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Birgit
Nilsson is the most important dramatic soprano of her era, and
the rightful successor to the throne of Kirsten Flagstad. To this day,
it is hard to touch her Isolde and Brünnhilde, not to mention the
amazingly nuanced vocal-acting of her Salome; and the operatic
fireworks of when she sang Turandot to Franco Corelli's Calaf is the stuff
of legend. She also lived to make the lives of Rudolf Bing (the
micro-managing artistic director of the Met) and Herbert von Karajan
(tyrannical conductor) a living hell: legend has it that at a piano
rehearsal of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in Vienna, her string of
pearls snapped and the company rushed about to catch the tiny baubles.
"No doubt," snarled von Karajan, "those are fabulously
expensive pearls bought with your Metropolitan fees?"
"No," La Nilsson replied, "these are cheap imitation pearls bought
with your Vienna fees." When asked once by a reporter
how she was able to begin singing a role like Isolde at 8:00 and still
have enough steam to be going strong at midnight, she replied, "oh, I wear
comfortable shoes." |
