So grüße mir Walhall
UPDATED January 12: The legendary Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson died on December 25, it was announced yesterday. She was 87. La Cieca will present a special episode of "Unnatural Acts of Opera" tonight in salute to Mme. Nilsson.
Birgit Nilsson as Isolde, Metropolitan Opera, 1971
Once Birgit Nilsson was negotiating a contract with Herbert von Karajan, at the time director of the Vienna Opera, when a string of pearls she was wearing broke and scattered all over the floor. Von Karajan and several others who were present got down on their knees to search for the pearls.
"Gentlemen, we must find every one of them," von Karajan said. "Miss Nilsson bought these precious natural pearls with her fees from the Metropolitan."
"Don't bother, gentlemen," Miss Nilsson replied, "Those are just dime-store imitation pearls I bought with my fees from the Vienna Opera." -- Characteristic (if probably apocryphal) anecdote
POSTED at
10:37 AM
17 Comments:
That shook me up. Terribly sad news in spite of her advanced age.
She was an amazing singer, who always tried to do her best rather than just rely on her impressive voice.
I was privileged to have seen and heard her in most of her greatest roles and treasure the memories.
I just pulled up this site and saw the news while Nilsson sings the Liebestod on my computer. wierd coincidence. I only saw her live three times. always in concert or recitals.She was truly one of a kind. Another story involves an Isolde at the Met with a new stage manager who asked her if she needed anything special. her reply was when he heard her begin Mild und Leise to run across the street and buy two Tuborg Golds because she only had to work for another five minutes. Another story, she was doing Turandot with a conductor who was not using the score, when the first act was over she insisted he get a score or she would not go out on stage. She also told stories about how Corelli kept a wet sponge in his pants to suck on to keep himself from drying out while singing. She was bemused by him pulling something out of his pants and sucking on it.
I first saw her in recital in Constitution Hall in D.C. Apparently not knowing how good the acoustics were, she tried to hide a burp between numbers. We all heard this massive WAGNERIAN belch echoing throughout the hall. We laughed, she laughed. No problem.
Later, I saw her in "Walkure" once and twice as the Dyer's Wife in "Frau ohne Schatten." She was amazing. Legendary.
Her "Turandot" with Bjorling and Tebaldi was one of my first complete operas. I played that thing until I had it memorized.
I treasured each of her Met broadcasts.
I loved this artist. I will have to get out my Great Opera Stars on Bell Telephone Hour DVDs and watch her again today.
It seems that just like we had a sort of operatic golden era starting in the 1950's through the mid-70's, now we have to face a death season for those golden era singers.
In a very short time we've lost Corelli, Merrill, Tebaldi, de los Angeles, King, now Nilsson, and a bit earlier Rysanek, Valleti, Thomas, Milanov, et al.
Our evening sky gets brighter and brighter.
I saw Nilsson several times. In the theatre, her High C would blow you out of your seat......It was
unbelievable. One of the really great ones!
Birgit Nilsson was my favourite singer. When I was a kid I was so infatuated with the power of her singing that I decided to send her a long and probably quite foolish letter. Much to my surprise she answered back and sent a lovely card with nice kind words and a big funny photo of herself clipping the roses in her garden. We kept on exchanging little cards at Christmas time. I am deeply sorry to hear that she is dead now but I do not feel really sad because I know that her artistic legacy - so many beautifu discs and also a few dazzling videos - is unparalleled and eternal. There were, there are and there will be other great Strauss,Wagner (and Verdi!) interpreters, but there will never be another SINGER like La Nilsson. She is now happily singing in the paradise chorus and I am sure they are experiencing serious balance problems for ther first time up there...
so very sad. I saw her many times at Covent Garden in Turandot, Gotterdammerung, Elektra, Fidelio and Tristan. She was a trully fantastic artist. I just wish there were more video performances of hers available. I sent her flowers after some of her performances and she always wrote thanking me and sent me pictures of her performances.
Mme Nilsson was doing a last minute replacement performance of Tosca in LA. B. Sills was unexpected ill. It was one of the first times I was in charge, needless to say I was nervous.
At the end of her Act I "thing" with Scarpia, she came off stage holding her finger. "He got my nail" Said she. Shook up I was running for a bandaid and she said "Oh no, not the real one the false one" So when the curtain came down and they were taking their bows, I found her nail on the floor. I gave it to her, she thanked me and said "I will put it in the Bank of Sweden" and proceeded to stash it in her bra.
A wonderful, funny supertalented lady.
Terribly sad news. A friend of mine who is a voice student of Mignon Dunn's said that she received notification from the Met and was very sad to lose her esteemed friend and colleague.
I experienced a similar coincidence as paddypig, for I had just finished reading the Birgit section of Studs Terkel's new AND THEY ALL SANG when my friend called with the news.
It's time to listen to the Solti Carnegie Salome final scene -- the most magnificent, voluminous singing I know.
It's hard to express what I feel. She was a major part of my coming-of-age. I heard her onstage many times (and on disc, many more times). In the roles she sang, no one ever approached her for me. Those fearless high notes!
