Birgit Nilsson 80, May 17, 1998
     
     Concert of her honour May 16, 1998, Royal Opera, Stockholm Sweden.
     
     
     The director general of the Royal Opera had tried to convince Birgit 
     to participate in the concert for two months and finally she said yes. 
     At the night of the concert the audience was waiting outside the 
     opera house and in the lobby for her arrival. When she arrived a 
     little band was playing a fanfare and the whole audience was of course 
     applauding her. When she entered her box the ovations went on.
     
     The "red string" of the concert was that the participant singers all 
     had been awarded with her scholarship. Therefore the singers were rather 
     young and not yet so famous. The Royal Opra Orchestra was conducted by 
     Maistro Leif Segerstam and the director Folke Abeinus, who directed 
     several productions in which Birgit had sung, was compére.
     
     The concert started with the prelude to Tristan und Isolde directly 
     followed by "Mild und leise" sung by the Danish soprano Elisabeth 
     Meyer-Topsoe. Then followed "Visi d'arte" with Hillei Martinpelto and 
     "Florez and Blanzeflor" by the Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar with 
     Anders Larsson. After that "Mon coeur s'ovre ta voix" with Anna 
     Larsson who got this years Birgit Nilsson scholarship. The now 
     established Swedish soprano Lena Nordin, who is now doing a very good 
     Norma at the opera, sang Odabella's aria and cabaletta from Attila. 
     
     According to the program, Ben Heppner was going to sing "In fernem 
     Land" and "Nessun dorma". Regrettably he had to cancel with short 
     notice due to a flu. Insted Gösta Winbergh sang "In fernem Land".
     
     This was the actual concert. The singers came on stage to receive the 
     applause and then Birgit herself entered the stage which of course 
     made the audience wild. The ovations went on forever and when they 
     finally stopped Birgit said, in her characteristic way; "Oh, I had 
     nothing to do with the fact that I was born. It's my parents you 
     should applaud in that case!"
     
     Then the congradulations came one after the other while Birgit 
     was sitting in a chair on stage. The minister of culture held a long 
     speech and said that Birgit already has been given all the finest 
     awards and medals that the Kingdom of Sweden has to offer so the 
     goverment decided to award her the title of Professor as a gratitude 
     for the work she has done for the education of young singers. Then the 
     artistic director of the opera, Walton Grönroos who is a singer, and 
     Maistro Segerstam were performing a new humoristic song for her. The 
     song, a kind of parody of certain operas, contained a long list of all 
     the names of the characters she's done and finished with her famous 
     statement that the most important thing to be a good singer is to wear 
     comfortable shoes.
     
     After that there were more congradulations and finally the whole 
     audience, in which there were several internationaly well known 
     singers (at least as we like to think of them in Sweden) like 
     Elisabeth Söderström, Kerstin Meyer and Håkan Hagegård, were singing 
     "Happy birthday to you". Of course the ovations then went on forever.

     -Per Nilsson