Birgit Nilsson 1918 -2005

No doubt this scene was re-enacted recently to a heavenly full-house. I adore the photo above: Franco Corelli (as Cavaradossi) dancing cheek to cheek with Birgit Nilsson (Tosca) gives me quite a voyeuristic thrill but it's Nilsson's obvious delight that wows me so. Delight wrapped in an Empire Waist wrapped in Corelli's arms. Not a bad place to be, eh?

2.25am. Fire-up the laptop. Looking 4 the diverting, the NYC Opera Fanatic finds the disconcerting.

Has the seemingly indestructible fire of Birgit Nilsson been extinguished?

I thought Birgit Nilsson would be around forever, a Swedish Sphinx with a smirk.

Cute shoes 0. Comfortable shoes 87. Final. Christmas Day, 2005.

Wise men report a new star, brightly shining in the heavens.

Has the seemingly indestructible fire of Birgit Nilsson been extinguished?

There will be some sparkling conversation around the Valhalla dining-table tonight (it's 2006, I think we can safely assume that women are allowed at the table of the gods, right?)

Just what made Birgit Nilsson special?

"The finest Wagnerian soprano of her time, Nilsson possessed a plangent, powerful, firmly integrated voice that she was able to project avoce Wagnerian and Strausssian orchestra with almost reckless freedom and unrivalled vocal stamina. Compared to Flagstad, her character has more thrust and edge, perhaps less repose; in Italian roles, she was imposing, if not always idiomatic. Nilsson retained her vocal power and quality until a remarkable age." -Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia

1. V is for Versatile -once upon a time, in Gotham not so long ago, Birgit Nilsson practiced the now-forgotten art of versatilty. Nilsson had a great top and a great bottom --oh, and a great middle too! Needless to say, the soprano was much in demand.

While other singers remained Forest-Bird-holed at the Met, Nilsson's frequent forays into the Italian rep. were a rare triumph of vocal will over Rudolf Bing's will. Nilsson wasn't just some Brunnhilde slumming on her nights-off though. Singing Verdi and Puccini, Nilsson reveled in the new challenges offered. Nilsson's Italian roles at the Met were surely unconventional yet always interesting: Aida, Ballo's Amelia, Lady Macbeth, Tosca, and of course Turandot (an opera rescued from obscurity due, in large part, to Nilsson's blizzard of an ice princess).

Perhaps Birgit Nilsson's most unexpected triumph as a versatile soprano was her singing of the Inflammatus on The Bell Telephone Hour. Singing with all the colors of an NBC peacock, Nilsson intones Rossini's Stabat-Mater-stopper with suprising verve while offering a tintillating glimpse of "what might have been" if Birgit had botherered with the bel canto heroines. Beware: Goosebumps Crossing.

2. Swedish charm school: Charming and captivating, Nilsson seduced all. When Birgit Nilson laughed, the same abandon and freshness of her Hojotoho's were evident. Yet, instead of warrior Brunnhilde, a giggling Birgit was almost girl-ish. While most famous for burning the house down in Gotterdammerung, Nilsson could also use her pyrotechnic techniques for less destructive purposes:

"Sparkle, Birgit, Sparkle"

Listen to a 1972 interview with Birgit Nilsson and fellow Swede Berit Lindholm

Listen to Birgit As Eliza Dolitttle -- "My Fach Lady"

3. Beloved. No one ever said or sang anything catty or bitchy about Birgit Nilsson (and if they did, they can expect a hateful email from me very soon!) Both Rudolf Bing in 5,000 Nights At The Opera and the NYC Opera Fanatic on his blog lavished the soprano with a smorgasbord of praise. That's simply un-natural, folks.

"A woman is beautiful when she is loved... and only then." (Mr. Skeffington).

