# October is Flagstad month - TC singer of the month thread



## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

It is October again, and I suppose you know what that means. No? Well, it means that it is now time for a thread *entirely* devoted to Kirsten Flagstad. Aren't you exited? I thought so.

To kick things off, here are a couple of videos of Die Flagstad, or I should say a couple of still images with sound and then finally a proper video.

First, here she is talking about herself, singing and Wagner. It's a fascinating listen, not only from a biographical and singing point of view; it is one of the only recordings of Flagstad where she is actually talking. 
As far as I know, the other one is from the BBC radio programme Desert Island Disks where she talks about music that is dear to her. The clip can be found here for those with Spotify.

But here she is, talking about singing, Wagner and herself:





Now, let's listen to Mrs. Flagstad sing perhaps the most famous excerpt from her perhaps most famous roles, the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. She sang the role of Isolde a mindblowing 182 times. Yes, I wrote that correctly. She sang the role 182, one hundred and eighty two times.
This is from the legendary 1952 recording conducted by the (as we'll get back to in due time) somewhat similarly fated Wilhelm Furtwängler, with Ludwig Suthaus as Tristan:





The last clip is perhaps my favourite of the three. This is the only filmed footage of Kirsten Flagstad (at least that I know of), and it is from The Big Broadcast of 1938, hosted by Bob Hope:


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Great voice (the female wagnerian voice of the 20th century, in my opinion). 

A warm, velvety sound. The lower part of the tessitura very beautiful and effortlessly emitted. The center smooth, glowing and the top notes good enough, up to a C5 in her prime. 

Also, a great singer, able to articulate, a wonderful legato, playing with the dynamics... and interpreting the score down to the last demisemiquaver.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

schigolch said:


> Great voice (the female wagnerian voice of the 20th century, in my opinion).
> 
> A warm, velvety sound. The lower part of the tessitura very beautiful and effortlessly emitted. The center smooth, glowing and the top notes good enough, up to a C5 in her prime.
> 
> Also, a great singer, able to articulate, a wonderful legato, playing with the dynamics... and interpreting the score down to the last demisemiquaver.


True, especially the last bit (which we will get back to in due time. Kirsten and her mother is a _very_ interesting chapter, and it deserves a lot of attention, as it is her mother that in large part is to blame for Flagstad's perfectionism).


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## BalloinMaschera (Apr 4, 2011)

*sigh* they just don't make singers the way they used to... ( I know, I know- i'm old fashioned live in the past!)


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

BalloinMaschera said:


> *sigh* they just don't make singers the way they used to... ( I know, I know- i'm old fashioned live in the past!)


They just don't *train* singers the way they used to. Especially larger voices.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

True.

There is a kind of terror today in some auditions when someone exhibits a large voice... "troppa voce! troppa voce!" and the candidate is, more often than not, walked out.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I'm amazed by her voice's mystical ability to pierce effortlessly through the orchestra and be cleanly heard, allowing for soft and tender vocalization when needed that a lot of singers simply can't do without being drowned out. Anybody know what property it is that allows some voices to do this? I assume its kind of the same thing how some voices carry well and can be heard from across the room at a party while others struggle to even be heard talking to the person across from them. An example of a singer without this ability could be Jessye Norman, who seems she has to actually overpower the orchestra (which she can, very aptly) instead of going right through it.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

Couchie said:


> I'm amazed by her voice's mystical ability to pierce effortlessly through the orchestra and be cleanly heard, allowing for soft and tender vocalization when needed that a lot of singers simply can't do without being drowned out. Anybody know what property it is that allows some voices to do this? I assume its kind of the same thing how some voices carry well and can be heard from across the room at a party while others struggle to even be heard talking to the person across from them. An example of a singer without this ability could be Jessye Norman, who seems she has to actually overpower the orchestra (which she can, very aptly) instead of going right through it.


It seems that for Flagstad, it was hormones from after her first pregnancy. Sure, she had a big voice before her first daughter Else, but her mother (Kirsten Flagstad's mother Maja) said that Kirsten's voice had doubled, nay tripled in size after Else's birth. I also think that the fact that Flagstad was trained very properly in singing, and that her repertoire grew with her voice - she was the most celebrated operetta star in Oslo long before she sang heavier roles, I'd have loved to hear her Rosalinde - and that she tackled most of the Italian spinto and heavier roles before she even touched a note of Wagner (which isn't entirely true, but ah, we'll talk more about that in due time).
I also think that it's her formidable technique and enormous lung power that allowed her to outsing a 120 piece orchestra. In the thirties she often gave recitals and opera performances several days a week, as often as every other day, and her chest expanded enormously because of her ever expanding lungs.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

Truly, I'm a horrible little elf for letting so much time pass between my postings here. But here it is! The first proper post! This is a rather detailed biography of Kirsten Flagstad's life starting at her birth and ending just before her engagement at the Metropolitan opera house. Do enjoy, and I apoligise if it's too rambling. I am a rambly sort of person.

But at least there are pretty pictures.

EARLY YEARS

Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad was born on July 12th of 1895 in Hamar in southern Norway to Maja and Michael Flagstad. Both her parents were very musical, her father being a violinist and her mother a rehearsal pianist.

