A True Legend has Passed Away...

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 2:39am

Birgit Nilsson, great singer and person. What a character and what a voice...May she Rest in Peace.

NY TIMES

Updated On: 1/12/06 at 02:39 AM

[Marquise]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 2:42am

wasn't she in Red Sonja?

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 2:51am

Have some respect, for crying out loud...this is no time for joking!

[phantom_tenor]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 2:59am

She will be greatly missed. Birgit Nilsson's singing in Turandot with Franco Corelli are some of my favourite moments in opera.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 3:02am

I am not sure how much she will be missed by the general public. Her family and friends, yes. But she has not performed for years. Thankfully her recordings survive.

[eslgr8]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 3:19am

Last year we lost Renata Tebaldi, and now Birgit Nilsson. True greats of the opera world.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 9:24am

She was an amzing singer. I had the chance to see her live a couple of times, and though she was past her prime, she still had a voice that any young singer would envy.
I never saw her do Turandot but the live recording of her and Corelli is amazing. They were spectacular together - though apparently weren't the best of friends. My favorite story was when they were doing Turandot on tour together.

During a performance of Turandot [in 1961], the tenor Franco Corelli, after having been thoroughly out-shouted in 'In questa reggia' [by Birgit Nilsson, who had held her top C much longer than he had], immediately left the stage (he had no more to sing, but he was supposed to be there), sulked in his dressing room, and declared that he would not come out again.

"At this point, Rudolf Bing [the Met's manager] is said to have entered the dressing room [and found Corelli, his wife, and the dog all screaming, and blood on the table which he had smashed in a rage] with an idea wonderfully calculated to appeal to the tenor's amour propre. 'In America, a man cannot retreat before a woman,' Mr. Bing is reported to have said. 'Continue! And in the last act, when the time comes to kiss her, bite her instead.'

"Mr. Corelli is said to have followed instructions, and Mr. Bing, according to the story, fled to New York, where Miss Nilsson telephoned him, saying, 'I cannot go on to Cleveland. I have rabies!'"

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 9:37am

Now THAT'S a diva.

RIP, Birgit.

[JailyardGuy]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 9:44am

Oh my god.


*weeping and gnashing of teeth*

It should have been me! WHY?!?! *beats fists*

(Seriously, that girl could BLOW.)

Updated On: 1/12/06 at 09:44 AM

[NYadgal]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 10:09am

South Fl Marc - GREAT story!

I have a number of her recordings, and her voice will live on.

RIP.
She was one of the greats.

[mominator]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 10:13am

Such sad news, an amazing lady with such a voice. The choirs of heaven are in bliss.

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 10:43am

many years ago when i was a tyke i waited on her in an italian restaurant (of ill-repute!) i did not recognize her immediately, but the minute she opened her mouth and this CATHEDRAL sound came out asking for some parmesan cheese, a chill went up my spine. she was quite courteous. her head was the size of the head of a full-grown panda --enormous. i remember she wore a a moderate dose of liquid liner that ended in a wing flourish out to the sides of her eyes, very 60's --
you can't imagine how LAME i felt responding to her --this stentorian tone and me with my thin, girly little voice that had only a whiff of training at the time. oich!

Hiyoo Tahoo! she will always be that valkyrie for me.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 10:46am

RIP to a true great.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 1:49pm

Here's another:

Once when she was filling out a contract, when it asked if she had any dependents, she wrote in "Rudolf Bing."

Updated On: 1/12/06 at 01:49 PM

[JailyardGuy]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 2:11pm

Dammit...and on the ONE day that I don't have my Ethan Mordden "Opera Anecdotes" in my bag...


She was a firecracker, that one, that's for sure!

[hannahshule]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 2:33pm

the clips of her singing Wanger in the NY Times site is amazing, and a great article, I like her quote at the end. RIP

[WOSQ]

Posted: 1/12/06 at 2:52pm

Corelli, about to sing his first Ring, asked her for advice.

"Wear comfortable shoes." was her reply.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 9:46am

At the Met, the walls between the stage and the dressing rooms are known all over the world to be the thickest in the world -- you can never hear anyone on stage from backstage.

That is, until Birgit made her Wagnerian debut.

People who saw her live said when she hit a high C, it was like a laser beam shooting out of her mouth directly to your third eye.

I adore a live version I have of her singing "I Could Have Danced All Night"...it sounds like Miss Piggy singing until the last note (she was the first I know of to do an optional high C at the end). That last note is ridiculously amazing.

I agree that her version of Turandot (which, thank God, is on CD -- the main arias are a part of her Firestone tape, as well) is THE version of Turandot. Corelli was, imho, the best tenor of all time. And no one touched the size of Birgit's voce.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 1/13/06 at 12:49pm

I saw her star in Tristan and Isolde in 1973 at the Antique D'Orange in Provence......simply amazing!


Birgit Nilsson, whose prodigious voice, unrivaled stamina and thrilling high notes made her the greatest Wagnerian soprano of the post-World War II era, has died. She was 87.

A funeral was held Wednesday at a church in her native town of Vastra Karup in southern Sweden with only her closest relatives attending, said Fredrik Westerlund, the church's vicar. He did not know when Nilsson died or the cause of death.

Born on a farm in Vastra Karup, Nilsson reigned supreme at opera houses around the world during her long career, which began with her debut in 1946 at the Stockholm Royal Opera as Agathe in Weber's "Der Freischutz" and continued until the mid-1980s when she retired.

She sang a wide variety of dramatic soprano roles, but her reputation was based especially on her mastery of a handful of the most punishing in the operatic repertory. Chief among these was Isolde in Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," which she sang for her sensational debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1959.