I always think her high notes sound absolutely miraculous. It sounds almost "percussive", if that makes sense... as if an organist hit a key on a keyboard. The sound starts from nowhere with absolute precision, power and constancy. It's jaw-dropping. I'm obsessed with her.
I remember seeing this on black and white TV when I was a HS freshman. I thought it was ridiculous. Little did I know then the power this woman would soon hold over me that would endure throughout my life. Her performances were life changing experiences for me. No one can compare. No one.
Utter perfection! Her technique is flawless, with no constriction, no tongue flutter, and no wiggling around as most sopranos today do. Every note is dead center pitch with power to reach the farthest part of any opera house. No screaming, and no attempts to "place" her pitches with nasality. The greatest Turandot of the last many, many years. No one today comes close.
Spot on! Perfectly put! It's downright disconcerting how far singers have slipped from this standard. It's as though the best sprinters today were running the 100m in 11 seconds.
I completely agree with your assessment of Nilsson and your views on singers today! Although, I did a Turandot with Cristina Deutekom and she too, was close to perfection.
@@uliwidmaier5192 Yes, I heard Deutekom sing every rehearsal and performance. San Diego Opera in the Spring of 1982. Deutekom was incredible although, everyone acknowledges that Nilsson reigns supreme as Turandot! Deutekom returned soon after to sing Abagaile in Nabucco... stellar singing!
Notice how easily she produces those laser high notes so effortlessly. She simply opens her mouth and the notes just pour out with such extreme volume.
She simply thinks about her line and then her projection, then breathes, then keeps a cord closure that's just about right to have balanced flow and then decides when to sustain more. Yes ... simple
I would say that the sound seems to be effortless, however there a lot of muscle work going on in her body to produce that. Simply amazing. I recall in an interview she said that when she would sing Turandot, she would use every single muscle in her body to produce that sound. A force of nature that comes only in a lifetime (or even maybe two lifetimes!)
I´m a Swede. We remember her as a great singer of course. But her wit and humour... It´s easier to reproduce I guess, the way you just did. She´s a legend.
Some of the greatest high notes ever recorded. They sound downright otherworldly. As many have noted in the comments, they are not effortless, though they sure sound that way. Nilsson works extremely hard to produce them, both mentally and physically. The startling thing is that she succeeded to such an absurd extent. I never heard her live, but I'm told that she was much more impressive onstage than in any recording. A frightening thought! Joachim Kaiser, the great late German music critic, wrote that she makes other world class singers who share the stage with her sound undeservedly third-rate. Another thing I heard is that she didn't sound all that impressive when you stood next to her on stage. It was only in the auditorium that her unique voice truly unfolded. At any rate, a truly great recording.
I heard Nilsson sing Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera in New York During the performance I was at a standing room post behind the top row at the most distant point from the stage in that huge house. When she hit a high C something incredible and spectacular happened. I could feel reverberations from her voice physically coming through the bar of the post before me and radiating up my arms to my chest. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. I have heard other great singers but nobody I heard had her vocal power. They say Lauritz Melchior equalled her.
@@uliwidmaier5192 - Your words brought my experience at the Met 45 years ago back to me. I thank you for spurring a recall of that tremendous memory. I sure would love to have heard Flagstad and Melchior together!
@@johnmaxwell1750You are most welcome! I guess there is no end to what we would have liked to have heard. You got to experience Nilsson, which is absolutely magnificent. But you missed out on Flagstad and Melchior. There are probably not too many people alive who have heard those two. And they, in turn, missed out on Ponselle and Caruso . . . I am mainly a piano aficionado, and I got to experience Horowitz, Rubinstein, Kempff, Arrau, Richter, Michelangeli, and Brendel. So I am pretty happy.
@@uliwidmaier5192 - I was lucky to hear Rubenstein play Chopin. Also heard von Karajan/BPO and Solti/CSO. The skill and the excellence of those fantastic performances reminds me how lucky I was to hear such great artists at the peak of their powers. Their skills were several orders of magnitude beyond what most popular musicians in the same period accomplished during live performances.
She kills me and in tthe same time I could cry of happiness ! We love you Birgit, wherever you are, your voice will never stop shining ! (By the way, with a Turandot like her, any Calaf drop dead at once... except Corelli, of course !) Thanks for this expert I never saw before.
The best thing about this video is that one is able to see just how poised yet relaxed her torso is. There is no tension anywhere, and there are no gimicks. She just stands and delivers, with the exception of the final high C where she hunkers down with that oomf from her core and below to get some extra support - just as she should!
@@ejvindfrantzen4194 We are so lucky and blessed to have on you tube video clips of the worlds greatest singers of the modern era (on film). When I read comments, be it approval or criticism, by members of the you tube community, and I suspect that the one's that I am thinking of, believe themselves to be voice coaches or experts, I have to wonder at what point they become qualified to approve or disapprove the performances of the greats.
