Literaturverlag Josefine Rosalski
The ability of supreme Wagnerian sopranos to incarnate mythological deities while also communicating down-to-earth human sentiments is given to few singers. Any brief overview of dramatic sopranos who master the Wagner repertory must be elliptical. This summary personal overview by a German arts critic who also published an illustrated album about the lyric soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (Modern|Verlag; Amadeus Press), is full of individual value judgments.
Favouring singers whose performances were seen by the author or abundantly documented, the book offers capsule descriptions of Frida Leider, Kirsten Flagstad, Martha Mödl, Astrid Varnay, Birgit Nilsson, Ludmila Dvorákova, Anja Silja, Catarina Ligendza, Gwyneth Jones, Hildegard Behrens, Deborah Polaski, Waltraud Meier, and Nina Stemme.
Yet paradoxically, despite the focus on modern and contemporary singers, the author admits that during the golden…
