"Heroic Female Figure"

During the 26 years that Richard Wagner brooded over The Ring of the Nibelung, no one character caused him greater anguish than his heroine Bruennhilde. Time & again he flung down his pen and paced the floor. He recalled in his autobiography that once "my courage failed me completely, for I could not help asking myself whether the singer had yet been born who was capable of vitalizing this heroic female figure."* The stiffest test in all grand opera is the Bruennhilde of Goetterdaemmerung. That role made big news in Manhattan last week when it was sung for the first time by Soprano Kirsten Flagstad, the Metropolitan's new Norwegian import (TIME, Feb. 11, Feb. 18).

In Die Walkuere Bruennhilde is a high-spirited amazon, a goddess sired and loved by Wotan who punishes her by making her mortal and banishing her to a rock surrounded by fire. In Siegfried the perfect hero penetrates the flames and Bruennhilde is a woman radiantly in love. In Goetterdaemmerung the emotional range is so extended that few singers have been able to compass it successfully. In the first act a great Bruennhilde must be tender, exuberantly happy. In the second act bewilderment turns to blazing rage. Under the spell of one of Wagner's convenient potions, Siegfried has tricked her, given her to another. A great Bruennhilde is spine-chilling when she brands the hero as a traitor, swears it by an oath on a spear and then helps plot his death. And at the end she must become a goddess again. Though high passages are long and grueling, a few rare interpreters have made them seem incidental to Bruennhilde's grief, her realization of tragedy as she majestically orders Siegfried's funeral pyre and calls for her horse to ride into the flames.

The first Bruennhilde was not easy to find, for most prima donnas impressed Wagner as being "silly, fastidious schoolgirls." He finally chose Amalie Materna, a big-chested Styrian with a grand manner and a zooming voice. At that first Bayreuth Festival in 1876 one of the Rhine maidens was a pretty young Jewess named Lilli Lehmann. Wagner wanted to adopt her but her mother, who knew the master well, objected. Lehmann was a light coloratura then and no one, least of all Wagner, suspected that she was soon to cultivate dramatic roles and sing Bruennhilde.

What Lehmann accomplished with the role has long been legendary. She sang it in the first Goetterdaemmerung given in the U. S. in 1888 and therein set a standard which no other singer has ever quite achieved. Vocally she was a match for Wagner's mighty orchestra. Dramatically she was the "heroic female figure" that Wagner imagined. Those who heard her have never forgotten the horror in her voice when she turned on Siegfried, the fury she became when she swore the piercing oath on the spear.

Of the big Bruennhildes who followed Lehmann Milka Ternina, a Croat, was easily next best. Lilian Nordica from Farmington, Me. sang better than she acted. Olive Fremstad's impersonation was abundant with feeling but often uncontrolled. Johanna Gadski sang so long past her prime that her first excellent performances grew dim in memory. The current outstanding Bruennhildes are Frida Leider and Gertrude Kappel. Both give the role its true heroic proportions but their voices are no longer young.

Vocally Kirsten Flagstad's performance last week was the best that has been heard in Manhattan for many a year. The audience cheered her at every curtain call and critics fairly wallowed in superlatives. The amazing part of her success was that she had never sung the role before, never had an orchestra rehearsal, never practiced with any member of the cast. Withal she seemed sure and confident on the stage. Her strong rich voice was expressive in every phase, her gestures admirably restrained. Most critics led their readers to believe that her interpretation was practically perfect. But Madame Flagstad is not yet a titan, though she exhibited great spirit when she managed her own horse, sang bravely into his ear no matter how the beast twitched and scuffed.

*So familiar, even to non-opera goers, is this Wagnerian character that the name Bruennhilde has passed into U. S. speech as depictive of any large beefy woman, usually with a big head of hair.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.