@@joejohnson945 I played for 40 years in the opera orchestra in Copenhagen and even accompanied Brigit Nilsson in "Tosca" many many years ago. I love her voice and personality! Yours Ejvind Frantzen
@@ejvindfrantzen4194 Ejvind, how wonderful it must be to work with one of the opera world's greatest. You must have some wonderful memories. Best wishes, Joe
This is because the teachers today do not know how the voice works. Most of them never had any kind of major career and only could manage to sing light music. Powerful singing is a total mystery to them. So they only allow students to sing Lieder and Mozart.
Great Vocal Emission. Beautiful. So much bloom and freedom in her voice and the release of the air. She has a deep understanding of the OLD REAL ITALIAN APPOGGIO BREATHING TECHNIQUE. 👌👌👌👌👌
Singers like Nilsson, Traubel, Flagstad, Callas, Ponselle, Melchior, and Bjorling are not to be found in opera today. The gods and goddesses have perished in Valhalla.
So these are icons ftom the past but ofcourse there are singers on this level today, but today you compete with more singer so you dont get the same treatment and hype.
@@tommylundholm9146 I have a hard time imagining singers now that can sing like this video. Would you be willing to name a few singers that you’re thinking of that you would recommend?
Es treibt mir die Tränen in die Augen. Diese Hochdramatische ist bis heute unerreicht. Wer sie auf der Bühne erleben konnte, darf sic h glücklich schätzen, weil nach Nilsson keine Sängerin in ihrer Klasse zu erleben war.
Yeah she hated her teachers. The first one thought she was a mezzo and physically tried to push her voice down. It almost ruined her voice. Her second was almost as bad, the father of soprano Erika Sunnergård. Both of them try to take credit for Nilssons voice with Erika stating that her home was filled with that technique and that she definitely wasn't self-taught. Obviously not true since Erika doesn't sound a f*****ng bit like Birgit at all, and non of Arne Sunnergårdhs students has anything in common with Birgit.. Nilsson was mainly self-taught and her inspiration for the high notes, was her mother who easily took the high C:s in the most brilliant and easy way
What people tend to forget is: as we learn later in the opera, Turandot is already in love with Calaf when she sings this aria. This has thrown her off-kilter, and she is nervous and hysterical. That is the reason for the extremely high, almost screamy tessitura. Puccini was a master at creating character through musical means.
Sutherland and Nilsson both used the Bel Canto technique and it showed. They both stayed within their repertoire and it protected their voices. Singers today can't touch the likes of Nilsson and Sutherland
I think it’s very hard these days for any classical musician to not add some sort of gimmick because perfection like this can be easily found and fewer and fewer people want to sit and listen to fantastic singers much less have a appreciation for the composition.
@Noack Somewhere As a singer from many years ago I tried not to get into “better than” ideas. The human voice is an instrument unique to the singer. The physiology and shape of the voice box is really, really different for everyone. I think managing one’s instrument took precedent in the past. Being creative, dramatic, looking the part, etc. is more important, now. Connoisseurs will listen to recordings and folks who like live theater will prefer those more dramatic, albeit less than perfect singer/actor performers. I myself sit back in awe that composers like Puccini even thought that singing those lines was possible. The music they wrote is the greatest value (for me) no matter who’s singing it.
Callas forever! Nobody can sing this aria like Maria - Is obvious that Nilsson do not understand Italian. Oderwise she can not be so soft on the word orrore.. Every word is so meaningful with Maria, she really understand like nobodyelse Puccini. Is incredible how Maria modulate the intrinsic ritm of this aria crating visual effect - listen to he 1957 rendition of the aria - how she sing/say "o Principi che a lunghi caravane... dove parte del mondo qui venite..." lunghi caravane suggest in Maria rendition something ondulating like kamels on the sand dunes the quaitnes if is firs disrupted by the accent on QUI venite - here, here is my reign - to do a real very good crescendo for Io vendico SU VOI, quella purezza - very delicate, ascending on quel grido for the pike on quella MORTE. Maria is a real genius, I was incapable to listen to Pucini before I discovered Maria in1994 - til that moment I listen to her recordings again and again, and they are so alive, every time I discover a nuance, an accent a way how she can create with sound ONLY visual images. An other example is from La Sonambula - "amo il rio perche londa ti da..."when si sing first this at Edinburg is very much evident - is like you hear water going from a bottle to a glass for Elvino to drink - Callas a real genius, nobody sing like her.
May I ask why you didn't include Greindl and Hotter in your google-spreadsheet? They were nasal later in their career, but their technique in the 1930s/1940s was great. Greindl (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MQ3HjNXl7nU.html), Hotter (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Vw4jXY2G7BI.html). Do you think they were overall bad or do you only include singers who were consistently good throughout their career?
La Nilsson aligne les contre-ut aussi facilement que si elle enfilait des perles. En revanche, le chef dirige tout ça à la truelle. Aucun sens du phrasé puccinien.
Oh come on! Callas and Sutherland's renditions of Turandot is extremely bad! The only one who can play in the Turandot league was Gwyneth Jones and she still was far behind
![Birgit Nilsson's shockingly easy high notes. In questa reggia [Turandot] - 1962](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
