London and the first built there since the time of Shakespeare...
(in the 1951 Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
season): the portrayal was recorded (in studio), and issued by EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
in January 1953 (see: Recordings). Her last operatic appearance was as Dido in Oslo on June 5, 1953.
During the post-war years, Flagstad was also responsible for the world premiere of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's "Vier letzte Lieder". Strauss had written the pieces during his exile in Switzerland following WWII (like Flagstad, he had been vilified as a collaborator with the Nazis), and intended them to be premiered by Flagstad - less because he had her voice in mind (the songs are better suited to the lyic soprano voice he idealised throughout his life, as exemplified by Elisabeth Schumann and ultimately his wife Pauline; Strauss, moreover, had heard praise for Flagstad over the years, but had not heard her sing in person since casting her as the soprano soloist in the 1933 Bayreuth Festival performance of the Beethoven Choral Symphony), more out of sympathy for her difficulties. He sent to Flagstad a letter, accompanied by a collection of his own works which he desired her to consider adding to her repertoire, and requested that she give the premiere - together with "a first-class conductor and ensemble" - of the four recently written orchestral lieder, at that point still in the publication process. Flagstad accepted the commission, although Strauss did not live to see the premiere; as a conductor, she chose not McArthur (who, though an excellent piano accompanist, was not considered a ‘first-class’ orchestral conductor) but Wilhelm Furtwangler (also experiencing the repercussions of suspect wartime conduct), and the pair chose Walter Legge
Walter Legge
Harry Walter Legge was an influential English classical record producer, most notably for EMI. His recordings include many sets later regarded as classics and reissued by EMI as "Great Recordings of the Century". He worked in the recording industry from 1927, combining this with the post of junior...
’s Philharmonia Orchestra, with which they both worked well, to provide the accompaniment. By the time of the premiere, 22 May 1950, Flagstad was almost 55 years old. Her voice by this point was darker, heavier, and more inflexible than when she had sung for Strauss at Bayreuth, and she was becoming reluctant to venture above the stave, as would be notoriously demonstrated in the recording of ‘’Tristan’’ two years later; the Strauss songs, particularly the Heine settings, were thus not ideally suited to her resources, and she found herself tested to her limits. Fruhling, indeed, gave such trouble that Legge, in promoting the concert, was two days before the event advertising the Strauss as “three songs with orchestra”. In the event, Flagstad rose to the occasion and included Fruhling (with, however, several downward transpositions), and the close of ‘’Im Abendrot’’ was followed by a respectful silence in memory of Strauss. The concert, which aside from the Strauss songs consisted of Wagner (including Isolde’s Liebestod and Brunnhilde’s Immolation), received favourable reviews; recordings of Flagstad’s contributions were made from the radio broadcast, and are today commercially available. Flagstad proceeded to add ‘’September’’, ‘’Beim Schlafengehen’’, and ‘’Im Abendrot’’ to her repertoire, and recordings (technologically superior to those taken at the premiere) exist of these performed in concert; she did not, however, venture ‘’Fruhling’’ again.
After her retirement from the stage, she continued to give concert performances and record – first for EMI (setting down her definitive account of Isolde in the first commercially released account of ‘’Tristan’’), and then for Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
. She even made some stereophonic recordings, including excerpts from Wagner's operas with Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss....
and Sir Georg Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
The Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world....
. In 1958, she sang the part of Fricka in Wagner's Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
, the first instalment in Solti's complete stereophonic set of the Ring Cycle, released by Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
on LP and reel-to-reel tape. She also spent time mentoring young singers in her native country, including contralto Eva Gustavson
Eva Gustavson
Eva Gustavson , sometimes known as Eva Gustafson, was a Norwegian-American contralto who had an active international performance career in operas and concerts during the 1940s and 1950s...
.
From around 1952 when she gave her Met farewell until she died 10 years later, Flagstad's health steadily deteriorated. She was in and out of hospitals on an increasing basis both in the number and the length of her stays for a variety of ailments. She even joked with an interviewer in 1958 that Oslo hospital had become her home away from home. From 1958 to 1960, Flagstad was the first Director of the Norwegian National Opera. In her last years she gave many benefit concerts throughout Norway. She was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in 1960 and died of the disease on Dec 7th, 1962. At her own request she was buried in an unmarked grave in Vestre Gravlund
Vestre gravlund
Vestre gravlund is a cemetery in the Frogner borough of Oslo, Norway, located next to the Borgen metro station. At , it is the largest cemetery in Norway...
Cemetery in the Frogner borough of Oslo. The largest floral arrangement at her funeral was sent by none other than Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...
.
Legacy
The Kirsten Flagstad Museum in HamarHamar
is a town and municipality in Hedmark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Hedmarken. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Hamar. The municipality of Hamar was separated from Vang as a town and municipality of its own in 1849...
