![\"Birgit\"](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/operasleuth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Birgit.jpg\")
<\/a>No artist I have ever known had more professional dedication than the great Swedish dramatic soprano, Birgit Nilsson. I had the good fortune to hear her prior to her Metropolitan Opera debut as both Isolde and the Walk<\/em>\u00fc<\/em>re<\/em> Br\u00fcnnhilde. The Tristan performance in the summer of 1959 at the Bayreuth Festival influenced my whole life. I had never heard anything like her voice or her commitment to the words. Just as hearing Maria Callas in London some six years before had opened up new avenues of thought to me in what a great artist could accomplish in opera, the Bayreuth Tristan<\/em> illustrated to me how powerful Wagner could be. It didn\u2019t hurt that Wolfgang Windgassen sang Tristan and Wolfang Sawallisch conducted, but it was the experience of Nilsson\u2019s vocal and theatrical personality that literally left me speechless. I remember as if were yesterday that when the curtain fell on the first act of that Tristan<\/em>, I went out of the Festival House and walked the whole hour intermission saying nothing to anyone. I knew that I had heard and seen someone unique, an artist who would make Wagner not only accessible to many but who would be a dominant force in opera.<\/p>\nAs the years went on and I began a journalistic career, and in due course through a lot of interviews and meetings, I grew to realize that Nilsson\u2019s performances came from constant attention to detail, to dedication, and to just plain work. I never came into her dressing room without seeing her open score, marked and ready to go for the next act even though she had sung the opera a hundred times. Her humor also pervaded all of her relationships. Unlike a lot of artists of her fame, she never to me seemed to take herself seriously; she had fun and never exhibited either false modesty or a demand for praise.<\/p>\n
Sadly, as General Director I never brought her to Seattle Opera. She retired about the time I went to Seattle, and it never worked out that she came even to attend opera in our city. Until shortly before she died, we communicated by letter, and her sense of humor and sharpness of intellect remained intact. I begged her to come out in 1998 when we presented a new production of Tristan und Isold<\/em>e with Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner singing the title roles for the first time, but it never proved possible. I treasured my relationship with her, one of the most remarkable artists and people whom I have had the pleasure to know.<\/p>\n When she died in 2005, her will created a foundation directed to make an award every few years of a million dollars to a person or organization that had by themselves made a significant lifetime contribution to classical music or opera. Her good friend and adviser, Rutbert Reisch, was named as the head of the Foundation, and he was instructed to appoint five knowledgeable music business professionals to make the decision on the award. She emphasized what she wanted by designating the first recipient, Placido Domingo. I lay out the groundwork for what the Foundation does because it has often been criticized for giving money to those who are not in financial need. Whether that was the right course or not, her will dictates the terms of the award, and a decedent\u2019s will is inviolate.<\/p>\n The five members of the board represent five different countries in which Ms. Nilsson often performed. Riccardo Muti became the Board\u2019s first choice; the Vienna Philharmonic, our next second prize winner, received the award last week in Stockholm. Because of the importance of the award\u2014the largest in music\u2014and because of Ms. Nilsson\u2019s having been a Swedish citizen, the award is always presented in Stockholm, and the King of Sweden has in each case physically presented the award.<\/p>\n My wife and I on a visit to Europe after my retirement last August came to Stockholm for the ceremony. It was a very interesting two days. Sweden is not on everyone\u2019s itinerary, but it is a thriving, sparkling city and in my experience after four trips here a very inviting and gracious one. Built on the Baltic and a busy port, Stockholm has as much water surrounding and intersecting it as Amsterdam.<\/p>\n The morning of the award ceremony, October 8, there had been a press conference formally announcing the winner followed by press interviews. The President of the Philharmonic and his immediate predecessor accepted the award and in a very gracious speech told what the orchestra members had decided to do with the million dollars. The Vienna Philharmonic, a self-governing body for many years, chooses its conductor, plans its schedule, and does everything for itself that is usually the function of a board-appointed executive or the board itself.<\/p>\n