# Birgit Nilsson's First Recording?



## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

I am finally getting back to finishing Birgit Nilsson's delightful autobiography, _La Nilsson: My Life in Opera, _translated into English by Doris Jung Popper. I started a thread many moons ago titled "Birgit Nilsson Sings the Queen of the Night," based on the Foreword by Georg Solti where he mentions as an anecdote that she "vocalized" the QOTN aria (he doesn't say which bits) after a complete concert performance of _Salome. _ But I can't seem to find that thread any more, not that it much matters.

Nilsson's autobiography is a charming read, with a lot of dish (for non-English-speaking natives, gossip) but not much in the way of negativity to anyone except Herbert von Karajan, and even that was mixed with grudging admiration. (They both accused the other of being excessively concerned about money; but HvK seems to have been a real p***k with many singers, compromising the music if they were out of his favor for one reason or another.) For the most part she comes across as a consummate professional, determined to make the most of a career that she thought would be limited. She did not think much of overhyped singers (Pavarroti) but loved modesty in singers (Domingo). She does talk about some of the epic high-note battles between herself and Franco Corelli, though ... too funny! One time she walked off stage and left him there, still holding onto a high C. But they apparently patched things up and became friends later.

But I digress, once again. Towards the end of the book she is talking about making her first recording, an aria from Berwald's Estrella di Soria in 1947. Just on a chance, I went to YouTube and found this bit, an eight-minute-long, incredibly difficult aria full of high C's and a strangled D-flat or two. Only 29 people have listened to this thing since it was uploaded in 2015. It is published there by Naxos and titled "Swedish Radio Concerts 1947-1961," but the conductor is given as Sten Frykberg (1910-1983). Apparently Nilsson was quite ill but showed up at the appointed hour to record "this horribly difficult aria."

She doesn't sound all that great, frankly, but it is recognizably La Nilsson, perhaps ill, and perhaps also lightening up the voice to sing higher with less projection than she later so memorably perfected. Or this could be a later performance of the first aria she recorded, back in 1947. Who knows? Quite a rarity nonetheless ...

Here it is. Enjoy? Comments?






Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

That must be the 1947 recording in question. The voice sounds young and fresh, and the musical approach immature. There's no attempt at interpretation at all, as if she's just trying to wrap her budding dramatic soprano around something alien to it. She probably wouldn't have recorded such music later, any more than she'd have recorded the Queen of the Night. Somebody did persuade her to record Donna Anna, though - or is it Donna Brunilda?






Anyone who thinks that should have happened, raise your hand.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

:wave:bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Even two thumps up.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> That must be the 1947 recording in question. The voice sounds young and fresh, and the musical approach immature. There's no attempt at interpretation at all, as if she's just trying to wrap her budding dramatic soprano around something alien to it. She probably wouldn't have recorded such music later, any more than she'd have recorded the Queen of the Night. Somebody did persuade her to record Donna Anna, though - or is it Donna Brunilda?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Reminds me of back in my musical theater days, when all the waiter and waitresses were talented singers. This was in Dallas, a place called the Gran' Crystal Palace. Good idea, poor execution, but I learned a whole lot of funny/fun/lovely songs from musicals that I sing to this say: "Have Some Madeira, My Dear"; "The 12 Days After Christmas"; the quartet from _Candide_; "Magic To Do"; "Send in the Clowns"; the Big Three songs from _Man of La Mancha_; and on and on.

Anyway. We were all young singers (I had graduated from Yale already, but a lot of the singers were undergrad/grad students at Southern Methodist University [SMU], which had a superb music department) talking about our approaches to singing. One of the sopranos had a lovely, strapping, largish dramatic sound that would not lead you to believe that she could actually sing an excellent high C. So someone asks her, "So, Marsha, how do you handle coloratura?"

I'll never forget her deadpan answer: "Like a Mack truck!"

@Woodduck, I completely agree with your guess. It has to be the 1947. Birgit sounds kind of like I do trying to imitate Fritz Wunderlich singing the cavatina that follows "Komm, O Holde Dame." Except she can actually hit most of the notes, in one way or another.

Oh. About that autobiography. She does actually get pretty b****y about some things after all. Yay! One is the "lies" she says John Culshaw wrote about Jussi Bjoerling showing up drunk and unprepared for a recording session of _Un Ballo in Maschera,_ which was summarily canceled.

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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