Search - Flagstad :: Wagner:Wesendonck

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Record Collector | Mons, Belgium | 12/27/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

""In a lifetime of opera and concert-going, the most opulent and beautiful voice I've heard was that of Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad. I first heard her as 'Fidelio' at the Metropolitan Opera in 1951, when she was nearly 56, and I can still recall the size and sheer splendor of her sound. She retired from opera the following year but continued to sing in concert and recordings--her powers undiminished--until shortly before her death, from cancer, in 1962.



"She was a straightforward, controlled interpreter, who made her emotional points by understatement, as is evident in these magnificent performances recorded late in her career. (The Wagner, Hans Knappertsbusch conducting, dates from 1956; the Mahler, led by Sir Adrian Boult, from 1957.) Flagstad virtually owned Wagner's 'Wesendonck Songs' in her lifetime, recording them both in their original voice-and-piano version and here with the accompaniments arranged for orchestra. She is at her best in the third and fifth songs, which foreshadow the love music from 'Tristan and Isolde'--pouring out her sound with infinite generosity and making every word of the German clear and meaningful.



"Mahler is less familiar territory for her, but she delivers credibly the inordinate sadness of 'Songs on the Death of Children,' and the youthful spirit (yes, she sounds young at 62) of the 'Songs of a Wayfarer.' This is a desert-island disc for all lovers of the vocal art."

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