, Norway, contains a private collection of opera artifacts. Her costumes draw special attention, and include several examples on loan from the Metropolitan Opera Archives. Her portrait appears on the Norwegian 100 kroner
Norwegian krone
The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...
bill and on the tail section of Norwegian Air Shuttle
Norwegian Air Shuttle
Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA , trading as Norwegian, is the second-largest airline in Scandinavia. In 2010, it transported 13.0 million people. As of October 2011, Norwegian operates a total fleet of 62 aircraft; 17 Boeing 737-300s and 45 Boeing 737-800s...
planes. "That voice! How can one describe it?" wrote opera critic Harold Schonberg in his New York Times obituary of Flagstad. "It was enormous, but did not sound enormous because it was never pushed or out of placement. It had a rather cool silvery quality, and was handled instrumentally, almost as though a huge violin was emitting legato phrases." Incredibly, Flagstad sang the role of Isolde 70 times on the Met stage from 1935 to 1941, nine of those performances were Saturday matinee radio broadcasts, making Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
one of the greatest box office attractions in Metropolitan Opera history.
Recordings
Of her many recordings, the complete Tristan und Isolde with Furtwängler is considered the finest representation of her interpretive art in its maturity. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest recordings of all time. Throughout her career she recorded numerous songs, by Grieg and others, and these are evidence of a voice that maintained its stable beauty during her many years in the limelight. A comprehensive survey of her recordings was released in several volumes on the Simax label.Her pre-war recordings, which show her voice in its freshest brilliance and clarity, include studio recordings of Wagner arias, Beethoven arias, and Grieg songs, as well as duets from Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Tristan und Isolde with Lauritz Melchior. These have been (and probably still are) available on RCA/BMG CDs, as well as on good CD transfers from the Naxos, Preiser and Romophone companies.
Many Metropolitan Opera broadcasts also survive and have circulated among collectors and more recently on CD. These include:
- Die Walküre, Act I and fragments from Act II from her 1935 début broadcast; 1937 (as Sieglinde); 1940.
- Tristan und Isolde, performances from 1935, 1937, and 1940 all readily available.
- Tannhäuser: 1936, with Melchior and Tibbett, 1939, and 1941 (the latter having an official release on Metropolitan Opera LPs).
- Siegfried: 1937, with Lauritz Melchior and Friedrich Schorr (available on Naxos and Guild labels).
- Lohengrin: 1937, with René Maison
- Fidelio: 1941 with Bruno Walter (available on Naxos)
- Alceste: 1952 (available on Walhall)
After World War II, many important studio recordings followed including:
- Wagner Scenes including the final duet from Siegfried (Testament CDs, licensed from EMI)
- Götterdämmerung: Final Scene, with Furtwängler - EMI
- Tristan und Isolde: Complete opera with Furtwängler - EMI
- Norwegian Songs: EMI
- Götterdämmerung: with Fjeldstad and Bjoner and Set SvanholmSet SvanholmSet Svanholm was a Swedish operatic tenor, considered the leading Tristan and Siegfried of the first decade following World War II....
. 1956 - Urania and Walhall. - Der Ring des Nibelungen: Gebhard. From Teatro alla Scala with Furtwängler, Lorenz, Svanholm, Frantz. 1950
Perhaps her most famous operatic recording is the 1952 Tristan with Furtwängler, which has never been out of print. It is available from EMI and Naxos, among others. Another Tristan of note is the live performance from the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
), with Viorica Ursuleac
Viorica Ursuleac
Viorica Ursuleac was an important Romanian operatic soprano.Viorica Ursuleac was born the daughter of a Greek Orthodox archdeacon, in Chernivtsi, which is now in Ukraine. Following training in Vienna, she made her operatic debut in Zagreb , as Charlotte in Massenet's Werther, in 1922...
as Brangäne, Set Svanholm
Set Svanholm
Set Svanholm was a Swedish operatic tenor, considered the leading Tristan and Siegfried of the first decade following World War II....
as Tristan, Hans Hotter
Hans Hotter
Hans Hotter was a German operatic bass-baritone, admired internationally after World War II for the power, beauty, and intelligence of his singing, especially in Wagner operas. He was extremely tall and his appearance was striking because of his high, narrow face, wide mouth, and big, aquiline nose...
as Kurvenal, conducted by Erich Kleiber
Erich Kleiber
Erich Kleiber was an Austrian conductor.- Biography :Born in Vienna, Kleiber studied in Prague...
.
Two live concerts are of particular historical significance:
- Four Last SongsFour Last SongsThe Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra were the final completed works of Richard Strauss, composed in 1948 when the composer was 84. Strauss did not live to hear the premiere, given at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 22 May 1950 by the soprano Kirsten Flagstad accompanied by the...
(Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, world premiere), with excerpts from ‘’Tristan and Isolde’’ and ‘’Gotterdammerung’’, (Philharmonia OrchestraPhilharmonia OrchestraThe Philharmonia Orchestra is one of the leading orchestras in Great Britain, based in London. Since 1995, it has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. In Britain it is also the resident orchestra at De Montfort Hall, Leicester and the Corn Exchange, Bedford, as well as The Anvil, Basingstoke...
, cond. Wilhelm FurtwänglerWilhelm FurtwänglerWilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
), London 22 May 1950. (Testament) - Carnegie HallCarnegie HallCarnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
American farewell concert (Symphony of the Air, cond. McArthur), 20 March 1955. (Includes Die Walküre Act I excerpts; Götterdämmerung final scene, Tristan Liebestod, and Wesendonck LiederWesendonck LiederThe Wesendonck Lieder is a song cycle composed by Richard Wagner while he was working on Die Walküre. This, and the Siegfried Idyll, are his only two non-operatic works that are still regularly performed....
(orchestral version).) (World RecordsWorld Record ClubThe World Record Club Ltd. was the name of a company in the United Kingdom which issued long-playing records and reel to reel tapes, mainly of classical music and jazz, through a membership mail-order system during the 1950s and 1960s....
LP T-366-7.)
- Flagstad's celebrated 1951 appearance at the Mermaid TheatreMermaid TheatreThe Mermaid Theatre was a theatre at Puddle Dock, in Blackfriars, in the City of London and the first built there since the time of Shakespeare...
, London in PurcellHenry PurcellHenry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
's Dido and AeneasDido and AeneasDido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...
is represented by a cast recording in which the Mermaid Belinda (Maggie TeyteMaggie TeyteDame Maggie Teyte DBE was an English operatic soprano and interpreter of French art song.-Early years:Margaret Tate was born in Wolverhampton, England, one of ten children of Jacob James Tate, a successful wine and spirit merchant and proprietor of public houses and later lodgings. Her parents...
) was replaced by Elisabeth SchwarzkopfElisabeth SchwarzkopfDame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...
, but under the original direction of Geraint Jones. (HMV ALP 1026, EMG review January 1953). A live performance with Teyte is available on the Walhall label. - The AlcesteAlceste (Gluck)Alceste is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1767. The libretto was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi and based on the play Alcestis by Euripides. The premiere took place in Vienna.-Preface and reforms:...
(original Italian version edited by Geraint Jones) in which she also made a farewell was recorded with Raoul Jobin, Alexander YoungAlexander Young (tenor)Alexander Basil Young was an English tenor who had an active career performing in concerts and operas from the late 1940s through the early 1970s. He was particularly admired for his performances in the operas of Handel, Mozart, and Rossini.In 1953 he performed the role of Tom Rakewell in the...
, Marion Lowe, Thomas Hemsley, Joan Clark, Rosemary Thayer, Geraint Jones Orchestra and singers, Geraint Jones (Decca LP LXT 5273-5276;. c. 1952)
In 1956, she moved to Decca where in the autumn of her career further important studio recordings followed:
- Several albums of Grieg, Sibelius, Brahms, etc., with orchestra and piano
- Wagner arias with Knappertsbusch (stereo)
- Acts I and III of Die Walküre (as Sieglinde and Brünnhilde respectively) as well as the Brünnhilde/Siegmund duet from Act II (these conducted variously by Knappertsbusch and Solti, as a sort of preparation for Decca's complete Ring project).
- And her great valedictory as Fricka in the Decca Rheingold of 1958.
Almost to the end of her life, Flagstad continued to sing in fine voice, although she increasingly sang Mezzo-Soprano material or in a Mezzo range: besides the Rheingold Fricka (a Mezzo role), Decca planned to cast her also as the Walkure Fricka and the Gotterdammerung Waltraute for its complete Ring (in the event, the roles were sung by Christa Ludwig
Christa Ludwig
Christa Ludwig is a retired German mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, Lieder, oratorio and other major religious works like masses and passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature...
), and also to record her in Brahms’ ‘’Four Serious Songs’’ and Alto Rhapsody
Alto Rhapsody
The Alto Rhapsody, Op 53, is a work for contralto, male chorus, and orchestra by Johannes Brahms. It was written as a wedding gift for Robert and Clara Schumann's daughter, Julie. Brahms scholars have long speculated that the composer may have had romantic feelings for Julie, which he may have...
; that these plans were shelved only by her final illness and death stands as a testament to her superbly consistent vocal abilities, and to the respect and affection in which she was held to the end by record companies and the public.