GREAT RECORDINGS phase 19

PURCELL
Dido and Aeneas

Kirsten Flagstad

5 09690 2 (D&T)
5 09691 2 (Angel)

Mono
ADD
Recorded 1948-1952
1:03:50 (5CD)

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Once again John Steane guides us through the story of a famous record, and of our heroine: ‘Flagstad (who died in 1962, aged 67) was widely considered not only the greatest Wagnerian singer of her day but, as far as such things can be retrospectively judged, supreme among the heroic sopranos of any period.’

After wartime retirement to her native Norway, she emerged a living legend and gave her farewell performance at the Met in 1952, as Gluck’s Alceste. Then came the surprise of her last new role, as Purcell’s Dido, in London in 1953.

She appeared not at the Royal Opera House but in the Mermaid, a new theatre with an ancient name down by London Bridge, the creation of the actor-manager Sir Bernard Miles. The notes relate in full the charm and even comedy of her engagement by Miles.

As to Flagstad’s singing, the critic William Mann wrote: ‘Her sense of proportion and style controlled the tone that she produced but there was no sign that she was sparing her voice, though we were never near to being deafened by the full power – only flooded with its full beauty.’

Again, this new state-of-the-art remastering from early tape improves greatly on the recording’s previous appearance on Références, and there is a bonus in the form of Flagstad’s 1948 recording on 78s of Dido’s Lament.