# Special round: Der Manner Sippe w/ Flagstad debut as Sieglinde and Lehmann



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I did not know about this early recording and I think it will be interesting to compare the two ladies on a more even playing field


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Flagstad's voice is much more appropriate to the role in this recording but I love the richness of her lower register that she got with maturity. It's much more of a close contest between these two using this earlier recording.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Lehman is a natural Sieglinde, while Flagstad, even twenty years earlier doesn’t sound like it - in my opinion, she’s the Demi-Goddess she was always meant to be!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MAS said:


> Lehman is a natural Sieglinde, while Flagstad, even twenty years earlier doesn’t sound like it - in my opinion, she’s the Demi-Goddess she was always meant to be!


I agree, relatively speaking. Lehmann's voice and personality project more warmth and vulnerability. But don't forget that Brunnhilde and Sieglinde are stepsisters, both daughters of Wotan, and so both demigoddesses.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The younger Flagstad is much better here than she was on the late studio recording, magnificent in fact, but I still feel Lehmann is the more natural Sieglinde. It's still Lehmann for me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I had not known this recording existed, and I've now listened to all of it and would urge everyone to hear the excerpts from Act 2. They include only the scenes in which Sieglinde sings, and Flagstad's portrayal of her terror is as fine as her vocalism. 

On YouTube is posted the following review of the performance by Lawrence Gilman in the New York Herald Tribune from 3rd February 1935: 

"A New Wagner Singer Makes Her American Debut at the Metropolitan It is a pleasure to salute in Mme. Kirsten Flagstad, the Metropolitan's new dramatic soprano, an artist of surprising and delightful quality. Mme. Flagstad, who made her American debut yesterday afternoon as Sieglinde, has come to us without benefit of ballyhoo. Her name was unfamiliar here except to a few observers on the critical watch-towers who knew that this young Norwegian from Oslo had sung at Bayreuth during the last two seasons (Ortlinde and the Third Norn in 1933, Sieglinde and Gutrune in 1934), and that experienced observers who had heard her in Europe spoke well of her. Yesterday's audience was therefore unprepared for the disclosure that awaited them, and to which they paid frequent tributes of enthusiastic recognition. Mme. Flagstad is that rare avis in the Wagnerian woods - a singer with a voice, with looks, with youth. She is not merely another of those autumnal sopranos who passed their prime when the Kaiser was a boy, and whose waistlines have gone to that bourne from which no slenderness returneth. I cannot swear that Mme. Flagstad is in her thirties, but the point is that she looks as if she were, and sings as if she were. The voice itself is both lovely and puissant. In its deeper register it is movingly warm and rich and expressive, and yesterday it recalled to wistful Wagnerites the irrecoverable magic of Olive the immortal. [The reference is to Olive Fremstad.] The upper voice is powerful and true, and does not harden under stress. The singing that we heard yesterday is that of a musician with taste and brains and sensibility, with poetic and dramatic insight. It was heartening, for example, to encounter a Sieglinde sufficiently imaginative to give their due effect to such significant details as the dream-like quality of tone and phrasing which should imbue the wonderful passage in which Sieglinde gropes for her memory of her brother's voice in childhood, and finds it in the recognition of her own clear tones as they echoed back to her from the evening woods. Her acting is noteworthy for its restraint and poise. She does not indulge in those imbecile operatic gestures which Wagner detested - he called them "swimming exercises." Mme. Flagstad expresses volumes with a turn of the head of a lifting of the hand. She was at times a bit inflexible yesterday; but that may possibly have due to nervousness. She is solacing to the eye - comely and slim, and sweet of countenance. "I still need a Sieglinde!" wrote Wagner despairingly to a friend while he was casting the "Ring" for Bayreuth sixty years ago. "That need," he added, "is a calamity - for she must be slender." Wagner knew his Germans. Yesterday was one of those comparatively rare occasions when the exigent Richard might have witnessed with happiness an embodiment of his Sieglinde. For this was a beautiful and illusive re-creation, poignant and sensitive throughout, and crowned in its greater moments with an authentic exaltation. The rest of the cast was familiar and admirable. Siegmund is Mr. Althouse's most successful Wagnerian achievement, and yesterday he companioned responsively the new Sieglinde. The others were at their most eloquent and effective. The performance as a whole gave us a memorable "Walküre," one in the best tradition of our times, responsive to the mighty tremor of Wagner the Titan." 

I'm amused by Wagner's complaints about overweight sopranos and bad operatic acting. I'm guessing he'd have been thrilled to have Flagstad.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner's complaints about overweight sopranos


Whatabout overweight tenors? Did he complain about them?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> Whatabout overweight tenors? Did he complain about them?


Wagner was delighted with Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, who could evidently sing the role of Tristan in a way that satisfied him - no small assignment. It would have been at least ungrateful to complain about the man's weight, although obesity could well have contributed to the health problems that killed him prematurely.

If you read Wagner's remarks as quoted above, you'll see that they refer to Sieglinde. But he had enough experience in opera to understand that fine voices don't always come in ideal bodies.


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