The Flagstad Case

In Boston this week, the great Wagnerian Soprano Kirsten Flagstad made her first U.S. concert appearance since the war. It was easy for Boston, as it had been for London, Paris and Milan, to succumb to the persuasion of Flagstad's magnificent singing. She had shrewdly chosen an Easter program of Beethoven, Grieg and Brahms--and five U.S. composers. But the audience had not forgotten the roles that had made her famous, and shouted for Wagner. On the fifth encore she gave in.*

Wagner was a reminder of what Flagstad was trying to forget. She had little chance to. Columnist Walter Winchell, among others, whooped at her almost daily. (Sample: "Please do something about this woman, who before and during the war was not on our team. . . . Norway doesn't want her, which is one very good reason for the United States not to take her.") In Seattle, which has the second largest Scandinavian population in the U.S., Impresario Cecilia Schultz said, "I positively refused to ... present her in concert here, because I have a deep-rooted allegiance for the American principles that this woman has ignored."

The Past. Just how guilty was Kirsten Flagstad, and of what? The facts were simple, though the question they raised was not:

Flagstad had returned to Norway and her quisling husband after the occupation. The Norwegian Legation in Washington had refused to approve her return, but she went anyway, using her Norwegian passport, and traveling by way of Portugal, Spain and Berlin. She had never sung for the Germans, nor for the quislings. Her only wartime concerts were in neutral Sweden and Switzerland. Her husband died last year in a hospital while awaiting trial for collaboration. The Norwegian Government had no legal charges against her, and coldly gave her a passport. Norwegians felt a decided chill toward their great singer, who during the occupation had chosen to enjoy a comfortable life in their midst.

The Present. Now the U.S. would have to decide how it felt about her. Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera Association nervously sniffed the wind before making up its mind whether to ask its old star back. The New York Sun's critic Irving Kolodin thought it should not. To him, it was all right for Flagstad to hire a hall where the public could buy tickets or stay away; it was something else for her to sing at the Met, where the public buys season tickets months in advance, and has to accept whatever singers the management offers. Added Kolodin: "I have heard it said that the only factor to be considered is Mme. Flagstad's artistry. That view I cannot share, for artists are rational beings and must be held accountable for their actions." Many a music-lover regretfully agreed with him.

* But gave up just before the end of Bruennhilde's ho-yo-to-ho aria when her accompanist, Edwin McArthur, fumbled. He explained that he hadn't played it for six years.

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