Kirsten Malfrid Flagstad (12 July 1895 – 7 December 1962) was a Norwegian opera singer and one of the most famous Wagnerian sopranos of her time. Her successful first performance in New York on 2 February 1935 is considered one of the most famous events in opera history. Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the long-time leader of the Metropolitan Opera, said, "I have given America two great gifts — Caruso and Flagstad."

She was known as "the voice of the century" and is considered one of the best singers of the 20th century. Desmond Shawe-Taylor wrote in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera, "No one else in recent history had a more beautiful and consistent voice."

Early life and career

Kirsten Flagstad was born in Hamar, Norway, in her grandparents' home, which is now the Kirsten Flagstad Museum. Although she never lived in Hamar, she always considered it her hometown. She grew up in Oslo with a musical family. Her father, Michael Flagstad, was a conductor, and her mother, Maja Flagstad, was a pianist. Her siblings also became musicians: her brother Ole Flagstad was a conductor, her brother Lasse Flagstad was a pianist, and her sister Karen-Marie Flagstad was a soprano.

She began her musical training in Oslo and performed on stage for the first time at the National Theatre in 1913, playing the role of Nuri in Tiefland by Eugen d'Albert. She made her first recordings between 1913 and 1915. After studying further in Stockholm with Dr. Gillis Bratt, she worked as an opera and operetta singer in Norway. In 1919, she married Sigurd Hall, and the next year, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Else Marie Hall. Later that year, she joined the newly formed Opera Comique in Oslo, which was directed by Alexander Varnay and Benno Singer. Varnay was the father of the famous soprano Astrid Varnay. Flagstad was known for learning opera roles quickly, often mastering them in just a few days. She performed roles such as Desdemona, Minnie, and Amelia at the Opera Comique.

Between 1928 and 1934, she sang at the Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, Sweden. She made her debut there as Agathe in Der Freischütz by Weber. In 1930, she performed the role of Michal in a revival of Saul and David by Nielsen. On May 31, 1930, she married her second husband, Henry Johansen, a Norwegian industrialist and lumber merchant. He helped her grow her career. In 1932, she performed for the first time in Rodelinda by Handel.

After singing operetta and lighter operatic roles, such as Marguerite in Faust, for over a decade, Flagstad began performing heavier roles, such as Tosca and Aida. The role of Aida helped her develop her dramatic skills. In 1932, she performed the role of Isolde in Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner, and many believed she found her true singing voice. Ellen Gulbranson, a soprano from Sweden, encouraged Winifred Wagner to invite Flagstad to perform at the Bayreuth Festival. In 1933, Flagstad sang smaller roles at the festival. In 1934, she performed the roles of Sieglinde in Die Walküre and Gutrune in Götterdämmerung, alongside Frida Leider as Brünnhilde.

Debut at the Metropolitan Opera

Flagstad was first noticed by Otto Hermann Kahn, who was the chairman of the Metropolitan Opera’s board, during a trip to Scandinavia in 1929. Met management sent letters to Flagstad soon after, but she did not respond. At that time, Flagstad had recently met the man who would become her second husband and briefly considered leaving opera entirely. In the summer of 1934, when the Met needed a replacement for Frida Leider, Flagstad agreed to audition for conductor Artur Bodanzky and Met general manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza in St. Moritz in August 1934. She was hired immediately. Before leaving St. Moritz, Bodanzky told Flagstad, “Come to New York as soon as you learn these roles (Isolde, the three Brünnhildes, Leonore in Fidelio, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier). Most importantly, do not gain weight! Your slim, youthful appearance is one of the reasons you were hired.”

At the Met, Flagstad studied with vocal coach Hermann Weigert, who helped her prepare for all her roles with the company. Her first performance at the Met was as Sieglinde in Die Walküre on the afternoon of February 2, 1935. The event was not planned as a special occasion, but Met management had already recognized her talent after weeks of rehearsals. They chose to keep the debut low-key because Flagstad was unknown in the United States at the time. However, the performance was broadcast nationwide on the Met’s weekly radio program. During the intermission, host and former Met star Geraldine Farrar abandoned her prepared remarks, overwhelmed by what she had heard, and announced that a new star had emerged. Days later, Flagstad performed as Isolde, and later that month, she sang Brünnhilde in Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung for the first time. By the end of the season, she also performed Elsa in Lohengrin, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, and her first Kundry in Parsifal.

