STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) – She was a celebrated star on the stages of the world’s greatest opera houses.

But a diva, Birgit Nilsson was not.

“The thing that was remarkably wonderful about her was that she had no conceit. She was completely modest,” said Jon Vickers, who often performed with Nilsson in Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”

Nilsson, who retired two decades ago after a career spanning nearly 40 years, died at age 87 on Christmas Day, the Stockholm daily Svenska Dagbladet reported. Her relatives kept her death a secret until the funeral Wednesday in her native Vastra Karup, in Southern Sweden. The cause of death was not revealed, but Nilsson was said to have had heart trouble in recent years.

Nilsson’s prodigious voice and unrivaled stamina thrilled audiences from New York’s Metropolitan Opera to La Scala in Milan, and her high notes made her the greatest Wagnerian soprano of the post-World War II era.

She sang a wide variety of dramatic soprano roles, but her reputation was based especially on her mastery of a handful of the most punishing in the operatic repertory. Chief among these was Isolde, which she sang for her sensational debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera on Dec. 18, 1959.

“If there ever was someone that one can call a real star today and a world-famous opera singer during her time then that was Frau Nilsson,” said Ioan Holender, director of the Vienna State Opera. “What’s more, she was a totally normal modest person with a lot of self-irony.”

Once asked what was the chief requirement for singing the role of Isolde, she replied: “Comfortable shoes.”

She sang opposite many of opera’s greats. In 1969, Placido Domingo performed Calaf for the first time, opposite her Turandot in Verona, Italy.

“She avoided all the kind of adulation that people gave her. She was a very simple person,” Domingo said Wednesday. “Nobody has sung Turandot like her. She was an unbelievable lady. She had a sense of humor like nobody.”

As word spread of her death two decades after she retired, the Swedish singer was remembered as one of opera’s most dynamic performers.

“With Birgit Nilsson’s passing, Sweden has lost one of its greatest artists,” King Carl XVI Gustaf said in a rare statement.

Born on a farm, Nilsson reigned supreme at the world’s opera houses during her career, which began in 1946 at the Stockholm Royal Opera as Agathe in Weber’s “Der Freischutz” and continued until 1984. Her father wanted her to work in agriculture, but for Nilsson, singing came natural.

“I couldn’t do anything else,” she said in a Swedish TV interview in 1977. “I was bad at everything else.”

She was immediately hailed as a worthy successor to her fellow Scandinavian, Kirsten Flagstad, the Norwegian who owned the Wagner repertory at the Met during the years before World War II.

Other parts Nilsson made her own included Bruennhilde, the warrior maiden of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, the title role of Elektra in Richard Strauss’ opera, and the heroine of Puccini’s “Turandot.”

“Birgit was unique!” Met music director James Levine said in a statement. “Her voice, her artistry, her sense of humor and her friendship were in a class of their own. I was so fortunate to hear her sing many times over the years, and eventually to work with her on several memorable occasions with Wagner and Strauss.”

At her peak, Nilsson astounded audiences in live performance with the unforced power of her voice, which easily cut through the thickest orchestrations, and with her remarkable breath control, which allowed her to hold onto the highest note for seemingly endless amounts of time. Her interpretive powers grew as her career developed, and she became a moving artist as well as a vocal phenomenon.

Her reputation in operatic lore was enhanced on Dec. 28, 1959, when she sang a performance of “Tristan” opposite three different tenors. Her scheduled co-star, Karl Liebel was ill, and so were his two “covers,” Ramon Vinay and Albert DaCosta. Met general manager Rudolf Bing persuaded each of them to go one for a single act so the performance wouldn’t have to be canceled.

Nilsson sang with the Met 222 times in 16 roles, making her finale at the October 1983 centennial gala.

Her last appearance on the Met stage came more than a decade later, when she took part in an April 1996 gala celebrating Levine’s 25th anniversary with the company. After some gracious remarks, she launched into Bruennhilde’s “ho-yo-to-ho” battle cry from “Walkuere,” delivering – at age 77 – a performance that would have been the envy of any younger soprano.

Nilsson made her American debut at the San Francisco Opera on Oct. 5, 1956, as Bruennhilde, and performed with that company until 1981. She sang 39 times at the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1956 to ‘74 and was Bruennhilde in the 1960s recording of Wagner’s Ring Cycle with Sir Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic, considered by many the definitive rendition.

She appeared 232 times at the Vienna State Opera from 1954 to ‘82, and the Vienna Philharmonic, the company’s orchestra, made her an honorary member in 1999.

Her music education started at age 3, when her mother, an accomplished amateur singer, bought Birgit a toy piano, on which she learned to pick out melodies.

“I sang before I could walk. I even sang in my dreams,” she told reporters soon after her opera debut.

After retirement, she continued to teach master’s level courses in singing.

Although she studied at Sweden’s Royal Academy of Music, Nilsson said she learned most of her musical skills on her own.

“I’m mostly self-educated. I discovered early how wonderfully easy it was to sing in big localities. In small rooms my voice got tired,” she told a Swedish reporter once.

Despite her worldwide recognition, Nilsson said she was nervous before every major performance.

“Before a premiere, on the way to the opera, I’d hope for just a small, small accident, it didn’t need to be much, but just so I would not have to sing,” she said in a 1977 interview on Swedish TV.

Nilsson married Swedish restaurateur Bertil Niklasson in 1949. The couple had no children.

When asked once if she had any dependents, she responded: “Yes, just one: Rudolf Bing.”

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Associated Press writers Mike Silverman and Ronald Blum in New York, Mattias Karen in Stockholm and George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, contributed to this report.

AP-ES-01-11-06 2045EST

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