If so, then Birgit Nilsson must have been one of the most beautiful women in the world! The camera loved Birgit Nilsson. Fellow artists loved Birgit Nilsson. And, on December 18, 1959 when Nilsson made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Isolde, NYC began its love affair with Birgit Nilsson. Even Emperor Rudolf fell head-over-heels in love with Nilsson. Yes, she must have been a beautiful Bing baby

Remembering Birgit Nilsson, the NYC Opera Fanatic gives one final parting glance. While Dorothy Parker's Liebestod may seem like an irreverent send-off for one of the greatest Isoldes of the 20th-century, hopefully the Swedish sphinx with the smirk would have appreciated it:

Dorothy Parker, Liebestod

When I was bold, when I was bold-
And that's a hundred years!-
Oh, never I thought my breast could hold
The terrible weight of tears.

I said: "Now some be dolorous;
I hear them wail and sigh,
And if it be Love that play them thus,
Then never a love will I."

I said: "I see them rack and rue,
I see them wring and ache,
And little I'll crack my heart in two
With little the heart can break."

When I was gay, when I was gay-
It's ninety years and nine!-
Oh, never I thought that Death could lay
His terrible hand in mine.

I said: "He plies his trade among
The musty and infirm;
A body so hard and bright and young
Could never be meat for worm."

"I see him dull their eyes," I said,
"And still their rattling breath.
And how under God could I be dead
That never was meant for Death?"

But Love came by, to quench my sleep,
And here's my sundered heart;
And bitter's my woe, and black, and deep,
And little I guessed a part.

Yet this there is to cool my breast,
And this to ease my spell;
Now if I were Love's, like all the rest,
Then can I be Death's, as well.

And he shall have me, sworn and bound,
And I'll be done with Love.
And better I'll be below the ground
Than ever I'll be above.

Birgit Nilsson
17 May 1918 - 25 December 2005
May She Rest In Eternal Happiness

Remembering Birgit Nilsson: the NYCOF just created his tribute page to Birgit, so there's not much on it.. yet. Be patient, however.

Astrid Varnay sent her thoughts on the passing of Birgit Nilsson to music critic Martin Bernheimer. We gratefully reprint one great artist's remembrance of another:

Birgit Nilsson -- A Remembrance

Even with our helmets on, we never locked horns.

There were simply too many bonds that linked us inseparably: born in the same country – Sweden – under the same sign - Taurus - in the spring of the same year –1918. I got here first, on April 25th as the daughter of visiting Hungarian singers in Stockholm and she showed up on May 17th down the road a piece on her parents’ farm in Västra Karup in Skåne. She never stopped ribbing me about the fact that I arrived a couple of weeks before she did.

Once, after I had moved from Elektra to Klytämnestra, while she continued in the title role, I was on my way to a rehearsal, when behind me on the sidewalk I heard an abrasively cranky child whining incessantly "Mommy, mommy..." When I finally decided I could ignore this no more and turned around in exasperation to beg the parent to pay a little attention to the yammering kid, I realized that the "brat" was my friend Birgit. I did get her back, though. Years later on one of our many phone calls I feigned one of those very formal secretarial voices and inquired if I might speak to Madame Nilsson – when she took the bait and said: "This is she speaking," I switched to my own voice and said "It’s your mother!" It became an identifying mark for our many conversations over the years.

We were colleagues, not rivals. There was never any jealousy, although perhaps occasional, and I hope pardonably small surges of envy emerged on both sides. I coveted those effortless clarion high C’s, and she confessed that she would have enjoyed having some of my dramatic skills, although hers could be fairly incendiary. Actually we didn’t share that many roles. Apart from three or four pillars of both careers: Brünnhilde, Isolde, Fidelio and the aforementioned Elektra, our repertoires pretty much went their own ways. She never sang Ortrud, and I wouldn’t have touched Turandot with a Yang-Tse barge pole. And we loved singing together: Those performances and the joy of our collaboration forged a friendship that will remain affixed in my heart forever.

A talent like Birgit’s comes along – if you’re lucky – perhaps once in a lifetime. How fortunately we are that it happened in our lifetime. A friend and colleague like that is even rarer, and it was a blessing for me to have worked with her.

I’ll miss her greatly.

Astrid Varnay