A Century of great Isoldes and Brünnhildes

by Kirsten Liese

German/English

English by Charles Scribner, New York

Foreword by Christian Thielemann

»Each and every heroine who did and still does justice to the great Wagnerian soprano roles deserves this appraisal, a homage based on merit alone. The biographies assembled in this book prove how much time and work is required for a voice to develop its splendor.«

Isolde and Brünnhilde are endlessly fascinating personalities and, like most Wagnerian heroines, are equally powerful in their love. This book pays homage to thirteen outstanding interpreters of these roles from different eras, all of whom left their imprint of high artistic standards on the Bayreuth festival.

Kirsten Liese portrays each soprano individually through text and images which include unpublished photos from private archives: Frida Leider, Kirsten Flagstad, Martha Mödl, Astrid Varnay, Birgit Nilsson, Ludmila Dvořákova, Anja Silja, Catarina Ligendza, Dame Gwyneth Jones, Hildegard Behrens, Deborah Polaski, Waltraud Meier und Nina Stemme; the living artists all collaborated exclusively with the author on their chapters.

2nd Edition 2021, revised and updated

146 pages, 978-3-945961-23-0,  17 x 22 cm, Brochure

with detailed appendix and 28 b/w-photos, some of them have not been published