Further career in America and elsewhere

She quickly became the most famous Wagnerian soprano of her time. It is said that she helped save the Metropolitan Opera from financial trouble. Her performances, which sometimes included three or four shows a week when she first joined the Met, sold out quickly once tickets were available. Her contributions to the Met were not only from ticket sales but also from her efforts to raise money. She asked radio listeners to donate during Saturday matinee breaks, which brought thousands of dollars to the Met. Fidelio (1936 and later) was the only non-Wagnerian role she performed at the Met before the war. In 1935, she sang all three Brünnhildes in the San Francisco Opera’s Ring cycle. In 1937, she made her debut at the Chicago City Opera Company.

In 1936 and 1937, Flagstad performed roles such as Isolde, Brünnhilde, and Senta at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under conductors like Sir Thomas Beecham, Fritz Reiner, and Wilhelm Furtwängler. She received the same level of praise there as she had in New York. She also toured Australia in 1938. Hollywood tried to use her popularity in the United States during the mid-1930s, after her frequent appearances on NBC Radio, The Kraft Music Hall with Bing Crosby, and regular performances on CBS’s The Ford Sunday Evening Hour. Although she was not interested in becoming a movie star, she visited Hollywood in the late 1930s for publicity photos, concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, and a film appearance on The Big Broadcast of 1938. In this show, she performed Brünnhilde’s Battle Cry from Die Walküre and was introduced by Bob Hope. Flagstad and Sonja Henie are the only two Norwegians with their own stars on Hollywood’s “Walk of Fame.”

Her time at the Met was not always smooth. Flagstad had a long disagreement with tenor Lauritz Melchior after he was upset by comments she made about “stupid publicity photos” during a bridge game in her hotel suite in Rochester, NY. Melchior and his wife, along with Edwin McArthur, were present during the game. Later, Melchior refused to allow Flagstad to have solo curtain calls during their performances together. Audiences did not know that the two singers did not speak to each other for two years. Flagstad’s husband, Henry Johansen, eventually helped them reconcile.

Flagstad also had a disagreement with the Met’s general manager, Edward Johnson, after the death of conductor Artur Bodanzky. She wanted her accompanist, Edwin McArthur, to conduct some performances instead of the new conductor, Erich Leinsdorf. Johnson refused, but Flagstad discussed the matter directly with the Met’s board of directors, including David Sarnoff, founder of RCA and NBC. Sarnoff arranged for McArthur to conduct Met productions on a limited basis. Her relationship with Johnson improved later; just before she left the Met in 1941, on the night of her 100th performance as Isolde, she received 100 roses from Melchior and Johnson.

Return to Norway

In 1941, Flagstad received many mysterious messages from her husband, who had returned to Norway one and a half years earlier. These messages made her consider leaving the United States. Although some people did not see the political importance of someone as famous as her leaving the U.S. for German-occupied Norway, the decision was difficult for her. She had many friends, colleagues, and fans across the United States. Additionally, her 20-year-old daughter, Else, had married an American named Arthur Dusenberry and was living with her husband on a ranch in Bozeman, Montana. Edwin McArthur had been the one to give Else away at her wedding in Bozeman the year before. Despite advice from friends and colleagues, including former president Herbert Hoover, who urged her to stay in the United States, she returned to Norway in April 1941. Her journey took her through Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Marseille, and Berlin.

During the war, she performed only in Sweden and Switzerland, countries not controlled by German forces. However, this did not stop the public from criticizing her, which affected her personally and professionally for several years. After the war, her husband was arrested for taking advantage of the situation during the occupation through his lumber business. This arrest, along with her choice to stay in occupied Norway, made her unpopular, especially in the United States. The Norwegian ambassador and columnist Walter Winchell criticized her publicly. In 1948, she performed several concerts to raise money for the United Jewish Appeal. Later, after her husband, Henry Johansen, died, it was discovered that he had been arrested by the Gestapo during the occupation and held for eight days. Also, one of Johansen’s sons from his first marriage, Henry Jr., had been part of the Norwegian underground during the war.

Post-war career

Flagstad returned to the Metropolitan Opera after being invited by its new general manager, Rudolf Bing. Many people strongly criticized this choice, but Bing said, "The greatest soprano of this century must sing in the world's greatest opera house." She also returned to Covent Garden after it reopened in 1947. At that time, the Opera House had serious financial problems and was trying to build a company of English singers who performed mostly in English, rather than hiring expensive guest artists. From 1948 to 1952, she performed in all her usual Wagnerian roles, including Kundry and Sieglinde. She toured South America in 1948 and returned to San Francisco in 1949, finally going back to the Met. During the 1950–1951 season, even though she was in her 50s, Flagstad performed strongly as Isolde, Brünnhilde, and Leonore.

