Nicolai Gedda

Harry Gustaf Nikolaj Gädda, known as Nicolai Gedda ( pronunciation: [ ˌ nikɔ laʝ ː ʝɛd ː a], born July 11, 1925 in Stockholm as Nicolai Ustinov ) is a Swedish lyric tenor.

Life and work

From 1928 to 1936 Geddas family lived in Leipzig, where his Russian stepfather was cantor in a Russian Orthodox church. There he began his musical education. In 1936 the return to Stockholm, where Gedda studied at the Conservatory, and in 1952 debuted as Chapelou in Adolphe Adam's Le Postilion de Lonjumeau and longer belonged to the ensemble of the Royal Swedish National Opera. Gedda was rapidly becoming one of the most sought-after Mozart and oratorio performer of the 20th century and was at the beginning of the 21st century still great recitals, among others in the Hamburg and at the Vienna State Opera. As a song interpreter Gedda occurred together with the pianist Sebastian Peschko.

Nicolai Gedda was undoubtedly the most eloquent language of all the famous tenors of the 20th century: He has mastered accent both Swedish, Russian and German as well as Italian, French and English. His repertoire was correspondingly huge ( about 50 different opera roles ).

Thanks to its bright, very flexible voice, which retained a youthful melting until the ripe age, Gedda was considered the ideal candidate for such roles as Tamino and Belmonte, the Duke of Mantua or Dimitri. Gedda was particularly successful in the French trade. He did also as an oratorio, cantata Artist fairs or shows, including the St Matthew Passion and in Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius. When Wagner interpreter, he received great acclaim for his interpretation of Lohengrin at the Royal Swedish National Opera in Stockholm. Then, Nicolai Gedda was announced as Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival. In the short term, he said the appearances of concern from before overuse of his voice.

Guesting at the major opera houses in the world: 1952 to the Paris Opera, 1953 to the La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, in 1957, the New York Metropolitan Opera, where he was involved in the world premiere of Samuel Barber's opera Vanessa. In 1980 he was acclaimed in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

Nicolai Gedda has also repeatedly emerged as a singing teacher and wrote essays on the art of singing as well as an autobiography.

Discography

In addition to Placido Domingo Gedda is the tenor who was most invited to complete opera recordings. His discographical estate ranges from pre-classical (Christoph Willibald Gluck ) to the Neutönern the 20th century ( Rolf Liebermann ).

He was discovered by record companies initially for the Russian repertoire: In 1952 he sang alongside Boris Christoff in the title role, the role of Dmitry in Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. Two years later he took over, turn next to Boris Christoff, in a total intake of Mikhail Glinka's A Life for the Tsar, the role of Sobinin whose aria heard because of their high notes of the most difficult of the tenor repertoire.

Also 1954 years he played at La Scala on the side of Maria Callas first Gioachino Rossini's Turk in Italy. 1955 Herbert von Karajan chose him as a partner in turn by Maria Callas for his recording of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly from. There were other studio recordings of Italian opera by Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giuseppe Verdi. Also, he was soon in demand as a cast for Mozart operas.

Especially to Gedda also devoted to the French repertoire, there are recordings of the most famous opera by Georges Bizet, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet with him before. He had no small share thanks to his recordings in the rediscovery of German operas from the first half of the 19th century, which were long since disappeared from the repertoire. Contributed its total shots in, inter alia, Euryanthe by Carl Maria von Weber, Abu Hassan and the twin brothers of Franz Schubert, Undine by Albert Lortzingstraße.

Although his recital had with Russian opera arias found strong consideration of the criticism, he was invited only to complete recordings of Tchaikovsky 's operas ( Eugene Onegin, Jolanta ) when his voice had already peaked.

Also Gedda has recorded numerous oratorios and especially dedicated to the German, French and Russian art song. He has also recorded some of the most famous operettas.

Trivia

His Russian stepfather Mikhail Ustinov was a distant relative of Peter Ustinov.