Editing Birgit Nilsson (section)

=== Early career ===
In 1946, Nilsson made her debut at the [[Royal Swedish Opera]] in Stockholm with only three days' notice, replacing the ailing singer scheduled for the role of Agathe in [[Carl Maria von Weber]]'s ''[[Der Freischütz]]''. Conductor [[Leo Blech]] was not very kind to her and, as she wrote in her autobiography, she even contemplated suicide after the performance. In 1947 she claimed national attention in [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]]'s ''[[Macbeth (Verdi)|Lady Macbeth]]'' conducted by [[Fritz Busch]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Blyth|first1=Alan|author1-link=Alan Blyth|last2=Barker |first2=Frank Granville |title=Obituary: Birgit Nilsson|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=12 January 2006 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/12/guardianobituaries.arts |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171025073534/https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/12/guardianobituaries.arts |archive-date=25 October 2017 |url-status=live |access-date=29 April 2018}}</ref> A wealth of parts followed, from [[Richard Strauss]] and [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]] to [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], [[Giacomo Puccini|Puccini]], and [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]]. In Stockholm she built up a steady repertoire of roles in the lyric-dramatic field, including Donna Anna in ''[[Don Giovanni]]'', ''[[Aida]]'', Lisa in ''[[The Queen of Spades (opera)]]'', ''[[Tosca]]'', Venus in ''[[Tannhäuser (opera)|Tannhäuser]]'', Sieglinde in ''[[Die Walküre]]'', Senta in ''[[Der fliegende Holländer]]'' and the Marschallin in ''[[Der Rosenkavalier]]'', one of her favourite roles, all sung in Swedish. In 1949 she sang in ''[[Ariadne auf Naxos]]'' with [[Hjördis Schymberg]] and [[Elisabeth Söderström]] among others.