Birgit Nilsson & Hans Knappertsbusch "Liebestod"

[calaftheeast]

Thank you, you goddess among men.

[seattle813]

The great Wiener Philharmoniker nearly comes completely off the track (6:28 to 6:35) thanks to "der alte Kna" -- who's the "Arschloch" there??

[fernandofernandezgar]

Mas allá de Nilsson y Kna... Wagner, Wagner, Wagner.

[JRZGRL55]

I read an article about Birgit in Opera News several years ago. She had 2 cows named Tristan and Isolde. That just brings a smile to my face. This is simply amazing singing - thank you for this video!!

[toranuguitars]

@JRZGRL55 your comment brings me a smile, too:D

[dnettles]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[KishoAudioVisual]

Knappertsbush is not about liking or disliking ... it's all about KNOWING Music <333

[astronomo16]

Esa voz y esa música salva de cualquier miseria humana

[fernandofernandezgar]

@astronomo16 Excelente.

[vollmitwildenrosen]

Mensch Knappi, ganz groß!

[vollmitwildenrosen]

Mensch Knappi, ganz groß!

[vollmitwildenrosen]

Mensch Knappi, groß!

[williamforever1958]

Nobody in the orchestra takes care of the conductor and so does Birgit Nilsson!! With good reason, because Hans Knappertsbusch was one of those so called legends, who just stood in front of the orchestra, making mysthic movements and thought, this would be enough. Therefore everbody ignored him.

[vittoriostoraro]

Over the years, many people have told me that recordings of Nilsson could never do her justice... In any case, I have always and will continue to find this Woman Awe-Inspiring !

[kurneval]

insurpassable de beauté, knappertsbusch est né pour diriger cette musique. phrasé et son inimitable d'une profondeur inouïe, il y a là un souffle que je n'ai entendu nulle part.

[Erdrick345]

I don't adore Nilsson..This is second rate..she is a poor tin type of the ultimate Wagnerian soprano..Kirsten Flagstad..listen to her 1936 Covent Garden Liebestod and you'll be transfixed by the beauty and tonality of her incomparable vocal talents. By the way, Furtwaengler is the best Wagnerian conductor..this is universally accepted. Unfortunately, he was not paired with Flagstad in her earlier years.

[illian420]

beautiful version and lovely old video of it too *chills*

[mozzrt]

Nilsson is AWESOME, I worship Kna, his tempi isn't slow as he FILLS them, contrary to all the slowmotion fools of today!

[BritinIsrael]

His tempos may have been extremely slow but it never ever fell apart and always sounded perfect.. His Bayreuth Parsifals still remain the greatest of all time.

[fernandofernandezgar]

Una de las mas grandes sopranos wagnerianas, junto con Astrid Varnay y Gwaineth Jones. Kna, Keilberth y Solti los mejores directores, al menos para mí.

[ThePrimobaritono77]

What a female titan of the operatic world. That sound is instantly recognizable and haunting and never more so in this aria which, at least for me, no other soprano has ever equaled. To have such a voice singing over you, a dead knight, is indeed Heaven and transcends all the boundaries of Love.

[ssballs]

She was so great and only got better.

[TheVisualMusicShow]

Great conductor and interesting to be able to see him. Straight from the era of Hans Richter etc. Reminds one of the technique of Nikisch and Strauss.

Nilsson needs no introduction.

[aircat29]

I just adore Nilsson!!! I love her!!

[klok35]

great

[eflaspo]

I love the Chinese subtitles, which come no where near expressing pithyness of the Wagnerian sentiments.

And of course, Nilsson, the greatest Wagnerian soprano ever.

Thanks.

[P1B1U1H1]

@eflaspo How can one be sure about this? Chinese tends to be succinct, according to those who speak it. By contrast, German, well, what can one say about a language wherein a single word can occupy two pages of print?

[SigfriedNothung]

@eflaspo mmmmmmmmmmm Flagstad is unhappy!!!

