RIP: Tenor Nicolai Gedda dies at 91
Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda is dead
This is a huge figure of the opera that goes off: Nicolai Gedda - whose real name is Harry Gustaf Nikolaj Gädda - died on January 8, according to the website forumopera.com contacted by the artist's daughter. Companion on stage the greatest voices of the twentieth century, from Maria Callas to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf through Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau , the Swedish tenor was 91 years old.
Born July 11, 1925 in Stockholm, Nicolai Gedda began his operatic career in 1951 in the Postilion of Longjumeau . Born into a modest family, he then worked as a bank clerk, and it is in 1952, interpreting Dimitri in Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky , as his career takes off. Its performance is sensational, and it never left the opera until the end of 1970, pushing even save the Altoum role in Turandot in 2001 and the High Priest in Idomeneo in 2003.
"It was only 23 years ago that I realized that was what I wanted to do with my life. I was a bank employee at the time and I could not bear it anymore. I then decided to find a good singing teacher and see where it could lead me. "
In 1953, Herbert von Karajan took him under his wing and blackmails to Scala. The following year, he goes for the first time the doors of the Paris Opera for Oberon de Weber. Then came Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera of New York ... In all, Nicolai Gedda played more than 70 roles on all the biggest stages of the world, even answering in 1982, when asked if there is a role it would still sing, " no, not really. I did everything . "
"If I sing a work in French, I want to be as French as possible, I want to express all its clarity and transparency"
As a child, spent in a family where both Swedish and Russian were spoken, then German after a move to Leipzig, Nicolai Gedda adds learning English, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, Hebrew, Dutch, or Latin. Hyperpolyglotte, he will distinguish throughout his career by the quality of his diction.
"In my heart I knew that singing could become my job because I've been working languages for a long time. I spoke Russian at home, I could speak Swedish, I also knew German, and then at school I studied French, English and Latin. I even learned Italian alone. So, very early, I became very comfortable with languages. And for me, it's important when you're a singer to know several languages. "
The tenor is illustrated elsewhere particularly in roles in French recording from 1953 Faust Gounod under the direction of André Cluytens before tackling Mireille, in Carmen, at Plataea at the Aix Festival (1956 ) ... It is besides by Tales of Hoffmann then Faust he leaves the stage of Paris National Opera in the 1975-1976 season.
Close to 200 recordings testify to the richness of his career. Luciano Pavarotti and said of him: " There is no living tenor who has a greater ease in the upper register that Gedda ."
France Music will honor Nicolai Gedda at the Classic Club Lionel Esparza, Thursday, February 9 to 22h. Other tributes will be paid to him in In slopes Friday 10 February, and soon in Sunday in the opera.
https://www.francemusique.fr/opera/nicolai-gedda-est-32119