Wagner: Operatic Scenes & Arias (CD) – Kirsten Flagstad

Composer: Richard Wagner
Artists: Kirsten Flagstad, Lauritz Melchior, Gordon Dilworth, San Francisco Opera Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Victor Symphony Orchestra
Conductors: Edwin McArthur, Eugene Ormandy, Hans Lange
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Newton Classics
CD Release Date: November 15, 2011

These recordings were made when the great Norwegian soprano was in her vocal prime, between 1935 and 1940. Included is the Act 2 duet from Parsifal, which became a calling-card not only for Flagstad but for her partner in this recording, and times without number on stage, Lauritz Melchior. Desmond Shawe-Taylor remarked in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, “No one within living memory surpassed her in sheer beauty and consistency of line and tone.”

Flagstad quickly became a legend in Norway, where her portrait adorned both the 100-kroner note and the tail of the Norwegian Air Shuttle fleet, but her fame spread throughout the musical world – she is one of few opera singers to have her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Rudolf Bing called her “the greatest soprano of the century,” and many would agree.

“For sheer vocal opulence in Wagner, these tracks would be hard to equal. [She is] a Wagnerian prima donna and the splendor of the singing is unsurpassed.” (Gramophone)

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