The Metropolitan Opera Career of Kirsten Flagstad with Paul Thomason

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE ARCHIVAL RECORDING OF THIS EVENT: https://youtu.be/WqbdJIrTHDo

During Kirsten Flagstad’s career she enchanted millions of people, and today her recordings are a touchstone that prove truly great singing can convey astounding depths of emotion while still remaining beautiful—even in the most strenuous roles written by Richard Wagner. But The Flagstad of Legend could very easily never have happened. Except for a series of fortuitous circumstances it is quite possible that Kirsten Flagstad would have always remained what she was before her Metropolitan Opera debut—a well-respected, hard-working soprano virtually unknown outside of Scandinavia. In this talk, Paul Thomason investigates the remarkable trail of events that eventually led to what is, without a doubt, the most astonishing debut in the history of the Metropolitan Opera—and we’ll hear some excerpts from that actual performance, some recordings she made very early in her career, and a couple of other live broadcasts from her first season at the Met.

Paul Thomason has contributed commentary and program notes to opera publications worldwide. His work has appeared in the Metropolitan Opera Playbill for over two decades, and he regularly writes for the San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Chicago Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, and the Juilliard School. Thomason has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory Extension Division, given pre-performance lectures at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, SF Symphony, SF Opera, Stern Grove Festival, and produced radio programs for classical music stations in both New York City and San Francisco.