The great Wagnerian soprano's death on Christmas Day has not been widely reported. She died in the Swedish village where she was born, and the news was not reported in the NY Times until Janaury 12th.

Somehow my Wagnerian listening seems to occupy a parallel universe largely separate from my love of Rozsa. They are both great dramatic composers, but because Wagnerian music drama involve's Wagner's own characters and stories, I tend to approach it in a different way than I do the pre-packaged movie stories that Rozsa had to deal with. That's not to say that Rozsa did not make some of those stories his own. But you didn't have to ponder the genesis of the dramatic ideas. With Rozsa's films, the dramatic scenario is the "given," and the music is a structure built in support and elaboration. With Wagner, the whole thing -- story, characters, and music -- emerges simultaneously from a single mind.

More to the point, I have often been able to hear Wagner live. Many of us have heard Birgit Nilsson on records -- and some of her discs remain cornerstones of the operatic discography. But twice I heard her live, in Valkyrie and Gotterdaemmerung (singing with her arm in a cast!), I can testify that the legend is true: She filled up the cavernous Metropolitan Opera House with a sound that was as brilliant as you can imagine but also richer and fuller than anything the recording engineers could capture. Sometimes there's just no substitute for being there.