[studentjohn36]

Culshaw and Wilkinson must have been there with a trio of M50's to get that sound, yes?

[ijrupahsinosub]

again with the focus on "precision"???? precision of what though? kna was sometimes concerned about precisely not rehearsing a piece to death- many conductors can achieve precision, how many can generate a complete live tristan performance of such spirituality as his 1952 munich recording?

[berlinzerberus]

...mme.nilsson´s voice is more powerful than the voice of the whole orchestra.

she was really outstanding and incomparable.

i adore her!

[alexander9093]

la nilsson è magnifica

[jmccracken1963]

GREAT PERFORMANCE!!! Thank you VERY much for sharing this with us. Today, we have the orchestras to play TRISTAN UND ISOLDE in abundance; the conductors to conduct this opera in lesser abundance; but NOT THE SINGERS to sing Isolde (maybe Eaglen, but, judging from both last season's Met broadcast and this season's Lyric Opera performances, NOT DEBORAH VOIGT!!!!!).

[mozzrt]

VivaRenata Nilsson wasn't her best after 1970. She did NOT sacrif everyt for her high notes. She had greater sense of musicianship than Flagstad who didn't worship classical music like Nilsson did. Nilssons Brunnh better than her Isolde.

Knapp+Nilsson=Heaven

Of course Nilsson can't compete with the golden lower register of Flagstad, the greatest singer ever.

[j72050]

....all people do not like Knappy....he usually had slow tempos.....yet I like to listen to him, he collapsed and died on the podium, if my reading is correct....

[Swalwagner]

I believe it was Keilberth who died on the podium while conducting Tristan, like Felix Mottl by the way.

[petrof4056]

exactly, he was one of rare conductor to conduct slowly, very slowly and that's a pround of great musicians. Because, the most difficult thing for musicians is to play slowly. "Knappy" was a WONDERFUL conductor

[petrof4056]

There are others conducters who conduct slowly yes, but Knapperstbusch always though slow noticed in Adagios from Bruckner's symphonies. The most difficult is not to play fast but to play slow. I did'nt say that Knapperstbusch was the best conductor but a conductor who knows to do play his orchestra slowly.

[ssballs]

I am not even going to reply to "lovely"mess directly.I hope you did anything like that 45 years ago and are still adored,i very much doubt it.A split second miss @ 7:12 makes not a cheat nor me an empty headed worshipper.This is a wonderful performance,fresher than the recordings of later that i had been aware of for 4 decades and still play.Thank you for the video.History!

[lovelymess]

Okay, let's be honest.

Kna saves her several times at the end when she cheats the music of the full time value.

On top of that look at the maestro's left hand!

He rides the volume of that orchestra to make sure that it doesn't get out of control.

All mytholgy aside even Nilsson could be swallowed by an unsympathetic maestro and a Wagnerian orchestra.

Must we just worship Nilsson with empty heads and not give Kna his due?

[VivaRenata]

Thanks for your comment. I heard Nilsson at the Met and Chicago Lyric Opera in the 70s. I am Swedish and work at a university in the south of Sweden in the region where La Nilsson lived and ended her days. There are plans for a regional opera house in her name. My comment and my thanks - keep listening! the greatest Wagnerian soprano of all times was Flagstad and Nilsson sacrifices everything - the score, the interpretation - to her self-serving and uninteresting high notes.

[igotplentyonuttin]

Splendid performance, yet stupid Chinese translation.

[jackal59]

Here's the Nilsson/Kna story from the booklet of the '56 Bayreuth Ring. It was during Salome, and she "got off a few bars. But when she looked to [Kna] for help, he glared at her, hissed 'Scheisse!' through his teeth, buried his head in the score, and plowed ahead," leaving her on her own.

In that '56 Walkure, btw, Wolfgang Windgassen gets a bar and a half ahead toward the end of Act I and stubbornly stays there. Kna doesn't budge, and the Sieglinde tries to split the difference. Hysterical.

