Norwegian dramatic soprano Kirsten Flagstad was born in Hamar in 1895. She studied in Oslo with Ellen Schytte-Jacobsen. Her father was a conductor and her mother a pianist and coach. For the first eighteen years of her career she did not sing the Wagner r├┤les for which she was to become internationally famous, but even mixed operetta and musical comedy with her opera performances.
Later the purity, beauty and power of her voice made her the most prized Isolde and Br├╝nnhilde of her day worldwide (in WagnerΓÇÖs Tristan and Isolde, and Ring Cycle). She sang Purcell's Dido (in Dido and Aeneas) at the Mermaid Theatre, London in 1953. After her retirement became Director of the Norwegian National Opera, and she held this post until her death in 1962.
