1981
Timbre suédois représentant Birgit Nilsson accompagnée par le chef d'orchestre Sixten Ehrling :
14 février 1981 : Die Walkure. Opéra royal de Stockholm. Ehrling. Eliasson. Wahlund. Arvidson. Af Malmborg. Birgit Nilsson (Brunnhilde). Ericson.
11 avril 1981 : Wagner Concert Metropolitan de New York. Acte 2 (Parsifal) : Levine. Vickers. Dunn. Cheek. Robinson. Wohlafka. Volkman. Norden. Di Franco. Jones. Love duett (Tristan und Isolde) : Levine. Birgit Nilsson. Vickers. Dunn.
12 avril 1981 : Wagner Concert Metropolitan de New York. Levine. Prélude acte 1 - Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. Duo de l’ acte 3 - Die Walkure (Birgit Nilsson. Estes). Dawn, Zu neuen Taten (Jung. Birgit Nilsson ), Rhine journey - Die Gotterdammerung. Prélude et Liebestod - Tristan und Isolde (Birgit Nilsson ).
Review of Alan Rich in New York Magazine
MAKING THEMSELVES YOUTHFUL
Even so, nothing in its shortened, disease-racked season became the Met like the leaving of it. There was the young Malfitano and there was the just-as-young Birgit Nilsson - not the hastily arranged Saturday-broadcast matinee. but the full glory of the Sunday-night Wagner concert. On that night of nights you didn't just hear a veteran star singer doing all right for 63. The thrust and majesty of almost all her singing belonged to the annals of Nilsson's own glory over two decades at the Met. When had she made those last lines of Brünnhilde's last entreaty to Wotan more beguiling than now? When had her exhortations to the loving Siegfried rung out more heroically?
True, there were some problems, but few of them belonged to the sovereign singer we had come to greet and cheer. James Levine conducted, and he has still to learn that fast Wagner does not automatically gladden hearts in the same way as does fast Puccini. Up on the Met's stage, the orchestra sounded as harsh and unbalanced now as it had in the [first]-night Mahler, except that I had forgiven it then on the strength of the preceding long hiatus. Simon Estes sang an eloquent Wotan in the "Walküre" scene, but could not be heard for long stretches. It remains to be seen (no, heard) whether he can manage this repertory in a house this large. Manfred Jung, the new heldentenor. looks and acts as goofy as the last several interpretors, sang a Siegfried with very little ring in it, but would probably make a fine Lohengrin.
All of this is niggle-naggle, of course, against the duality of Nilsson's work and what it tells us about her current estate. She is down to sing the Dyer's Wife in next season's "Frau ohne Schatten." I saw her do it last year in San Francisco, and it was an astounding performance, not merely as a vocal achievement, but as the best realization of the vulgar passion in this role that I ever expect to see.
3 mai 1981 : Die Frau ohne Schatten. Staatsoper Vienne. Prick. Schunk. Hass. Hesse. Wimberger. Berry. Birgit Nilsson (femme de Barak).
20 mai 1981 : HAR AR DITT LIV. TV Talk-show (Suède). Émission de Lasse Holmqvist avec Birgit Nilsson. Anecdotes.
18 juin 1981 : Die Frau ohne Schatten. Staatsoper Vienne. Stein. King. Rysanek. Hesse. Wimberger. Adam. Birgit Nilsson (femme de Barak).
5 juillet 1981 : Concert. Arena sferisterio di Macerata. Herbert Kegel. Birgit Nilsson. Orchestre symphonique de Dresde.
3 septembre 1981 : Concert Helsinki. Enregistrement live. Segerstam. Nilsson. Salminen.
8 septembre 1981 : BBC PROMS. Londres. Stephen Portman / Birgit Nilsson. Symphonie 8 (Schubert). Zueignung, Morgen, Caecilie (Richard Strauss). Barak, Mein Mann (Die Frau ohne Schatten). Symphonie 3 (Sibelius). Prélude et mort d’ Isolde (Tristan und Isolde)
12 octobre 1981 : Die Frau ohne Schatten. Metropolitan Opera New York. Leinsdorf. Marton. Brenneis. Birgit Nilsson (Femme de Barak). Nentwig. Dunn. Mazura.
Review of Peter G. Davis in New York Magazine
THAT OLD MET MAGIC
"...Most people came to cheer the return of Nilsson in Die Frau ohne Schatten; in Eva Marton they found a new star..."
"At last the Met has managed to stir up a little excitement!" an elderly lady exclaimed-nay, shouted-above the din, as the curtain fell on the Metropolitan Opera's first "Die Frau ohne Schatten" of the season. Originally planned as a showcase for Birgit Nilsson, the evening turned into something better-a great night at the opera.
First of all, there was the potent attraction of the opera itself. Lofty in tone and spectacular in its scenic and vocal requirements, the Strauss-von Hofmannsthal work is inexhaustibly inventive, colorful, and moving, a festival event whenever it is staged, no matter what the quality of the performance. The Met's production, one of the company's glories over the past fifteen years, avoids italicizing the opera's already heavy symbolic content, instead conjuring up an exotic fairy-tale atmosphere.