And in a box somewhere, I think I have her autograph on a Met program. I remember waiting for her outside the stage door at the new Met in the late 60s.
I wish her autobiography had been published in English. It was published in German (translated from the original Swedish) and I've been struggling through it for probably 10 years now! Apparently there was supposed to be an American edition, but as I understand it, the publisher fell on hard times financially and it never happened.
La Cieca (die Blinde?) - Your headline "So gruesse mir Walhall" gave me shivers.
You know, I wish my memory weren’t so rotten ... When I lived in Sweden, she returned for 1 gala performance of Tristan (with an world-class cast of great Swedish singers as co-stars) with the Royal Opera to mark the 30th anniversary of her debut there. She was glorious, even though it was announced beforehand that she had a cold. Afterwards, she spoke amidst all the bouquets and ovations & with the entire company behind her, and she sounded like a man! her voice was so deep. I queued over-night for that ticket, if I remember correctly ... And then, she sang Isolde's "Curse and Narration" from Act I of Tristan at the Met Centennial Gala, and I was there. Did I ever see her in concert? It's weird, I've seen her so often on video and on TV that I can't remember what I've seen on tape and what I might have actually seen live ... I'm pretty sure that the only thing I ever saw her in at the Met was Die Frau ohne Schatten. It’s a cliche, I know, to say so, but those were absolutely unforgettable performances (with Eva Marton’s glorious Empress icing on the cake). All the press reports say that she retired in 1982 and I moved to NYC in 1981, so I guess Die Frau was the only actual opera I ever saw her in at the Met ... And in 1996 we saw her on TV for the Jimmy Levine 25th anniversary gala, which I think she closed (?)... She sang a Swedish folksong, quite coloratura-ish, clarion as bell, pitch-perfect, acappella & was so, so captivating (and very, very funny). I can’t remember if she sang an actual aria, or just that sweet folksong.. Need to buy the 2-DVD set of that gala, which the Met newsletter just today informed me is now available! ... and years ago, I attended one of her master classes at Mannes (she gave them there once a year for many years). I remember she was hilarious & very wise, I thought. I wish I had a better memory so I could remember her funny comments and anecdotes. I do remember her telling one young pretty blonde soprano (who had just performed Zerbinetta's big big coloratura extravaganza from Ariadne) that she, Birgie opined, was too young to sing such taxing music, even though she'd sung it quite well. She warned the young soprano about hurting her voice and hence imperiling her future. And at one point, she started acknowledging famous people in the audience, including "Mrs. Franco Corelli," whom she pointed out & who then stood up for a bow amidst wild applause. Then Birgie said, "Ah, Franco! He was my favorite tenor ..." and this was said in such a meltingly sensuous manner that it was terribly moving. . . the way she uttered that "Franco" was positively erotic ... I thought she was about to burst into tears, which I’m about to do thinking about that moment ...
Nilsson sang Isolde's narrative and the folksong at the 83 gala. she only did the Ho jo to ho at the levine gala.
Oh gods... when I was at university, I discovered Ms. Nilsson's Brunhilde, on vinyl... I remember a very long day, sandwiched between headphones in the university library with all four operas, libretto in-hand, just salivating as I listened and wishing it was recorded on film somewhere... I'm still looking.
Sad news. My favorite moment of hers on record is in the Solti Elektra at the end of "Was Bluten muss" when she just nails in the space of one page of full score a Bb, C and again a Bb above the staff. What a glorious moment! She simply *is* Elektra, Turandot, Isolde and the Dyer's Wife for me, no one comes close.
I first heard Nilsson sing at a Sat. matinee broadcast of Fidelio at the insistence of a friend who had raved about a "great Swedish soprano." Needless to say, I was bowled over! That season (1963), I also heard Nilsson in Turandot, Tristan & Isolde, Tosca, and Un Ballo in Maschera. (She had appeared in Aida earlier that season as well!) Those were the days - the 60s - when singers came to the Met and stayed for months at a time and sang numerous roles. What a banquet! I have many outstanding memories of Nilsson.
When JFK was assassinated the opera scheduled for that night was cancelled. It happened to be the ONE opera that would have been most appropriate to have been presented: Goetterdaemmerung. The last performance of that opera was a Saturday broadcast in mid-December. Backstage in Nilsson's dressing room after the performance, she gave me a hug as I lamented that she was leaving NY. "You want me to stay to sing the evening performance?" she quipped. (It was to be Sutherland's Met debut in - and here I blank out on what - a very coloratura role.) Nilsson started singing an aria from it in my ear! (OK, someone out there please refresh my memory of WHAT Sutherland role it was.)
Another time, at the end of a concert, she was singing "Wien, Wien nur du allein..." when she suddenly blanked out: "Oops, I forgot the lines," she said, and ran around to check out the pianist's score. She then proceded to waltz all around the stage much to everyone's delight.
I have missed hearing her voice on stage, and I miss her sparkling, wicked personality. Skaal, Birgit!
Sutherland made her Met debut on Thanksgiving Day 1961 in Lucia di Lamermoor. A couple of years before Kennedy's assassination.
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