# SOPRANO TOURNAMENT: (Semifinal #1 Tie-breaker): Leider vs Flagstad



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Frida Leider






Kirsten Flagstad






Who's singing did you prefer and why? This is a short 2 day poll so get your votes in!


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

They are both estimable voices, but I find Flagstad’s voice has greater ease, as well as more warmth and depth of tone.


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## Music Snob (Nov 14, 2018)

Kirsten Flagstad... some might think that Wagner knew Flagstad would be born in the future and decided to write music for her.


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## Aerobat (Dec 31, 2018)

That's one of the hardest so far. I've now listened to both of them four times. Flagstad wins it for me, as the previous poster says - this could have been written specifically for Flagstad's voice, and she simply has an effortless quality in her singing that Leider doesn't possess..


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Really difficult to choose between them. Recording quality makes a difference of course as Leider's 1926 recording is less expansive than Flagstad's much later recording. I was going to abstain but eventually I've decided to plump for Leider as I slightly prefer her voice and find her a little more involved, but there's very little in it,


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Would you believe that, being out of my depth, a non Wagnerian expert, to me they both sound like the same voice, with Flagstad's being the clearer recording. There is no way for me to judge. I don't know enough about the voices or that particular choice to ably judge, so I pass.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

We encounter here the same problem that besets other Leider recordings: the need to squeeze the music onto a 78rpm disc. I feel sure that in live performance the phrases would have had a little more breathing room, and that this would have allowed Leider to inflect them in a more subtle manner. With the Flagstad there's no such problem, but the singer is 61 years old and the top of the voice is no longer easy. So, between two unavoidably imperfect performances I really don't know how to choose. I guess I'll take Flagstad purely for the extraordinary beauty of her lower range.

My favorite recording of the _Wesendonck Lieder_ is the one Eileen Farrell made with Leonard Bernstein, which I had on an LP paired with the Immolation Scene from _Gotterdammerung._ A treasurable disc. This song, "Im Triebhaus," is particularly poignant in Farrell's performance, and her own low voice is as beautiful as Flagstad's.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> We encounter here the same problem that besets other Leider recordings: the need to squeeze the music onto a 78rpm disc. I feel sure that in live performance the phrases would have had a little more breathing room, and that this would have allowed Leider to inflect them in a more subtle manner. With the Flagstad there's no such problem, but the singer is 61 years old and the top of the voice is no longer easy. So, between two unavoidably imperfect performances I really don't know how to choose. I guess I'll take Flagstad purely for the extraordinary beauty of her lower range.
> 
> My favorite recording of the _Wesendonck Lieder_ is the one Eileen Farrell made with Leonard Bernstein, which I had on an LP paired with the Immolation Scene from _Gotterdammerung._ A treasurable disc. This song, "Im Triebhaus," is particularly poignant in Farrell's performance, and her own low voice is as beautiful as Flagstad's.


My own favourite is one by Dame Janet Baker conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. She is not someone you'd normally associate with Wagner, but her performance is very beautiful and full of little details that are often overlooked by larger voiced singers.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I'm going with Flagstad not only because the slower tempo means that she can make more of the song, but her voice is fuller, despite some notes at the top of her range being a little flat at this stage in her career.

N.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Leider, mostly due more assured top register when compared to Flagstad, but her version loses me somewhere midway.
Flagstad, mostly due to more involved singing and beautiful lower register.

Emotional impact wins this one for me. I voted for Flagstad.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> My own favourite is one by Dame Janet Baker conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. She is not someone you'd normally associate with Wagner, but her performance is very beautiful and full of little details that are often overlooked by larger voiced singers.


I'd forgotten about Baker's version. It is indeed beautiful. Jessye Norman also made a lovely recording, and do I recall another fine one by Christa Ludwig?


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I'd forgotten about Baker's version. It is indeed beautiful. Jessye Norman also made a lovely recording, and do I recall another fine one by Christa Ludwig?


Ludwig did indeed record them and her version is very beautiful, but, for me, it lacks that last degree of sepcificity Baker brings to the songs.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Leider sings lieder" - sounds pretty cool.



Music Snob said:


> Flagstad... some might think that Wagner knew Flagstad would be born in the future and decided to write music for her.


Btw, swap "Flagstad/her" with "Hitler/him" in the sentence, and it's something NLAdriaan, DavidA, millionrainbows have said all the time.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Leider sings lieder" - sounds pretty cool.
> 
> Btw, swap "Flagstad/her" with "Hitler/him" in the sentence, and it's something NLAdriaan, DavidA, millionrainbows have said all the time.


At the moment the air here is clear and breathable. Why pollute it?


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

REVIEW OF EVA RIEGER'S BIOGRAPHY OF FRIDA LEIDER

"Leider is largely forgotten today. A perusal on YouTube however offers a soprano who would seem as far away from a post-war concept of Wagnerian soprano as possible. The voice is instrumental, beautifully modulated, precisely tuned and as flexible as a bel canto coloratura. She was a heroic Wagnerian singer with a voice of silk, not steel. Every word is scrupulously audible and from what one reads in Rieger's biography, she was enthralling and compelling as an actress, a very far cry from the caricature of she-elephant in a horned helmet.

Indeed, her disappearance from our collective memory is even more astonishing as her career in the 1920s and 1930s was truly international while her popularity in London was unparalleled. Indeed, it was Leider's removal from opera stages by Nazi decree along with her own decision not to return to opera afterwards that kept Walter Legge from recording Wagner's Ring Cycle on EMI. Having heard Leider in Bayreuth in earlier days, Legge was convinced that a post-war Ring recording without her could never represent Germany's Wagner tradition. Solti and Decca filled the gap in the late 1950s and '60s, setting Wagnerian trends and standards that continue to dominate to the present day. Leider reminds us that it was once a very different world.

Rieger's biography sheds light on many figures from the time: Heinz Tietjen, Winifred Wagner, Friedelind Wagner, Lauritz Melchior, Max Lorenz, Heinrich Schlusnus and many more. Some whom we believed severely compromised are presented in a more favourable light, while others, such as Tietjen, come away as having been ruthlessly opportunistic, despite their undeserved post-war clean bill of health. This is not just a biography for opera lovers, or Wagner fans, but for any historian interested in the dilemmas and compromises every professional artist was forced to make in order to survive in Hitler's hell. It's engagingly written, with real empathy for Leider; yet whilst presenting a sympathetic account, Rieger does not remain unquestioning."

Interesting, lengthy review of a title which hasn't yet been translated into English.

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All 34 selections on the above title can be found here -

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nXQyrpvcV3kYvnznToyuc2J3DKLbLaBdE


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sunburst Finish said:


> REVIEW OF EVA RIEGER'S BIOGRAPHY OF FRIDA LEIDER
> 
> "Leider is largely forgotten today. A perusal on YouTube however offers a soprano who would seem as far away from a post-war concept of Wagnerian soprano as possible. The voice is instrumental, beautifully modulated, precisely tuned and as flexible as a bel canto coloratura. She was a heroic Wagnerian singer with a voice of silk, not steel. Every word is scrupulously audible and from what one reads in Rieger's biography, she was enthralling and compelling as an actress, a very far cry from the caricature of she-elephant in a horned helmet.
> 
> ...


This looks like something I'd read if it were translated into English. Leider wrote a short autobiography which has been translated and is a pleasant read.

I wonder why Rieger thinks that Leider is "mostly forgotten"? For anyone interested in singers of the past, particularly singers of Wagner, she's impossible to overlook.


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