Kirsten Flagstad’s “invisible breathing”

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You never saw her breathe – there was none of that heaving up and down. I remember thinking one evening during a performance, ‘I’m going to find out how she breathes.’ She was sitting on a bench and I had my arm around her – including a wine gum in my hand to give her when she got thirsty! – and I decided to feel how she did it. She just started singing – she went straight into it. And I thought ‘She hasn’t taken a breath!’

Palmer, Andrew. “Divas in Their Own Words.” (2000): 127.