After a few months in Hamar, the family moved to Niels Juelsgate 6, on the West side of Oslo, and a few years after, in 1898, the little family had grown out of their little apartment and moved to another.

It was soon discovered that the little Kirsten possessed some musical gifts, and she was sent to her mother's old piano teacher, Martin Ursin, and before long, she had a little repertoire. However, she was not very fond of practicing, not very strange considering the fact that she was 5 at the time. Her mother was determined that her daughter learned to play the piano, and play it well. Not the slightest error was tolerated, and Maja Flagstad did not hesitate to strike her daughter when she was practicing. This was what she (Maja) had been used to in her upbringing, how she learned to play the piano.

It is to be said here that Kirsten was grateful to her mother for having literally beat discipline into her as a young child: "It has helped me tremendously when studying roles that I have been able to play the piano quite proficiently. I could play the piano reductions of the different operas, even the largest and most difficult Wagner operas." But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let's get back to the story.

In 1902, there was again time to move, this time to a house. Michael and Maja had, together with two artist friends bought a lot outside Oslo. They built three houses on the lot, one for each family, and in the summer of 1902, the family Flagstad finally moved into their new home.

Now, we skip ahead 11 years or so, noting that Kirsten began her formal vocal training in 1911 with Ellen Schytte Jacobsen after Kirsten had sung Elsa's Dream from Lohengrin in her own confimation. 
And now, it is 1913 and time for Kirsten's first operatic debut at the age of 18; the 14 year old Nuri in Tiefland by Eugen d'Albert at the National Theatre in Oslo.

Just a little aside about Tiefland. In addition to being the first opera Kirsten Flagstad sang in, it was also the first opera of the Norwegian National opera some 45 years later with, yes you guessed it, Kirsten Flagstad as manager. I haven't heard Tiefland personally, but I feel it is worth including this little excerpt written by the Norwegian composer and critic Arne Nordheim:



> The central motif is familiar. A poor woman is torn between two men, the first one fair, naïve and kind - the other dark and cunning. The fair one is a tenor and poor, but with a heart of gold. The dark one is a baritone estate owner with black, evil boots. […] The music […] reminds the listener of something or other at any given time. A little Verdi, then Bizet, but in no way forgetting Weber, Mascagni and Leoncavallo along the way. Lacking taste and individuality, Eugen d'Albert's music looks backwards to Wagner, but at the same time, it looks forward to what will be Franz Léhar. This meeting with Tiefland gives the listener a strange archeological pleasure. It is the pleasure of having found the perfect missing link between Parsifal and the Merry Widow.


In the years after Tiefland, Flagstad sings more and more regularly at the National Theatre, with roles like Aagot in Fjeldeventyret (the first Norwegian opera) and Rosalinde in Fledermaus.
In 1918, the first permanent opera company opens in Oslo, Opera Comique, and Madam Flagstad is soon hired as the company's prima donna. It also worth noting here that the artistic director of Opera Comique was Alexander Varnay, the father of Wagner soprano Astrid Varnay.









Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus

As the prima donna of Opera Comique, Flagstad sang a LOT of different roles. We often think of Kirsten Flagstad as having a repertoire of approximately six roles; the three Brünnhildes, Isolde, and if you're lucky, Dido (in Dido and Aeneas) and Leonore (in Fidelio), and sure that was the roles she was most famous for, but she sang almost 80 different roles on stage. In her first year at Opera Comique she sang wildly varying roles, like Nedda in Pagliacci, Arsena in Strauss' Gipsy Baron and Oreste in Offenbach's Belle Hélène.

During the Christmas of 1918, an important event takes place, though it is not significant for Kirsten. During this Christmas, Kirsten's bother Ole has brought a friend from school called Ivar. Ivar has a dream of becoming a singer, although his father, a wealthy business owner, wants Ivar to take over the family business. In total secrecy, Kirsten and Ivar have rehearsed the scene from Puccini's Tosca where Scarpia tortures Cavaradossi, and Tosca finally kills Scarpia. At a Christmas party, Maja suggests some after dinner song and music, and sits herself down in front of the piano. Kirsten's brother Ole gets his cello, Ivar assumes a noble pose and Kirsten gets a kitchen knife. The scene is played with such conviction that Ivar's father realises that his son is to be a singer, not a businessman. And so, the fate of the Norwegian bass singer Ivar F. Andresen was sealed. Together, Kirsten Flagstad and Ivar F. Andresen are the two opera singers Norwegians most regularly see, as Kirsten Flagstad is printed on the 100 kroner bill and Ivar F. Andresen has a type of liquorice pastilles that are still sold regularly today.

A box of IFA.

A Norwegian 100 kroner bill

We haven't discussed Flagstad's personal life much, but during this time, she married a businessman Sigurd Hall in 1918, and in May of 1920, Kirsten Flagstad gives birth to her first and only child, a girl with the name Else Hall. After the birth of Else, Kirsten doesn't sing a note for months, but in the autumn, her mother knocks on her door, the vocal score for Léhar's Gipsy Life in hand. When Kirsten starts, reluctantly at first, singing, her mother stops playing the piano; Kirsten's voice has transformed itself. It has become twice the size it used to be - Kirsten has become a full-fledged dramatic soprano.

