Eloq uence BIRGIT NILSSON SINGS WAGNER Parsifal Die Walküre Der fliegende Holländer Rienzi Die Feen Tristan und Isolde Wesendonck-Lieder Birgit Nilsson Leif Segerstam Sir Colin Davis Hans Knappertsbusch
RICHARD WAGNER (1813-1883) CD 1 78 42 Parsifal 1 Dies alles hab ich nun geträumt? Ich sah das Kind an seiner Mutter Brust 38 00 Wehe! Was tat ich? Wo war ich? Bekenntnis wird Schuld in Reue enden Amfortas! Die Wunde! Grausamer! Fühlst du im Herzen Ich sah ihn Nun such ich ihn von Welt zu Welt Vergeh, unseilig Weib! (Act II) Parsifal, Kundry, Amfortas Helge Brilioth, tenor (Parsifal) Norman Bailey, bass (Amfortas) Die Walküre 2 Schläfst du, Gast? Der Männer Sippe saß hier im Saal 23 13 Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond Du bist der Lenz War Wälse dein Vater Siegmund heiß ich und Siegmund bin ich (Act I) Sieglinde, Seigmund Helge Brilioth, tenor (Siegmund) Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden Leif Segerstam Rienzi 3 Gerechter Gott! (Act III) 8 52 Adriano Der fliegende Holländer 4 Johohoe! Traft ihr das Schiff im Meere an (Act II) 8 11 Senta The John Alldis Choir London Symphony Orchestra Sir Colin Davis
CD 2 74 09 Die Feen 1 Weh mir, so nah die fürchterlische Stunde (Act II) 11 57 Ada Wesendonck-Lieder 2 I Der Engel 3 55 3 II Stehe still 4 08 4 III Im Treibhaus 6 58 5 IV Schmerzen 2 36 6 V Träume 4 52 London Symphony Orchestra Sir Colin Davis Tristan und Isolde 7 Prelude (Act I) 10 36 8 Weh, ach wehe! Dies zu dulden (Isolde s narrative and curse: Act I) 21 36 Isolde, Brangäne Grace Hoffman, mezzo-soprano (Brangäne) 9 Mild und leise wie er lächelt (Isoldes Liebestod) (Act III) 7 01 Isolde Wiener Philharmoniker Hans Knappertsbusch Birgit Nilsson, soprano Total timing: 152 51 Birgit Nilsson. Richard Wagner. It was an operatic marriage made in heaven that lasted for over twenty years and, thanks to recordings, continues to thrill music lovers around the world. Perhaps a farm in Västra Karup, Sweden, is not the most likely place to find one of the greatest dramatic sopranos of all time, but that is where Nilsson was born on 17 May 1918. She always maintained that being raised on a farm kept her grounded in the real world, and helped put the glamour and high drama of an international operatic career in perspective. Like the time she was at home, trying desperately to figure out how to sing a high C. My mother came in (she was then over sixty) and said calmly, That s easy. There s nothing to it. Here s how it should sound, whereupon she nailed a radiant high C. That was a lesson for me to live by, Nilsson wrote in her autobiography, La Nilsson. Her operatic debut was on 9 October 1946 when she replaced another singer at five days notice at Stockholm s Royal Opera. The role was Agathe in Der Freischütz. The audience and critics loved her, but she made one tiny mistake in her big aria and the crusty, elderly conductor Leo Blech was furious. He pronounced her unmusical, untalented and above all rebellious. He changed his mind two years later when she sang her first Wagnerian part, again in Stockholm. It was Senta in Der fliegende Holländer ( never one of my favorite roles, she admitted later). The day of the first performance she had a terrible cold, but Blech was thrilled with what she did. He sent her a post card: Dear Miss Senta Daland. When one sings as you did yesterday then one doesn t need to be concerned about being hoarse. It was very beautiful. Bravos! Best greetings, Leo Blech. It was the first of countless raves that would greet Nilsson after a Wagner opera. Within a couple years she was assigned Sieglinde in Die Walküre, even Brünnhilde in Siegfried (treacherous for a young singer), while she was also doing roles like Donna Anna in Mozart s Don Giovanni, Lisa in Tchaikovsky s Pique Dame and Verdi s Lady Macbeth. All for the first time. Then came Venus in Tannhäuser, Elsa in Lohengrin and finally, on 1 September 1953, her first Isolde. Word spread rapidly about the astonishing soprano who could sing anything, and do so accurately, musically, and seemingly without effort. In 1954 she debuted in Vienna, in Bayreuth, and added to her repertoire the
