Kirsten Flagstad must
be ranked as one of the greatest dramatic
sopranos ever. No one in her wake –
apart from Astrid Varnay and Birgit
Nilsson – has come anywhere near her
in majesty, power and general excellence.
She made her début
as early as 1913 at the age of 18 but
it was another 22 years until she became
an international ‘name’. Slowly developing
her initially small lyrical voice during
the 1910s and 1920s, finally reaching
early Wagner in 1929 and 1930, she was
invited to Bayreuth in 1932, singing
some minor roles. In 1934 she returned
as Gutrune and Sieglinde, the latter
role awakening the interest of the Metropolitan.
She arrived at the Met in February 1935
and had a tremendous success, helped
in no small degree by the fact that
the performance was broadcast nationwide.
From then on she was the dramatic
soprano and as such she was quickly
typecast in the great Wagnerian roles,
a fate that has ruined many promising
singers. The great difference with Flagstad
– and Birgit Nilsson a couple of decades
later – was that she was already in
mid-career. By then her voice had already
settled and – of course – she was endowed
with exceptionally strong vocal cords.
Her career lasted in fact up to the
end of the 1950s. Her official farewell
concert took place on 7 September 1957
at the Royal Albert Hall – a concert
that was recorded by the BBC and recently
issued on CD. In her native Norway she
continued singing for another few years
and even recorded Fricka in Das Rheingold
for Solti in 1959.
Besides the Wagnerian
heroines and some other Hochdramatisch
roles, the songs of her fellow-countryman
Grieg were always close to her heart;
surprising perhaps since these are lyrical
miniatures composed with quite another
voice-type in mind. But Flagstad was
able to scale down her instrument to
meet Grieg’s requirements, as we can
hear in the Haugtussa cycle on
this disc. This was her first recording
of three and the one that comes closest
to the mark in sheer voice quality.
Her insight is just as deep in the later
efforts but there her voice took on
a more matronly quality that became
more and more prominent during the later
part of her career, not surprisingly
since by then she was well past 50.
Back in 1940, when
this first Haugtussa was recorded,
we also sense a whiff of the matron,
especially in her imposing contralto-like
low register. The upper part of the
voice shines, but not steely cold –
there are streaks of softer metals,
lending warmth to the sound and even
a certain frailty, whether intentional
or not. I sometimes feel that the slight
vulnerability in her tone may be due
to her efforts to ‘shrink’ the voice
down from her orchestra-riding dimensions
to balance the piano. This feeling is
reinforced here through the close recording
of the voice – she is almost on top
of the microphone. The piano, though
well reproduced, is further back. But
it isn’t only a matter of her holding
back, she has many of the finest attributes
of a good Lieder singer: expressive
with words – she sings in her native
language, willing to colour the voice.
In some of the songs she exhibits a
girlish liveliness not expected from
a great Isolde. Blåbaer-Li
(tr. 3) is masterly with Edwin McArthur’s
piano part contributing to the light
and glittering impression.
Tempos are generally
on the slow side. Comparing her to three
latter-day Nordic singers, both Anne
Sofie von Otter (DG) and Monica Groop
(BIS) are several minutes faster. The
third singer, Siv Wennberg (EMI) with
Geoffrey Parsons, recorded in the 1970s
and to my knowledge never issued on
CD, is actually even slower than Flagstad.
Wennberg, who gradually moved into Flagstad
repertoire – I heard her as an impressive
Isolde some twenty years ago – can even
sound a bit lethargic, which Flagstad
never does. Such is her concentration
and involvement that she doesn’t feel
slow – unless one makes direct comparisons
with the two mezzo-sopranos. Objectively
both von Otter and Groop are to be preferred
but as so often more than one approach
can be valid. The only disfiguring element
is her over-generous use of portamento,
that sliding from note to note that
was a common feature with some singers
and violinists of an earlier generation.
I have recently made the same comment
on Elisabeth Schumann.
That Flagstad’s voice
was in an aging process – or to modify
the verdict: maturing – becomes obvious
when we move three years back to the
dramatic arias with orchestra, miraculously
all of them, with a playing time of
50 minutes, recorded on the same day:
17 October 1937! Here she is at a fair
distance from the microphone. There
is more ambience around the voice. But
the most interesting and fascinating
aspect is the difference in the actual
sounds she produces. This is a voice
that is infinitely brighter, even lighter
and more lyrical. It is a voice that
would fit the Figaro countess
like a glove. It is indeed a marvellous
instrument and she even produces some
decent runs in the Beethoven aria (tr.
9). She has all the power required for
this testing repertoire and the blazing
top, gleaming like Aida-trumpets
and not a trace of the hooting sounds
one remembers from her later recordings.
Her Fidelio has a lyrical warmth that
places it in a class of its own, the
portamenti notwithstanding. The Oberon
aria, a real challenge, has her pouring
out regal tones of exceptional beauty.
Elsa’s Euch Lüften (tr.
12) is lyrical and inward and hearing
her glorious reading of Sieglinde’s
Du bist der Lenz (tr. 13) gives
a clue to her tremendous breakthrough
that historical night at the Met two
years earlier. Of present day singers,
there isn’t one who can challenge Flagstad,
with the possible exception of Nina
Stemme, who was just as magnificent
in the role in Stockholm a year ago.
Now that is a reading that I
would wish to have recorded, maybe more
than anything in this world!
Starke Scheite,
the finale from Götterdämmerung
(tr. 14), is also remarkable for the
abandon and the warmth. Again Varnay
and Nilsson are the only competitors
within arm’s length. She recorded it
again more than ten years later for
EMI with Furtwängler, still impressive
but some of the youthful freshness was
gone. She even recorded the complete
opera in the mid-1950s for Decca with
Set Svanholm as Siegfried and a Norwegian
cast. As far as I know this recording
has never been rescued from the vaults.
The question is how desirable is it?
Surely it at least merits a highlights
disc with the two star singers …?
It has to be mentioned
that a not inconsiderable part of the
success of these incandescent recordings
falls on the shoulders of Eugene Ormandy
– who never lets the tension slacken
– and the glorious playing of the Philadelphia
Orchestra. Mark Obert-Thorn has done
his usual miracles with the transfers,
belying the actual age of the recordings
by at least ten years. They were originally
released by Romophone and everyone who
for some reason missed that issue can
now put that blunder right. As a bonus
one is also treated to one of John Steane’s
insightful liner notes.
Göran Forsling
Kirsten Flagstad (soprano) 
