Märta Birgit Nilsson was born on May 17, 1918, and passed away on December 25, 2005. She was a Swedish dramatic soprano, a type of opera singer known for singing powerful and high-pitched roles. Nilsson performed many different types of operatic and vocal music, but she was most famous for singing operas by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Her voice was recognized for its great strength, large amount of power, and clear, bright sound in the highest notes.

Biography

Birgit Nilsson was born Märta Birgit Svensson on a farm in Västra Karup, Skåne (100 km/60 miles north of Malmö) to Nils Svensson and Justina Svensson (née Paulsson). At age three, she began playing melodies on a toy piano her mother bought for her. She once told an interviewer that she could sing before she could walk, adding, "I even sang in my dreams." Her vocal talent was first noticed when she sang in her church choir. A choirmaster near her home heard her sing and advised her to take voice lessons.

She studied with Ragnar Blennow in Åstorp for six months to prepare for an audition at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm. She was the top singer among 47 others and received the Christina Nilsson scholarship, named after the famous soprano. Her teachers at the academy were Joseph Hislop and Arne Sunnegårdh. However, she considered herself self-taught: "The best teacher is the stage," she told an interviewer in 1981. "You walk out onto it, and you have to learn to project." She disliked her early instruction and credited her success to natural talent. "My first voice teacher [Hislop] almost killed me… [T]he second was almost as bad."

In 1946, Nilsson made her debut at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm with only three days' notice, replacing a singer who was ill in the role of Agathe in Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz. Conductor Leo Blech was not kind to her, and she later wrote in her autobiography that she even considered suicide after the performance. In 1947, she gained national attention in Verdi's Lady Macbeth conducted by Fritz Busch. She performed many roles, including works by Richard Strauss, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, and Tchaikovsky. In Stockholm, she built a steady repertoire of roles in the lyric-dramatic field, including Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Aida, Lisa in The Queen of Spades, Tosca, Venus in Tannhäuser, Sieglinde in Die Walküre, Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, one of her favorite roles, all performed in Swedish. In 1949, she sang in Ariadne auf Naxos with Hjördis Schymberg and Elisabeth Söderström among others.

Under Fritz Busch's guidance, her career grew rapidly. He helped her secure her first major role outside Sweden, as Electra in Mozart's Idomeneo at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1951. Her debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1953 was a turning point; she became a regular performer there for over 25 years. This was followed by roles such as Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival in 1954 and her first Brünnhilde in a complete Ring at the Bavarian State Opera and the Munich Opera Festival in 1954. Later, she returned to perform Sieglinde, Brünnhilde, and Isolde until 1969.

She took the title role of Turandot, a brief but demanding role requiring a powerful voice, to La Scala in Milan in 1958 and then to other parts of Italy. Nilsson made her American debut as Brünnhilde in Wagner's Die Walküre in 1956 with the San Francisco Opera. She became internationally famous after a performance as Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1959, which made front-page news. She said the most significant event in her life was being asked to perform at the opening of La Scala's 180th season as Turandot in 1958. She performed at many major opera houses worldwide, including Vienna, Berlin, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Tokyo, Paris, Buenos Aires, Chicago, and Hamburg.

She sang with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in an all-Wagner concert that opened the Sydney Opera House's Concert Hall in 1973.

Nilsson was widely known as the leading Wagnerian soprano of her time, the successor to the great Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, especially as Brünnhilde. However, she also performed many other famous soprano roles, including Leonore, Aida, Turandot, Tosca, Elektra, and Salome. According to The New York Times, she had a "voice of impeccable trueness and impregnable stamina."

The conductor Erich Leinsdorf believed her long career, like Flagstad's, was linked to her Scandinavian heritage, noting that Wagner required "thoughtful, patient and methodical people." Nilsson said her long career was not due to any special lifestyle or routine. "I do nothing special," she once said. "I don't smoke. I drink a little wine and beer. I was born with the right set of parents."

Her high notes were sometimes compared to those of Broadway singer Ethel Merman. However, Nilsson said her "explosive" high notes, her strongest asset on stage, "have not been recorded like they should have been" in the studio. She later said, "It always made me a little sad when I heard my own recordings. Many people told me I sang much better in person than on the recordings. That didn't flatter me at all, because I know what's going to be left when I am no longer singing."

Twice at the Met, Nilsson sustained injuries that kept her from performing. In February 1971, she sprained her ankle during a performance of Elektra, causing one performance to be canceled (replaced by a historic performance of *

Legacy

In December 2008, three years after Nilsson's death, the Birgit Nilsson Foundation announced it would give a prize every two to three years. The prize would be awarded to a concert or opera singer, a classical or opera conductor, or an opera company's specific production. Nilsson provided the money for the prize. The foundation stated that Nilsson had already chosen the first winner, who would be announced in early 2009.

On February 20, 2009, Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo was named the first recipient of the prize. The award included a cash prize of $1,000,000. The first ceremony took place at the Royal Swedish Opera on October 13, 2009. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden personally presented the prize to the winner. The foundation created a jury to recommend future winners. The second winner was Riccardo Muti, who received the award in Stockholm on October 13, 2011. On April 9, 2014, it was announced that the Vienna Philharmonic would be the third recipient of the prize.

A Pågatågen train named "Birgit Nilsson" was introduced by Skånetrafiken. This train was the first in the new X61 series to leave Malmö Central Station in December 2009.

On April 6, 2011, the Bank of Sweden announced that Nilsson's portrait would appear on the 500 kronor banknote, starting in October 2016.

Honours and awards

• 1954 Hovsångerska (Royal Court Singer), Stockholm, Sweden
• 1958 Gold Medal, Teatro Liceo, Barcelona, Spain
• 1960 Sweden: Received the Royal Medal Litteris et Artibus
• 1960 Became an Honorary Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, Stockholm
• 1966 Received the Sonning Award, Denmark
• 1967 Gold Medal for the Promotion of the Art of Music (Swedish: För tonkonstens främjande), Royal Swedish Academy of Music, Stockholm
• 1968 Austrian Kammersängerin
• 1968 Became an Honorary Member of the Vienna State Opera, Vienna, Austria
• 1970 Honorary doctorate from Merrimack College, Andover, Mass., USA
• 1970 Became an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, London, England
• 1970 Bavarian Kammersängerin, Munich, Germany
• 1972 Denmark: Received the Royal Medal Ingenio et Arti
• 1974 Sweden: Appointed Commander First Class of the Order of Vasa
• 1975 Norway: Appointed Commander First Class of the Order of St. Olav
• 1981 Gold medal of the Royal Swedish Opera (Swedish: Kungliga Operan), Stockholm
• 1981 Sweden: Received the Illis Quorum gold medal, 18th grade with chain
• 1982 Honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music, New York City
• 1982 Honorary doctorate from Michigan State University, East Lansing, US
• 1982 Received the Swedish-American of the Year Award, New York City
• 1988 Germany: Received the Cross of Merit First Class of the Lower Saxony Order of Merit, Land of Lower Saxony
• 1991 France: Appointed Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres
• 1993 Royal Opera House Silver Medal for 25 years of service as a Guest Artist, London, England
• 1994 Received the Award of the Sweden–America Foundation (Swedish: Sverige-Amerikastiftelsen), New York City
• 1997 Honorary doctorate from the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Finland
• 1999 Became an Honorary Member of the Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna, Austria
• 2012 Inducted into Gramophone’s Hall of Fame