WHEN COLLEAGUES TALK
"As soon as I heard Nilsson -she sang Elsa to my Ortrud and Sieglinde to my Brunnhilde -I knew that fortunately we had another superb voice. But when she stops ... I don't really know what will happen. There seems to be a blank on the horizon"-Gertrud Grob-Prandl, soprano
"To have Nilsson aws the rival of my affections for Corelli in Turandot was most inspiring, and the sort of competition that is eminently healthy and positive"-Rosanna Carteri soprano
Birgit Nilsson -- A Remembrance, Astrid Varnay, soprano.
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 Vastra Karup in Skane. 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 Klytemnestra, 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: Brunnhilde, 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.
The Birgit Nilsson Virtual Monument Is An Ongoing Project From The NYC Opera Fanatic
Main Page
Birgit Nilsson Timeline
Birgit Nilsson On Video And Disc
The Gospel According To Birgit
NYC Opera Fanatic Homepage
Main Page
Birgit Nilsson Timeline
Birgit Nilsson On Video And Disc
The Gospel According To Birgit
NYC Opera Fanatic Homepage
Credits
While this webpage was created by the NYC Opera Fanatic, he is merely an instrument of greater powers. 2 people also deserve credit for this webpage: the divine Birgit herself (for obvious reasons) and Nilsson Fanatic in Excelsis Mike Richter (many of the audio clips on this page have been culled from Mike's website over the years). To each of them, the NYCOF gives a "four-times hurray" (that's 8, right?) for their contribution to opera and to my life!