In an interview several years ago for Opera Monthly, Birgit Nilsson was described by Sam H. Shirakawa as “one of the very few divas in opera history who has achieved apotheosis”. Few would argue with such a statement. Yes, there are others who have reached such heights, and all opera lovers will have their own opinions as to who this select few should include. What further evidence can be needed in Birgit Nilsson’s case than the Metropolitan Opera performance of Tristan und Isolde at the end of the 1990s (broadcast on BBC Radio Three) when, upon entering the auditorium as a member of the audience, Birgit Nilsson was greeted with loud spontaneous applause!

Nilsson was born in Västra Karups in southern Sweden to a farming family on 17 May 1918, a mere three weeks after her great Swedish contemporary Astrid Varnay. Varnay and Nilsson would share much repertory, and both singers built their reputations primarily on the works of two composers: Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. While Varnay achieved overnight success when she replaced an ailing Lotte Lehmann as Sieglinde at the Metropolitan Opera at the age of just twenty-three, Nilsson was content to study and build her repertory gradually, and made her debut at the Stockholm Opera in 1946 as Agathe in Der Freischütz. The following year saw her on stage in a Verdi role that might almost have been written with her dramatic and vocal qualities in mind: Lady Macbeth. In the pit was the legendary Fritz Busch, who in 1951 invited Nilsson to Glyndebourne to sing Elettra in Idomeneo, which marked the start of her international career. She continued her careful and detailed study of important roles, and her Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde was first revealed in Stockholm in 1954 (as was her first Salome), and was soon repeated — at short notice and without rehearsal! — for a complete Ring cycle in Munich under Hans Knappertsbusch, the greatest Wagnerian conductor of the era.

1954 was also the year of Nilsson’s Bayreuth debut as Elsa, and it was clear by now that she was set to achieve Wagnerian stardom. By the time she came to sing Isolde at Bayreuth in 1957 she had already sung the role eighty-seven times. It was as Isolde that Nilsson made her long-awaited Metropolitan Opera debut on 18 December 1959 (she had already sung at the Hollywood Bowl, the San Francisco Opera and Chicago Lyric Opera). London also saw her as Isolde, and it was with Nilsson in Tristan und Isolde that Sir Georg Solti’s inspiring tenure as Music Director at the Royal Opera House drew to a close in 1971. (She had first appeared at Covent Garden in 1957 in the Ring.)

Nilsson triumphed wherever she appeared, and she also became known as one of the most reliable of artists, who rarely ever cancelled. Her debut in one of the most notoriously “difficult” opera houses — La Scala — was as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre in early 1958; this was followed on the opening night of the season that December by another role that suited her vocal and dramatic abilities perfectly and in which she achieved a total triumph, Turandot.

It was with Solti that Nilsson’s most important studio recordings were made, beginning with Tristan und Isolde in Vienna in 1960. By this time Solti’s recording of the complete Ring was under way (with Das Rheingold in 1958), and there was no question of any soprano but Nilsson assuming the role of Brünnhilde. Nilsson and Solti also made one of the greatest ever recordings of Salome (she had first sung the title role in Sweden in 1954) and what is probably the greatest Elektra (with Regina Resnik on truly fantastic form as Elektra’s demented mother Klytemnestra) — it is certainly difficult to think of another studio recording with the rhythmic drive and sheer vocal security of this Elektra.

The role of Elektra makes superhuman demands — superb acting ability, a voice of steel and physical stamina, qualities Nilsson possessed in abundance until the end of her career. Indeed, the last fully-staged performances she gave in London were in Elektra in 1977, when the conductor was another living legend, Carlos Kleiber. And after an absence of several years from the Metropolitan Opera (a small matter of some tax problems with the IRS) Birgit Nilsson made a triumphant return as Elektra with James Levine in 1980 at the age of sixty-two! Fortunately, one of these performances was filmed and is available commercially.

Birgit Nilsson’s last addition to her operatic repertoire was the role of the Dyer’s Wife (Die Frau ohne Schatten), which she sang in Stockholm in 1975. This was also the role of her last fully staged appearances, at the Metropolitan Opera in October 1981, when the role of the Empress was taken by her considerably younger colleague Eva Marton. At the end of the evening, when the curtain calls started and thunderous applause greeted the two ladies, Nilsson — with typical generosity of spirit — left the stage and the acclamation to Eva Marton.

Since her retirement from the operatic stage Birgit Nilsson has continued her involvement in the world of singing and has given numerous masterclasses. When she is asked to present an award to a young artist, she has often emerged from the wings with a resounding Brünnhilde battle-cry of “Hojotoho!”.

Stories about Nilsson are legion, and there are numerous tales of her altercations with producers, directors and conductors. However such disagreements were always in the interests of the musical and dramatic aspects of the performance and were not attributable to mere whim. She did express dissatisfaction on several occasions about the way her voice was recorded in the studio, but there is nevertheless a truly great legacy of recordings both from the studio and “live” which go a very long way in demonstrating her unique vocal and dramatic qualities. This was a voice which, with its laser-like precision and focus, remains utterly unique in the history of singing.

This collection includes extracts from many of her most famous roles. The Scandinavian songs (from an LP entitled Songs from the Lands of Midnight Sun) are beautifully crafted miniatures, and are delivered with a wonderful simplicity of utterance. The inclusion of “I could have danced all night” (originally part of the “gala” sequence included in Karajan’s 1960 recording of Die Fledermaus) is not as bizarre as it might at first seem, for it was a number that Birgit Nilsson, the singer who could sing all night, frequently used as an encore.

© Raymond McGill 2003

Birgit Nilsson died on December 25, 2005 – aged 87