Richard Wagner: Tristan and Isolde – Prelude and Liebestod | with Daniel Barenboim & Waltraud...

While a young soldier in Germany, I had a girl friend named Frigga after Fricka of Wagner's Ring Cycle.

Here's the story: Music that inspired my life by Peter Duston or the “Girl in the White Bikini”
My Bose is tuned permanently to Suzanne Nance’s Classical Music in the AM on Maine Public Radio but it wasn’t always that way. I grew up with no classical music in my life except, maybe, a school trip once to hear the Boston Pops. Following high school, I enlisted in the US Army and ended up stationed in Germany as a teenage GI in the late 50’s. On a summer day in 1958, I was at the city Schwimmbad (pool) with a couple of my German teenage friends when an apparition presented herself in the form of a beautiful German girl in a white bikini. Not only was she the picture of feminine perfection with her tan and long blond hair but she was wearing the first bikini I had ever seen. It was the 50’s and you didn’t see any of those on Moody’s Beach. “That’s Phipps”, said my friend Wolfie. “She’s one of the most popular girls at school and a very creative artist.” I had fallen in love with a spirit I could never meet. After all, I was not only a GI but extremely shy, especially around girls. I admired her from a distance but that was that, I thought!!! But as fate would have it, our paths crossed again several months later when her friends and my friends met at the city Volksfest. We were introduced and over a Fanta, we discovered that she was moving with her family to Mannheim and I, coincidentally, was being transferred to the same city. In a brave burst of shaky courage, I asked if I could come see her there. “Sure”, she said. “I won’t know anybody else there”.
Fast forward a few weeks to find me knocking at her door with knocking knees. Her mother opened the door and received me with great suspicion as I asked to speak with Phipps. “Phipps?” Her name is Frigga but her school friends call her Phipps. Odd name? I would soon become educated in classical music and learn who she was named for and the story of the “Ring Cycle”. Initially my girl in the white bikini was a bit aloof. After all, she barely knew me and I wasn’t even sure she remembered me. The social ice was broken by the enthusiasm of her two young brothers, Immo and Menko, ages 9 and 11 who wanted to talk about anything American – Army, guns, cars, etc. They smoothed the way for me into the family and made it possible, I believe, for me to get a “date” with their sister. I was pretty limited on what to do and was, literally, shaking in my boots to the prospects of going out alone with this beautiful young woman. The family was, as it turned out classical music aficionados and over time they educated me in music appreciation. The parents saved my date for me by offering their subscription tickets to the new Mannheim National Theater’s Opera House and a production of “der Freischuetz” by Carl Maria von Weber. With great trepidation, I arrived at the apartment to pick up my date and “Wow!” Frigga, as I have said, was very fashion-conscious. She and her Mother had hand made a dress from photographs of the latest in Parisian design and she was a “knock-out” in that bell-shaped dress. On the walk to the theater, I was trying hard to maintain my calm and was sure that we were the focus of the sidewalk. Having the most beautiful girl in the world on my arm walking up the Allee with people staring was making it hard for me to concentrate on breathing, finding our way and trying to engage my date in any conversation. The theater with its formality, the dressed-up theater goers and a frightened me who knew I was way out of my element appeared like a giant castle. The ceilings were high, the floors covered in oriental rugs and everybody seemed to fit in and be at ease except me. The seats were good as I remember; the lights dimmed and the curtain went up. Thank God, I was now hidden in the dark. As the opera unfolded, it swept me up in the drama, the action, the music, the color and a wave of emotion rolled over me. “I think I’m in a movie, I think I’m in a movie!” kept rolling through my head.
Before I knew it, the act was over and the lights were up. I was back in the present. Frigga knew just what to do and we were soon in the high ceilinged hall walking towards the refreshment center. Right square in front of me, suddenly appeared my Battalion Commander, the Executive Officer and their wives. The Exec’ didn’t really know me but recognized me. I managed to apply my manners and introduce Frigga to them. As the wives were fascinated by this stylish, attractive and sweet young German woman and chatted with her, the Major took me aside and whispered: “Duston! Where on earth did you find this gorgeous creature” and I think he really meant, why is she out with you in a classy place when you are just a low rank soldier??
Deep breaths and then back to the second half. Again, it was magnificent sitting there in the dark soaring with the music, the color and the action. I liked to sing, had a good voice and in my mind, it was me on that stage with my arms spread singing out those booming big sounds.
The walk home was anticlimactic. We had a coke in a café and small talk about the opera. I had to admit to Frigga that I knew nothing of classical music and especially the opera. She related that her entire life was a memory of classical music. There were family afternoons and evening listening to recordings of great music and attending musical performances. During the War and the hard years following when the family lived in cramped quarters with limited resources, the music was their life and escape. Over the next year, I heard and learned much about music in their apartment. Frigga soon lost interest in me as a date – I’m sure I was dull compared to her German teenage friends but I stayed very connected to the family, especially to the brothers and my appreciation for classical music blossomed and grew. The boys immigrate when they came of age with the help of my family and became part of our family.
That night at the opera changed and enriched my life in ways I never could have imagined as a boy from small town New England.
Oh, by the way, I neglected to mention that I had lunch with Frigga a couple of years ago in Bar Harbor as she was here visiting one of her brothers. I shared the story of how the “Girl in the White Bikini” changed my life. I had not seen nor spoken with her in 50 years. Now, when she e-mails, she always signs “Deine Bikini Maedchen”

Peter Duston