Music: Liebestod

It was like the Liebestod that had killed Isolde on a hundred nights at the opera. The great Wagnerian voice had risen, had touched all the heroic notes, had softened, had faded, had died. For 20 years she was the world's greatest soprano and for nearly 40 it was hard to imagine Wagner without her. Then, last week, at 67, after a bedridden year, Kirsten Flagstad died.

From her debut at Oslo's National Theater in 1913 to her farewell on the same stage 40 years to the day later, she was unquestionably the diva...

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