BIRGIT NILSSON

I am honored to be a member of the artistic panel making the selection for the Birgit Nilsson Prize for 2014. Ms. Nilsson set aside a great amount of money to make this largest single award in classical music significant and designated that it be given to an active artist or organization that was fulfilling the kind of dedication to the highest standards of opera and/or concert to which she had given her life. We have given three awards: she selected Placido Domingo for the first; the panel selected Riccardo Muti for the second, and this most recent award goes to the Vienna Philharmonic.

I first heard the great Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson in August of 1959. It was my first trip to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, and when she sang her first words as Isolde, I sat up straight. I knew I had never heard a voice like this. The whole act, with Wolfgang Windgassen as Tristan and Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting, filled me with nothing short of wonder. I knew that the Wagner sun, dimmed somewhat, at least in New York (where I lived at that time), was rising. When the act was over, I walked out of the Fespielhaus and on what is called the Green Hill without speaking to anyone. I was totally mesmerized.

That December 18 th Ms. Nilsson made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Isolde. It was a rainy Saturday night, but it was sunny inside the Met. With Karl Boehm conducting, she delivered a performance that properly made the front page of the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune. From then on until October of 1981 when she sang her last Dyer’s Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, Ms. Nilsson delivered 222 performances of 22 roles, all extraordinarily musical, exciting, and to me rewarding. Except for my time in the U.S. Army when I missed her Lady Macbeth, I enjoyed every one of the roles many times over. Her capacity to take on different characters with the right tone for each, her constant working to improve herself, her dedication to what she perceived as the composer’s markings, and the basic thrill of hearing her sing never wavered.

The stories of her humor are legendary and all true. She never seemed to take herself seriously except when she was working, loved to laugh and have a good time. She respected her audiences and never, ever coasted on her fame. One example of her humor among many came after I became General Director of Seattle Opera. I asked her to come out to attend our Ring. She wrote me that she couldn’t come at that time, using Vienna State Opera stationary. As a P.S. she pointed out that she had taken a job working as cleaning lady at the Opera and had stolen the stationary she was using. That was Birgit.

After almost a half-century as a professional in opera—both as a critic and a producer—one experience with her I can honestly say is unique. In 1961 when she brought Puccini’s Turandot back to the Metropolitan after an absence of thirty years, Rudolf Bing, the Met’s General Manager, wisely scheduled nine performances of the work with her as the Chinese princess. One night I treated myself to an orchestra seat. In Act II near the conclusion of the riddle scene Turandot sings two high C’s over the full chorus and a powerful orchestra. When she hit those two C’s, I literally felt the sound waves hitting my chest. No voice has ever done that since.

I am honored to be a member of the artistic panel making the selection for the Birgit Nilsson Prize. She set aside a great amount of money to make the award significant and determined that it be given to an active artist or organization that was fulfilling the kind of dedication to the highest standards of opera and/or concert to which she had given her life. Rutbert Reisch, the distinguished President of the Foundation and one of Ms. Nilsson’s closest friends, keeps alive her legacy by his careful control of the funds. It is the artistic panel’s job to make sure that the funds go where she would want them to go. It is a great privilege.