Birgit Nilsson PHOTO: DECCA Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde. ( The longest and most difficult as well as the most wonderful of the three Brünnhildes, she said.) When it was announced she would sing Isolde in Vienna that December, the newly appointed director of the opera, Karl Böhm, snorted in disbelief, But she is a soubrette! His opinion was probably based on the Wagner sound, which often came from pushed-up mezzo-sopranos who had a dark, heavy fat sound, Nilsson explained in her autobiography. My vocal technique made for a slenderer sound than my predecessors not so dark and heavy in the low range, and, therefore, a more carrying powerful top. The Viennese critics raved about the fabulous singer whose Wagner sounds like Mozart. Interestingly, she was to make some of her most critically-acclaimed recordings of Isolde with Böhm at the Bayreuth Festival. She also recorded the opera with Sir Georg Solti under studio conditions in 1960 and a year earlier, the Liebestod and Isolde s Narrative and Curse with Hans Knappertsbusch. She sang everywhere, finally reaching the Metropolitan Opera in 1959 where her Isolde was so astonishing it landed her on the front page of The New York Times the next morning with a photograph. Nilsson s voice had the clear, lustrous sound that seems to be characteristic of Scandinavian singers. It was rock solid, encompassed over two octaves, and was perfectly even, top to bottom. It was also enormous. Especially in the upper part of the voice it could take on a laser-like quality that simply sliced through the densest orchestral sound and speared listeners to the backs of their seats. That meant the great moments of a Wagnerian opera were, for a change, truly monumental a surging orchestra and a soprano who dominated everything, combined into an overwhelming climax as Wagner must have heard in his dreams. But for all of the power and majesty of Nilsson s voice, she was too good an artist to just repeat that one admittedly stupendous vocal feat over and over. As this anthology shows, she could also scale back her voice, caressing the music tenderly, conveying the intimate side of Wagner s intensely feminine heroines. The selections here range from Wagner s very first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies) to his last, Parsifal. Die Feen was never staged during the composer s lifetime, and is still almost unknown. Nilsson sings the big Act II aria of Ada, the Queen of the Fairies who has fallen in love with a mortal man.
Another rarity is Adriano s Act III aria from Rienzi, Wagner s third opera. Though it was Wagner s first big hit and made him famous, it s rare to encounter a performance in the theatre today. She never sang Die Feen, Rienzi or Parsifal on stage, but she insisted on not being pigeonholed during her career. Operas by Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Puccini and Strauss all figured prominently in her schedule, to the delight of her public. Her versatility, and her deep commitment to mining every nuance of her roles, coupled with her unique dramatic soprano voice, made her a very precious resource to any opera house lucky enough to engage her. The Met Opera s general manager Rudolf Bing used to get on his knees in gratitude when she arrived for her first rehearsal of the season. A few months after Queen Elizabeth II knighted him, Nilsson arrived for the new season and Sir Rudolf knelt before her. Ah, said Nilsson, you do that so much better since you practiced it with the Queen. It sometimes seemed there was nothing Nilsson could not do, and do well. After a performance of one of Wagner s most demanding roles, she entertained friends backstage by singing the Queen of the Night s notoriously difficult aria 'Die hölle Rasche' from Mozart s Die Zauberflöte complete with runs, staccato leaps and repeated F s above high C. When conductor Karl Böhm heard the story, he refused to believe it until, after the next performance, Nilsson repeated the feat, with the incredulous Böhm at the piano. Such mind-boggling talent could easily have led to outlandish diva behavior, but Nilsson kept her head on her shoulders. She knew her own worth and never saw any reason to hide her light under the proverbial bushel. But