Tributes to Birgit Nilsson

Birgit Nilsson, Soprano Legend Who Tamed Wagner, Dies at 87
By BERNARD HOLLAND [NY Times, 12 January 2006]
Birgit Nilsson, the Swedish soprano with a voice of impeccable trueness and impregnable stamina, died on Dec. 25 in Vastra Karup, the village where she was born, the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported yesterday. She was 87.
A funeral was held yesterday at a church in her town, the presiding vicar, Fredrik Westerlund, told The Associated Press.
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Birgit Nilsson
[Daily Telegraph, 12 January 2006]
Birgit Nilsson, who has died aged 87, was considered to be the greatest Wagnerian soprano of her day; she had a rock-solid technique and a voice of such soaring, unforced power that it was able to cut through the massed forces of a Wagnerian orchestra with ease, yet a purity of tone which enabled her to switch to the most delicate pianissimo.
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Birgit Nilsson
Supreme Wagnerian soprano blessed with musicality, technique and imagination
Frank Granville Barker and Alan Blyth [The Guardian, 12 January 2006]
Was there ever a more truly Wagnerian singer than Birgit Nilsson, who has died aged 87? It seems unlikely that her Isolde and Br¸nnhilde will ever be equalled, let alone surpassed. She brought to these roles all the qualities their composer could possibly have wished: a voice of heroic proportions, a remarkable musicality, an interpretative imagination as incandescent as the music itself and a technique as solid as the rock on which the latter heroine slept for 20 years. Even her laughter, though it was only heard offstage, rang like the Valkyries’ “Ho-yo-to-ho”.
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