[jackal59]

CD booklet, of course - not the Bayreuth program!

[deramr]

The story in Nilsson's own words was that during the rehearsal, her first time under Kna, and immediately after the Tenor had received a healthy dose of screaming from Kna for being underprepared, she came in a beat too soon, at which point Kna spun around, screamed "Arschloch" at her, and never glanced at her again, leaving her to sing the remainder with tears flowing. She later became very fond of him.

[deramr]

Correction: It could've been the actual performance. The story was related in a Television interview, and the Salome took place in Munich.

[dido93]

I prefer Helga Dernesch more!

[billyguns2]

Knappertsbusch reigned supreme in DUTCHMAN, TRISTAN, WALKURE and PARSIFAL, surpassing even Furtwangler IMO; he maintains superb tension even at the slowest tempi, something that today's conductors are totally incapable of doing. The result is a shimmering mysticism and theatricality which is 100% suitable to Wagner's music.  I heard Nilsson many times in the theatre, and none of her recordings do her justice; no microphone could capture her uniqueness.

[Tompa4321]

I agree with you. I have also heard her several times live. I feel sorry for you who haven't had the opportunity to hear her IRL.

But you will maybe hear someting extraordinary later, when I...

[voidptr]

@billyguns2 I am so jealous. I learned about wagner by studying all the 60s performances from the bayreuth festival ms nilsson was in, and now I am stuck, having a hard time appreciating any brünhilde or isolde live. Which is unfair to the singers, but I can't help it.

[VivaRenata]

@billyguns2 I too, Swedish by birth, heard Nilsson many times. In Stockholm, Chicago and at the Met. I would still like to define her as an exceptional interpreter of the Strauss roles but vastly inferior to Flagstad in the Wagnerian repertoire. Sorry, I even heard dress rehearsals of Götterdämmerung with Nilsson at the Met and the experience can only be described as painful. Her high notes cut right through your body, if that's what you were looking for, it was a great performance.

[grupetto]

Nobody as Nilsson...Superb!

[laurencemalherbe]

WONDERFUL.... Simply womderful......

[furtbpo]

WoW~Traditional Chinese Subtitled! Amazing

[DivaDeb1234]

Gosh, I can't believe he would call her names ....and during an acutal performance....? I am very surprised she didn't have him beheaded and excommunicated forever....!

DIVADEB

[tobobba]

Amazing!

[gataca1976]

no recording thechnique was ever able to capture her voice like it really was! her voice was a mystery. we are still waiting for a new isolde, but it will never happen again! this is so dificult to sing, and she even brought it to a new level!

[NonInflatable]

Watch Knappertsbusch hold back the Vienna Phil at exactly the right moment(those wonderful, skin-tingling climaxes).

[birgitnilsson]

Knappertsbusch is greeat, but I guess Nilsson´s rendition deserves some praise too.....

[ilbon007musa]

中文翻訳詞是適当且動人的。

[MrCafiero]

Vocally superb!!  Commanding, crisp, released and flowing. You cannot do it better than this.

[pboscolorizzo]

Senectus

[lvega69]

No hay mas que decir

[SinginFool82]

AMEN !

[Greatfan]

This is Nilsson at her very best ! Her expressivity, the purity of tone, etc. She was 44 by then. However she rushes a bit.Nilsson was never very comfortable with Knappertsbusch after he shouted " asshole " to her for many mistakes in Salome in 1955 during an actual performance. She seems just a bit nervous here but what a sound !!!

[ebony1911]

That really happened? How do you know? Is it written anywhere?

[Greatfan]

Oh yes ! Nilsson herself in a radio interview recalled the horrid experience. I think it is also written in a 1980 Opera News when Nilsson sang last Elektra at the Met. It is also ( I think ) written by her in her autobiography LA NILSSON. Oh and I now remember, in a Radio chat Nilsson-Môdl_Varnay. I will try to find it for you.

[eucanico]

... the rest is silence.

[ilbon007musa]

I agree from the bottom of my heart.