at the same time she was always anxious to learn more, especially from someone like the great stage director, Wieland Wagner, the composer s grandson. When asked about his remark, Nilsson was famous before she was great, she replied honestly, That was certainly true. In addition to her voice, talent and artistry, Nilsson had that intangible quality that connected her with the audience in a deep, personal way. It is not something that can be taught. Only the very greatest artists have it. It is almost a mystical connection that makes the audience intensely involved with the performance and hyper-aware and caring of what the singer is doing on stage. In Nilsson s case it sometimes resulted in evenings that can never be repeated. One such was 8 March 1974 when New York s Metropolitan Opera unveiled a new production of Götterdämmerung. The company had not given the opera since 1963 and the evening had been sold out for months but suddenly Nilsson s participation was a question mark. During a rehearsal, the rung of a ladder gave way as she was descending. She crashed to the stage floor, dislocating her shoulder, banging up some ribs and bruising her side. She was taken to a nearby hospital where she remained for several days in considerable pain. The day of the premiere, the afternoon newspaper reported that Rita Hunter, Nilsson s understudy, would sing Brünnhilde. But as the orchestra came to the climax of the Dawn music with the horns triumphantly playing Siegfried s heroism motif, it was Birgit Nilsson who stepped onto the stage, her right arm in a sling, tightly wrapped to her body. The audience erupted. No Ring audience ever disturbs the music in the middle of an act, but that evening almost four thousand people did, with thunderous applause, cheers, and stamping feet, on and on, paying tribute to Nilsson s courage. Until, just as she started to sing, the tumult suddenly ceased, as if cut off by a knife. Nilsson was shaken by the unexpected ovation. I was so moved by that greeting I started to cry, she said after the performance. Jess [Thomas, her Siegfried] was holding me and I whispered in his ear that I could not go on. He squeezed by good left hand hard and kept saying into my ear, Oh, yes, you can, baby. By the time the duet reached its final section, Nilsson was in her usual stupendous shape. She filled the long phrases with ecstasy and flung them into the audience with almost scornful ease, capping it all off with a solid, triumphant high C that, unbelievably, sent the grateful audience into yet another frenzy, right there in the middle of the act. Nilsson the Indestructible, the New York Times christened her the next day, before concluding, She continues to be a marvel, and one can do no more than stand off and admire her with awe. But then, Nilsson always rose to the occasion. Long after she retired, she came back to the Met for James Levine s 25th anniversary gala. It was a star-studded evening that began at 6pm and didn t end until just before two the next morning. Before the final number, Nilsson stopped the show cold by walking on stage to say a few words in tribute to Levine. She ended by saying she would salute Levine
as a daughter of the Vikings, in my way. Then she stepped away from the microphone, and, at age 78, let rip with the first few phrases of Brünnhilde s famous Ho-jo-to-ho, hurling the top note into the theatre as no one had done it well, since the last time Nilsson had last sung it there seventeen years before. Birgit Nilsson. Richard Wagner. The stuff of legends. Paul Thomason Recording producer: John Culshaw (Tristan und Isolde) Recording engineer: James Brown (Tristan und Isolde) Recording locations: Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, September 1959 (Tristan und Isolde); Watford Town Hall, Watford, UK, July 1971 (Rienzi, Der fliegende Holländer, Die Feen, Wesendonck-Lieder); London, UK, July 1973 (Parsifal, Die Walküre) Cover image: Birgit Nilsson as Isolde (photo: Decca) Birgit Nilsson official website: www.birgitnilsson.com Eloquence series manager: Cyrus Meher-Homji Art direction: Chilu www.chilu.com Booklet editor: Bruce Raggatt
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