Birgit Nilsson made her debut at the Royal Opera in Stockholm in 1946, with only three days' notice, replacing the scheduled Agathe in Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz who was too ill to go on. The conductor, Leo Blech, wasn't very kind to her and - as she wrote in her autobiography - she even contemplated suicide after the performance. Fortunately, that unhappy experience was soon put behind her. In 1947, she claimed national attention there as Verdi's Lady Macbeth under Fritz Busch. A wealth of parts followed, from Strauss, and Verdi to Wagner, Puccini and Tchaikovsky.

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