(LA Times) Elisabeth Soderstrom dies at 82; versatile Swedish soprano
Matthew Kruk
latimes.com
OBITUARY
Elisabeth Soderstrom dies at 82; versatile Swedish soprano
She had a refined, delicately shaded voice, and was known for her
nuanced operatic performances in a distinguished career that spanned
more than five decades.
By Matt Schudel
November 23, 2009
Elisabeth Soderstrom, a Swedish soprano who was greatly admired for her
sensitive operatic roles and for her refined, delicately shaded voice,
died of a stroke Friday in Stockholm. She was 82.
During a career of more than 50 years, Soderstrom was renowned for the
subtlety of her performances and was considered one of the foremost
actors on the operatic stage.
Her dramatic skill made her particularly effective in portraying such
complex characters as Leonore in Beethoven's "Fidelio," Tatyana in
Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" and Marie in Alban Berg's "Wozzeck."
Soderstrom had a versatile lyric soprano voice and a wide-ranging
repertoire that included more than 50 roles in 10 languages. Highly
regarded for her interpretations of dramatic works by Tchaikovsky, Leos
Janacek and Richard Strauss, she also had a superb sense of comedy that
allowed her to excel in lighter fare, such as Rosalinde in "Die
Fledermaus" by Johann Strauss II.
"All my life I have striven to show that it is not in the slightest
unnatural to express yourself in song," she wrote in her 1978
autobiography. Her goal was "to find a balance between music, words and
gestures [to achieve] the work of art."
Soderstrom gained international acclaim in the 1950s after making
operatic debuts in Salzburg, Austria, and at England's Glyndebourne
Festival.
When she gave her first performance at New York's Metropolitan Opera in
1959, as Susanna in Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro," a New York Herald
Tribune critic called her "simply a darling, with a bright, delectable,
and accurate soprano that carried the treble like a crystal flute."
From 1959 to 1963, Soderstrom often appeared at the Met, portraying
Marguerite in Charles Gounod's "Faust," Adina in Gaetano Donizetti's
"L'Elisir d'Amore" and Musetta in Giacomo Puccini's "La Boheme." She
also performed three separate roles in Richard Strauss' 1911 comic opera
"Der Rosenkavalier."
Soderstrom then vanished from U.S. stages for more than a decade, and
many American admirers assumed she had retired. But, with three young
sons at home, she temporarily confined her singing career to Sweden and
northern Europe. She also had a television show about classical music in
Sweden.
"In my own country I try to spread opera wherever I can -- in factories,
prisons, hospitals, mental institutions," she later said. "I'm
preaching, I admit it."
By the time Soderstrom returned to the United States in 1977 as Katya in
a San Francisco Opera production of Janacek's "Katya Kabanova," her
voice had begun to lose its youthful buoyancy.
Nevertheless, as Peter G. Davis wrote in the New York Times, she still
had "beautifully tapered diminuendos, a variety of fascinating colors,
gorgeous tonal quality at any dynamic level, controlled pliancy of
phrasing and above all the essential sentiment of a song, effects
governed by a deep musical intelligence and emotional honesty."
Elisabeth Anna Soderstrom was born May 7, 1927, in Stockholm.
Her Russian mother had fled her homeland during the 1917 revolution, and
her father was a music-loving Swedish businessman. She began to study
singing in earnest at 14 and also showed early interest in acting. After
being rejected for admission to the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts,
she concentrated on singing.
She had allergies to animals, nuts, apples and feathers, but was
otherwise not known for being temperamental, except when she thought
directors did not respect the integrity of a musical score.
In a production of Janacek's "The Makropulous Case" in Marseilles, the
stage director wanted Soderstrom to perform her final scene behind a
screen, concealed from the audience.
"I was never so close to killing a person," she told the Toronto Star in
1989. "I screamed at him that he was unworthy of staging this opera. His
response was, 'We break for lunch,' and I collapsed in a chair, crying
violently.
"The stagehands, by the way, all came up to me and said 'Bravo, madame,
bravo, c'est magnifique!' After lunch, the screen was gone."
Soderstrom continued performing well into her 60s, and often gave
recitals of songs by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Jean Sibelius with pianist
Vladimir Ashkenazy. American composer Dominick Argento wrote an opera
for her, "The Aspern Papers," which she premiered in Dallas in 1988.
In 1991, at age 71, she came out of semi-retirement to appear as the
Countess in Tchaikovsky's "The Queen of Spades" at the Metropolitan
Opera.
Survivors include her husband of 59 years, Swedish naval officer Sverker
Olow; and three sons.
"There should be an intensity when people listen to music, since
listening is valuable only when it is active," Soderstrom said in 1988.
"For me, it is more important to communicate than to sing a pretty
note."
Schudel writes for the Washington Post.
Copyright � 2009, The Los Angeles Times