Although there was much excitement about her return to the Met in early 1951 and her success there, Flagstad decided this would be her last year singing Wagner on stage. She had gained weight since her earlier years at the Met, when she performed long and physically demanding roles night after night. In 1950, when she accepted Bing’s invitation, she felt she no longer had the same energy she had as a younger woman. She also developed an arthritic hip in mid-1951 and had to see doctors in New York. This made it harder for her to perform on stage, especially when singing Wagner. Her final operatic performance at the Met was on April 1, 1952, not as Brünnhilde or Isolde, but as the title character in Gluck’s Alceste, a role she had learned during the war in Norway. In London, she performed as Dido (a role she had recently learned) in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the first Mermaid Theatre. To celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in July 1953, Flagstad performed again as Dido at the Royal Exchange in London, in Bernard Miles’s reconstructed "Globe Theatre." The performance was recorded in a studio and released by EMI in January 1953. Her final operatic performance was as Dido in Oslo on June 5, 1953.

Flagstad was a guest on the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs on April 29, 1952.

Four Last Songs

During the years after World War II, Flagstad was responsible for the first performance of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs. Strauss had written the pieces while he was in exile in Switzerland after the war. Like Flagstad, he was criticized for being seen as a collaborator with the Nazis. Strauss wanted Flagstad to perform the songs, but not because he thought her voice was the best fit. He preferred a type of soprano voice he admired, as shown by singers like Elisabeth Schumann and his wife, Pauline de Ahna. Strauss had heard others praise Flagstad’s singing over the years, but he had not heard her perform in person since she sang in the 1933 Bayreuth Festival performance of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. He chose Flagstad out of sympathy for her challenges. He sent her a letter with a collection of his works, asking her to consider adding them to her performances, and requested that she give the premiere of the four new orchestral songs, which were still being published.

Flagstad accepted the commission, though Strauss did not live to see the premiere. She chose Wilhelm Furtwängler as her conductor, not McArthur, who was a skilled pianist but not considered a top-level orchestral conductor. Furtwängler, who also faced consequences for his actions during the war, worked with Walter Legge’s Philharmonia Orchestra, a group they both collaborated with successfully. The premiere took place on May 22, 1950, at London’s Royal Albert Hall, when Flagstad was nearly 55 years old. By this time, her voice was deeper and less flexible than it had been when she sang for Strauss at Bayreuth. She avoided singing very high notes, as shown later in a recording of Tristan und Isolde. The Strauss songs, especially those based on Hesse’s poetry, were challenging for her, and she struggled to perform them. The song Frühling was particularly difficult, so Legge promoted the concert by describing the Strauss pieces as “three songs with orchestra” two days before the event. At the premiere, Flagstad included Frühling but skipped the highest note, and the final moments of Im Abendrot were followed by a moment of silence in honor of Strauss. The concert, which also included music by Wagner, such as Isolde’s Liebestod and Brünnhilde’s Immolation, received positive reviews. Recordings of Flagstad’s performance were made from a radio broadcast and are now available for purchase. She added September, Beim Schlafengehen, and Im Abendrot to her repertoire, and recordings of these songs performed in concerts exist. However, she never performed Frühling again.

Retirement

After retiring from performing on stage, she continued to give concerts and record music. She first recorded for EMI, creating an important version of Isolde in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which was the first commercially released recording of the opera. Later, she recorded for Decca Records. She also made recordings that used two channels for sound, including parts of Wagner’s operas conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch and Sir Georg Solti with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1958, she performed the role of Fricka in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, which was the first part of Solti’s complete stereophonic recording of the Ring Cycle, released by Decca on LP and reel-to-reel tape. She also taught young singers in her home country, including contralto Eva Gustavson.

From around 1952, after her final performance at the Metropolitan Opera, until her death 10 years later, Flagstad’s health worsened over time. She spent increasing amounts of time in hospitals for various illnesses. In 1958, she joked with an interviewer that Oslo hospital had become her second home. From 1958 to 1960, Flagstad was the first director of the Norwegian National Opera. In her later years, she performed many benefit concerts across Norway. She was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in 1960 and died from the disease on December 7, 1962. At her request, she was buried in an unmarked grave at Vestre Gravlund Cemetery in the Frogner area of Oslo. The largest floral arrangement at her funeral was sent by Lauritz Melchior.

