Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is filled with sadness… Birgit Nilsson, one of your Maximum Leader’s favourite Wagnerian Sopranos, has died. She was 87. Your Maximum Leader has numerous recordings of Nilsson singing in various Wagner operas. Indeed, your Maximum Leader would have to say that one of his regrets is that he never saw her perform. She retired “in the 1980s” according to the article. Your Maximum Leader thinks that 1982 was her final US performance. Alas, he wasn’t going to many operas then. He does have some recollections of listening to some of her Met performances over the radio. (Both your Maximum Leader’s sainted mother and dearly departed grandmother were/are regular listeners to the opera broadcasts on WETA in Washington DC on Saturday afternoons.)

This afternoon he will have to transfer some of his Wagner to the iPod and listen to Birgit Nilsson sing.

Carry on.