Sigurd Björling (2 November 1907 - 8 April 1983) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

tic

baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...

. He made his debut as Alfio in ''

Cavalleria Rusticana ''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play b ...

'' in 1935 at

Royal Swedish Opera Royal Swedish Opera ( sv, Kungliga Operan) is an opera and ballet company based in Stockholm, Sweden. Location and environment The building is located in the center of Sweden's capital Stockholm in the borough of Norrmalm, on the eastern side ...

. He specialized in

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

ian roles, among them Wotan, Telramund, Amfortas, Hans Sachs and Kurwenal. His United States debut came on October 3, 1950, in San Francisco (as Kurwenal), and next year he was the first postwar-Wotan at the

Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...

. On November 15, 1952, he made his debut at the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

, singing there for a full season. He sang his last performance in 1974.

Björling, Sigurd (Baritone)
performance record on the MetOpera Database. He appeared in the 1979 film ''

Kejsaren ''Kejsaren'' is a 1979 Swedish drama film directed by Jösta Hagelbäck. At the 15th Guldbagge Awards, Anders Åberg won the award for Best Actor. It was entered into the 29th Berlin International Film Festival, where cinematographer Sten Hol ...

''.

References

1907 births 1983 deaths Swedish operatic baritones 20th-century Swedish male opera singers {{Sweden-opera-singer-stub