Repertoire

Flagstad performed many roles, especially early in her career, before she became known as a Wagnerian dramatic soprano. This is a list of her main roles with the dates she first performed them.

• Nuri in Tiefland (d’Albert), Nationaltheatret in Christiania, 12 December 1913
• Germaine in Les cloches de Corneville (Planquette), Nationaltheatret in Christiania, 12 September 1914
• Aagot in Fjeldeventyret (Waldemar Thrane), Open-air theatre in Frogner, Christiania, 23 June 1915
• Nedda in Pagliacci (Leoncavallo), Opera Comique in Christiania, 23 March 1919
• Fatime in Abu Hassan (Weber), Opera Comique in Christiania, 26 April 1919
• Ganymed in Die schöne Galathee (von Suppé), Opera Comique in Christiania, 25 March 1919
• Desdemona in Otello (Verdi), Opera Comique in Christiania, 26 January 1921
• Amelia in Un ballo in maschera (Verdi), Opera Comique in Christiania, 20 February 1921
• Countess Mariana in Die Frau im Hermelin (Jean Gilbert), Mayol in Christiania, 15 July 1922
• Princess Jutta in Das Hollandweibchen (Kálmán), Mayol in Christiania, 10 November 1922
• Countess Francesca in Wenn Liebe erwacht (Eduard Künnecke), Mayol in Christiania, 12 September 1923
• Odette Darimonde in Die Bajadere (Kálmán), Mayol in Christiania, 30 September 1923
• Countess in Eine Frau von Format (Michael Krasznay-Krausz), Brunns Teatern in Helsinki, 17 June 1928
• Countess Mariza in Gräfin Mariza (Kálmán), Brunns Teatern in Helsinki, 26 July 1928
• Agathe in Der Freischütz (Weber), Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, 4 October 1928
• Michal in Saul og David (Nielsen), Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, 29 November 1928
• Aida in Aida (Verdi), Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, 7 March 1929
• Elsa in Lohengrin (Wagner), Nationaltheatret in Christiania, 14 June 1929
• Tosca in Tosca (Puccini), Nationaltheatret in Christiania, 28 June 1929
• Anita in Jonny spielt auf (Ernst Krenek), Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, 10 April 1931
• Dorotka in Schwanda the Bagpiper (Jaromír Weinberger), Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, 3 December 1931
• Rodelinda in Rodelinda (Handel), Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, 16 February 1932
• Isolde in Tristan und Isolde (Wagner), Nationaltheatret in Christiania, 29 June 1932
• Eva in Die Meistersinger (Wagner), Nationaltheatret in Christiania, 7 June 1933
• Ortlinde in Die Walküre (Wagner), Bayreuth Festival, 25 July 1933
• Third Norn in Götterdämmerung (Wagner), Bayreuth Festival, 28 July 1933
• Gutrune in Götterdämmerung (Wagner), Bayreuth Festival, 29 July 1934
• Sieglinde in Die Walküre (Wagner), Théatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, 24 May 1934
• Elisabeth in Tannhäuser (Wagner), Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, 5 October 1934
• Leonore in Fidelio (Beethoven), Stora Teatern in Gothenburg, 10 December 1934
• Brünnhilde in Die Walküre (Wagner), Metropolitan Opera in New York, 15 February 1935
• Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung (Wagner), Metropolitan Opera in New York, 28 February 1935
• Kundry in Parsifal (Wagner), Metropolitan Opera in New York, 17 April 1935
• Senta in Der fliegende Holländer (Wagner), Metropolitan Opera in New York, 7 January 1937
• Rezia in Oberon (Weber), Stadttheater in Zürich, 30 May 1942
• Alceste in Alceste (Gluck), Stadttheater in Zürich, 23 May 1943
• Dido in *Dido and Aene

Legacy

The Kirsten Flagstad Museum in Hamar, Norway, houses a private collection of opera items. The museum’s costumes are especially notable, with some borrowed from the Metropolitan Opera Archives. Her portrait appears on the Norwegian 100 kroner bill and on the tail section of Norwegian Air Shuttle planes.

Opera critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote in his New York Times obituary of Flagstad, “That voice! How can one describe it?” He described her voice as very large but not loud, as it was never forced or misplaced. It had a smooth, shiny quality and was used like an instrument, almost as if a large violin was producing smooth musical notes. Flagstad performed the role of Isolde 70 times at the Metropolitan Opera from 1935 to 1941, making Tristan und Isolde one of the most popular productions in Met history. Nine of these performances were broadcast on radio during Saturday afternoons.

