In Carnegie Hall last week, the greatest Brunnhilde of this generation, Kirsten Flagstad, 56, announced she was retiring after this season. On the same night, a new Brünnhilde made her debut at the Met, and got the critics' cheers.
Buxom, Philadelphia-born Margaret Harshaw, 39, is no newcomer to the Met. As a contralto winner of the Met Auditions of the Air, she made her debut there as a Norn in Wagner's Götterdämmerung in 1942. By 1946, she had worked up to such bigger Wagnerian roles as Erda and Brangane. After singing Ortrud in Lohengrin that same year, she got the idea, not...
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