Kirsten's roles at Opera Comique in the following season reflect her sudden fach change, and Kirsten sings a lot more serious and dramatic repertoire the following season. The list of roles include 1st lady in Zauberflöte, Desdemona in Verdi's Otello, Amelia in Ballo and Minnie in Fanciulla del West. In the spring of 1922, she also sings the soprano part of Beethoven's 9th symphony.

Kirsten and her husband Sigurd aren't getting on that well, and in 1928 they separate. 1928 is also the year of Kirsten Flagstad's international debut, and it takes place at Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, Sweden. She sings the role of Agathe in Weber's Freischutz on the 14th of October. She also sings the role of Michal in Carl Nielsen's Saul & David, as well as some operetta. A childhood dream comes true when she gets to sing the title role of Verdi's Aïda in the spring of 1929. Other roles include Mimi in La boheme as well as Tosca, ten years since that fateful Christmas party.









Aïda

The spring and early summer of 1929 also holds a major turning point in Kirsten Flagstad's career, her first Wagner role. The National Theatre in Oslo is putting on Lohengrin and they want Kirsten to sing Elsa in June. In the theatre sits the very wealthy lumber dealer Henry Johansen, who soon will become Kirsten's second husband. He has supported the production considerably and falls madly in love with Kirsten. He proposes on their third meeting, and Kirsten says yes.









Elsa in Lohengrin

During a performance of Tosca at the National Theatre in 1929, a gentleman by the name of Otto Kahn is in the hall. Kahn is the manager of the Metropolitan opera house in New York, and he wants this Norwegian singer to audition for his opera house. He passes his card along to her, but she shrugs it off. She hasn't heard of the Met and has other plans; she will marry Henry Johansen and then stop singing. She and Henry plan to marry as soon as her contract with Stora Teatern is through (Christmas of 1929), but her previous husband, Sigurd, still loves her and wants the two years of separation to finish before they can divorce, and so the marriage is postponed. Kirsten gets a three month contract with Stora Teatern, for the spring of 1930, and during those months she sings amongst other roles, Magda in Puccini's La Rondine and Eva in Wagner's Meistersinger, her second Wagner role.

The marriage to Henry Johansen soon follows, and on their honeymoon they travel to Vienna, where they watch a performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Kirsten's first meeting with the opera.
Even though she has promised not to sing again, she does; lieder recitals and the odd opera here and there. She sings her first Isolde in 1932, at the National Theatre in Oslo, sharing the role with the very famous Swedish soprano Nanny Larsén-Todsen. The performance gets, not unexpectedly, rave reviews. The Swedish Wangerian soprano Ellen Gulbrandson hears a performance, and on her own initiative writes to Winifred Wagner, the director of the Bayreuther Festspiele, and Kirsten gets an audition date in Bayreuth the following July. When confronted with this, Kirsten Flagstad is so impressed and overwhelmed that she accepts the offer with the support from her husband.









Isolde

Flagstad sings well at her audition, and Winifred Wagner is delighted. Unfortunately, all the major roles have been cast for the next two years, but Kirsten is offered to sing smaller roles, and then return triumphantly some years later. She is offered the roles of third norn in Götterdämmerung and Ortlinde in Die Walküre. She also has to cover the roles of Eva in Meistersinger and Sieglinde in Die Walküre. Kirsten Flagstad accepts.

To honour the Norwegian Bayreuth singer, the National Theatre in Oslo hurries to put on another Tristan, this time with Alexander Kipnis as König Marke, a connection that will prove very helpful in the future.

Bayreuth has changed dramatically when she returns the following year. Winifred's dear Wolf (Adolf Hitler) has assumed power in Germany, and Nazi flags, posters and men dressed in brown all feature prominently in the little Bavarian town. In addition to Ortlinde and the third norn, she also sings the soprano part of Beethoven's 9th symphony, conducted by none other than Richard Strauss. Kirsten is invited back to Bayreuth the following year to sing Sieglinde in Die Walküre and Gutrune in Götterdämmerung. And that she does.









Sieglinde in Die Walküre

While she is at Bayreuth in 1934, she gets a telegram from a certain Eric Simon, the Metropolitan opera house's European contact. The Met's premier Wanger soprano, Frida Leider is reitiring and they need someone to sing her roles. He has set up an audition for her in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and she needs to know as much as possible of the three Brünnhildes, Isolde and Leonore in Fidelio. There are two immediate problems here: 
1. The audition is in 6 days.
2. Bayreuth only carries the sheet music of those operas that are being performed that year. Tristan und Isolde and Fidelio are not performed in 1934 in Bayreuth.
Nonetheless, the audition goes remarkably well, and she is hired. She is asked to learn the three Brünnhildes, Isolde, Leonore and the Marschallin in Rosenkavalier. She is to give her final performance in Gothenburg as Leonore, her role debut, and the role is to become her very favourite.

_____
All images courtesy of The Kirsten Flagstad Museum


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