Recordings

A detailed collection of her recordings was published in multiple volumes by the Simax label.

Her recordings from before World War II include studio performances of Wagner arias, Beethoven arias, and Grieg songs. She also performed duets from Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Tristan und Isolde with Lauritz Melchior. These recordings have been re-released on CDs by RCA Victor, Naxos, Preiser, and Romophone.

Many performances from the Metropolitan Opera have survived and are available to collectors. These include:

• Die Walküre: Act I and parts of Act II from her 1935 first broadcast; 1937 (as Sieglinde); 1940.
• Tristan und Isolde: performances from 1935, 1937, and 1940.
• Tannhäuser: 1936 (with Melchior and Tibbett), 1939, and 1941 (officially released on Metropolitan Opera LPs).
• Siegfried: 1937 (with Lauritz Melchior and Friedrich Schorr), available on Naxos and Guild labels.
• Lohengrin: 1937 (with René Maison).
• Fidelio: 1941 (with Bruno Walter), available on Naxos.
• Alceste: 1952, available on Walhall.

After World War II, many important studio recordings were made, including:

• Wagner Scenes, such as the final duet from Siegfried (Testament CDs, licensed from EMI).
• Götterdämmerung: Final Scene with Furtwängler (EMI).
• Tristan und Isolde: Complete opera with Furtwängler (EMI).
• Norwegian Songs (EMI).
• Götterdämmerung: with Fjeldstad, Bjoner, and Set Svanholm (1956, released on Urania and Walhall).
• Der Ring des Nibelungen: Gebhard, from Teatro alla Scala with Furtwängler, Lorenz, Svanholm, Frantz (1950).

Her most famous operatic recording is the 1952 version of Tristan und Isolde with Furtwängler, which has never been out of print. It is available from EMI and Naxos. She was 57 years old at the time and was unsure if she could reach the highest notes in Act II. She agreed to let Elisabeth Schwarzkopf provide her voice for this part. Other notable Tristan performances include:

• A live performance from London on 18 May and 2 June 1936, with Lauritz Melchior as Tristan, Emanuel List as Marke, Sabine Kalter as Brangäne, and Herbert Janssen as Kurwenal, conducted by Fritz Reiner with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
• A live performance from the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires) on 20 August 1948, with Set Svanholm as Tristan, Viorica Ursuleac as Brangäne, Hans Hotter as Kurwenal, and Ludwig Weber as Marke, conducted by Erich Kleiber.

Two live concerts are historically significant:

• Four Last Songs (Richard Strauss, world premiere), with excerpts from Tristan und Isolde and Götterdämmerung, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler in London on 22 May 1950 (Testament).
• A farewell concert at Carnegie Hall, New York, on 20 March 1955, conducted by McArthur with the Symphony of the Air. It includes excerpts from Die Walküre Act I, the final scene of Götterdämmerung, the Tristan Liebestod, and the Wesendonck Lieder (orchestral version) (World Records LP T-366-7).
• Flagstad’s 1951 performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Mermaid Theatre in London is represented by a cast recording. The role of Belinda (originally played by Maggie Teyte) was taken by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, but the production was directed by Geraint Jones (His Master’s Voice ALP 1026, EMG review January 1953). A live performance with Teyte is available on the Walhall label.
• Alceste (original Italian version edited by Geraint Jones), in which she gave a farewell performance. It was recorded with Raoul Jobin, Alexander Young, Marion Lowe, Thomas Hemsley, Joan Clark, Rosemary Thayer, Geraint Jones Orchestra and singers, and conducted by Geraint Jones (Decca LP LXT 5273–5276). Her part was recorded on April 28, April 30, and May 1, 1956.

In 1956, she joined Decca Records, where she made several important studio recordings toward the end of her career:

• Several albums of music by Grieg, Sibelius, and Brahms, with orchestra and piano.
• Traditional Norwegian hymns.
• Wagner arias with Knappertsbusch (stereo).
• Acts I and III of Die Walküre (as Sieglinde and Brünnhilde, respectively), as well as the Brünnhilde/Siegmund duet from Act II (conducted by Knappertsbusch and Solti).
• Her final performance as Fricka in the Decca Rheingold of 1958.

Until the end of her life, Flagstad continued to sing with a strong voice, though she increasingly performed in mezzo-soprano roles or in a lower range. Decca planned to cast her as Fricka in Die Walküre and Waltraute in Götterdammerung for its complete Ring project, and to record her in Brahms’ Four Serious Songs and Alto Rhapsody. These plans were delayed only by her