“I always tell people I’m from Hamar - and proud of it. I still feel that Hamar is my town. I have a strong sense of family and belonging, and every time I come to the wide open landscape and once again hear the way the people speak, I know that it is here I have my roots, this is where I belong.”
These words are those of Kirsten Flagstad in an interview about Hamar and its surroundings in 1958, and no-one who visits the museum in Strandstuen where she was born will ever be in doubt that Hamar still is Kirsten’s town. She grew up in a very musical family and her talent was evident from an early age. In 1935, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City as Sieglinde in Wagner's opera Die Walküre and she was hailed as “The Voice of the Century”.
As an international opera star, Kirsten Flagstad spent much of her life on the move living in hotel rooms all over the world. This nomadic life-style only served to increase her need to have tangible roots somewhere, and that “somewhere” was the town where she was born, Hamar.
She died in 1962, but today she is in fact more famous than she was in her lifetime. The name Kirsten Flagstad ranks alongside those of the greatest of legendary and immortal singers. Her special voice and unique interpretation still spellbind people all over the world.