Flagstad at 62

For four years Wagnerian Soprano Kirsten Flagstad has given only charity concerts, insists that she is a ''private person." But her voice is more public than ever--on records. After it became known in 1954 that (with her consent) His Master's Voice sound engineers had called on Soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf to dub in two high Cs that Flagstad was unable to hit in Tristan und Isolde, Flagstad could not be lured before a microphone for nearly two years. But since then she has signed up with London Records, made 23 LPs, including a complete Goetter-daemmerung, lieder by Richard Strauss, Schubert, Schumann, Hugo Wolf. The latest : an excellent third act of Die Walkuere.

Her voice has lost remarkably little of its magnificent luster, still has a meltingly eloquent sensuousness and superb dramatic projection. Widowed (since 1946) Soprano Flagstad was recently appointed director of the new Norwegian Opera, will be the only woman running a major opera house in Europe. "It is not natural to be singing at my age," she says, "but then I am not losing my voice. I just sing and sing, and it keeps me young."

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