Kirsten Flagstad

Norway’s greatest contribution to the international opera stage is Kirsten Flagstad. Her career was a long line of triumphs: from the sensational debut at the Metropolitan in 1935, aged 40, to her retirement in the 1960s. She was celebrated as the greatest interpreter of Wagner’s female roles the world had heard until then. Many people will claim that this position still belongs to Kirsten Flagstad. During her long career she had parts in more than 80 operas and operettas, with over 2100 performances. She gave more than 250 concerts with orchestra and over 600 solo recitals. As a recording artist, her career started with local productions in Oslo around 1915. Among her last recordings was the first complete Der Ring des Nibelungen for Decca towards the end of the 1950s. Furthermore, there are countless recordings from concerts and performances all over the world, in addition to a large archive located at Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) with studio recordings from her later years. All in all her recordings amount to almost one thousand. With the Kirsten Flagstad Anthology, Simax Classics allows audiences a unique opportunity to follow Flagstad’s development as a singer. Most of the material presented in this series is not available elsewhere! Early recordings made in Norway before the Metropolitan-era, from different stages all over the world, and from the NRK archives.