Robert O'Hearn's glistening sets seem to take on a life all their own as they appear from above and below, recede, move forward, dissipate into the air only to reassemble again, always in a way that enhances, complements, and clarifies the involved plot. The Emperor and Empress move through a spirit world of dazzling beauty, a series of fantastic stage pictures whose cool, blue-greet oceanographic decor contrasts startlingly with the sun-baked reality of the drab hut inhabited by their earthly counterparts, the dyer Barak and his wife. Nathaniel Merrill directs the singers through these complex designs sensibly and smoothly, stressing human conflicts but never obscuring the opera's otherworldly vision or impeding its dramatic flow. With a work of such baroque complexity, no production will be perfect in every particular, but this one aims high and achieves much.
Most people came to cheer Birgit Nilsson as the Dyer's Wife, a role she had never before sung at the Met. Once regarded merely as a phenomenon of nature, Nilsson at 63 is now held in awe as a geriatric miracle. Most singers her age prolong their careers by making discreet adjustments in repertory to accommodate declining vocal resources. Not Nilsson. The Dyer's Wife is a killing assignment that keeps a soprano trumpeting at the top of her lungs for most of the evening.
Yes, there were rocky moments. Passages at peak volume in the upper register are no longer effortlessly sustained, and under stress the tone is apt to degenerate into a piercing siren-wail. No matter, Nilsson still gets over the major hurdles honorably, and for most of the time she is recognizably the same brilliantly clarion singer she has always been-honest, unstinting, and direct, with an astonishingly durable vocal musculature that one day must surely be left to science. True, there were few shades of detail in either her singing or her acting-interpretive niceties have never been a facet of this artist's healthy, no-nonsense temperament and head-on approach. The majority of Nilsson's admirers over the years have gladly done without the subtleties and simply basked in the sound of her voice, understandably so in these lean times.
The surprise of the evening was Eva Marton as the Empress. Her stratospheric role has been the property of the indestructible Leonie Rysanek for the past quarter century, but Marton gave no one cause to regret the substitution. In contrast to the Dyer's Wife, the dignified Empress expresses her agonizing dilemma in purely vocal terms, a tortured lyricism at a pitch of fevered intensity. It is essentially a stand-and-deliver role, and while Marton's measured singing may have seemed a trifle placid compared to Rysanek's whiplash phrasing, the Hungarian soprano unflinchingly rose to every challenge, often with thrilling results. She hurled forth one ravishingly beautiful note after another with incomparable power, security, and total sheen, capping it all with a stunning high D-flat in her dream sequence. At the end, Nilsson received the respect due an old favorite, but Marton was greeted with the tumultuous approval of an audience that had unexpectedly discovered a star.
As the malevolent Nurse, Mignon Dunn cut an unusually giddy figure, but she handily matched Nilsson and Marton when it came to sheer volume. Franz Ferdinand Nentwig as Barak and Gerd Brenneis as the Emperor tended to pale alongside this high-powered trio, although both gave highly creditable and sympathetic performances. After his deadly conducting of the two Ring operas earlier this season, Erich Leinsdorf partially redeemed himself with a crystalline presentation of Strauss's luxuriant score.
Review of Joan Hanauer, United Press International :
Sopranos come and go at New York's Metropolitan Opera but Monday night's performance of Richard Strauss's 'Die Frau ohne Schatten' was memorable for the performances of veteran Wagnerian Birgit Nilsson and a relative newcomer, Hungarian Eva Marton. Miss Nilsson, 63, marking her 35th year in opera, sang the role of the Dyer's Wife with amazing power and security and won several delirious ovations.
It's supposed to be her last new role at the Met. Beautiful Miss Marton made it her evening, too, singing the Empress brilliantly and turning in an acting performance of authority and grace that drew cheers from the audience. It's the only role she's scheduled for at the Met this season but a spokesman said, 'You know, that can change.'
17 octobre 1981 : Die Frau ohne Schatten. Metropolitan Opera New York. Leinsdorf. Marton. Brenneis. Birgit Nilsson (Femme de Barak). Nentwig. Dunn. Mazura.
23 octobre 1981 : Die Frau ohne Schatten. Metropolitan Opera New York. Leinsdorf. Marton. Brenneis. Birgit Nilsson (Femme de Barak). Nentwig. Dunn. Mazura.
29 octobre 1981 : Die Frau ohne Schatten. Metropolitan Opera New York. Leinsdorf. Marton. Brenneis. Birgit Nilsson (Femme de Barak). Nentwig. Dunn. Mazura.
20 novembre 1981 : Die Walkure. Opéra de San Francisco. Suitner. King. Rysanek. Rydl. Schenk. Birgit Nilsson (Brunnhilde). Denize. ENREGISTREMENT LIVE.
25 novembre 1981 : Die Walkure. Opéra de San Francisco. Suitner. King. Rysanek. Rydl. Schenk. Birgit Nilsson (Brunnhilde). Denize.
1 décembre 1981 : Die Walkure. Opéra de San Francisco. Suitner. King. Rysanek. Rydl. Schenk. Birgit Nilsson (Brunnhilde). Denize.
Mise à jour : 20230726 Pierre Marchais