Elisabeth Söderström; Guardian obit
Hyfler/Rosner
Swedish soprano whose perceptive singing and vivid acting
made her a great heroine in operas by Tchaikovsky, Richard
Strauss and Jan�cek
Alan Blyth
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/21/elisabeth-soderstrom-obituary
One of the most perceptive and admired sopranos of the
postwar era, Elisabeth S�derstr�m, who has died aged 82, had
a lengthy career that carried on into the 1990s, when she
was well into her 60s. In everything she attempted, her
vibrantly beautiful singing was enhanced by her good looks
and vivid acting. With her sensitive demeanour she was
particularly successful at portraying the troubled women who
abound in opera, such as Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio,
Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Evgeny Onegin and the Countess in
Richard Strauss's Capriccio, three of the roles with which
she delighted audiences at Glyndebourne.
She was born in Stockholm, the daughter of a Swedish naval
captain and a Russian mother, and studied at the Royal
Academy and Opera School there. She made her debut as early
as 1947, when she was just 20, as Mozart's Bastienne, in the
Drottningholm Court Theatre. Thereafter she joined the
Swedish Royal Opera, of which she remained a member
throughout the rest of her career. Her roles there stretched
from Monteverdi's Nero (Poppea) through Mozart's Countess
Almaviva (in Figaro, one of her most palpitating
portrayals), Strauss's Octavian and Marschallin (both in Der
Rosenkavalier) to Jan�cek's Jenufa.
At the Royal Opera in London, she also loved playing the
Governess in Britten's The Turn of the Screw and Marie in
Berg's Wozzeck, two further distressed women. But she also
revelled in lighter things, such as Rosalinde in Die
Fledermaus and Saffi in the same composer's Der
Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron). She sang many of her roles
both in Swedish and in the original.
ln 1955 she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival, as the
boy Ighino in Pfitzner's Palestrina. She first appeared at
Glyndebourne in 1957, as the Composer in Strauss's Ariadne
auf Naxos, and in 1963-64 she was much admired there as
Elisabeth Zimmer in Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers. She made
her debut at Covent Garden in 1960, with the Royal Swedish
Opera as Daisy Doody in Blomdahl's Aniara and as Morgana in
Handel's Alcina. She returned there, with the resident
company, as Octavian and as an unforgettable M�lisande under
Pierre Boulez (1969-70, a role that she recorded with him).
Her Metropolitan Opera debut was as Susanna (Figaro) in
1959, followed by Strauss's Sophie, which meant she had
undertaken all three of the women's roles in Der
Rosenkavalier, once joking that she would now have to
undertake Baron Ochs. She continued to appear in New York
for the following four seasons. One of her later roles, that
of the 300-year-old Emilia Marty in Jan�cek's The Makropulos
Case, was undertaken with, among others, Welsh National
Opera, an unforgettable experience, also seen in London. She
wonderfully conveyed Marty's emotional cynicism and boredom
at having lived so long. She followed that with the old
Countess in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, showing that
she could still command attention even with reduced
resources.
S�derstr�m often sang in concerts: she appeared at the Royal
Festival Hall, London, and in the recording studio with Otto
Klemperer in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. She was also an
accomplished recitalist, singing a wide repertory, but
particularly happy in the songs of Sibelius, which she
recorded complete in the company of the pianist Vladimir
Ashkenazy. She always delighted her audiences by introducing
specific items with her particular fey charm, nowhere more
successfully than with Mussorgsky's Nursery cycle. She was
also an engaging broadcaster, and often regaled Radio 3 and
Radio 4 audiences with her anecdotes.
From 1993 to 1996 she was director of the Drottningholm
Palace Theatre, where she had started her career. In
retirement, she became an accomplished giver of
masterclasses, leavening her lessons with a good deal of
humour and general bonhomie.
S�derstr�m was one of the most distinguished artists of her
generation. The combination of a charming, yet elusive
personality, very Swedish in character, with her vibrant
voice and sincere acting enhanced all her portrayals, and
while she was as happy deploying them on comedy as on drama,
it is undoubtedly for her interpretations of the heroines in
the operas of Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss and Jan�cek that
she will be longest remembered.
As a person, she was the soul of kindness, had a ready wit
and was never more at home than when taking part in lively
conversation. Colleagues and friends alike were treated
generously. In the opera house, she could be demanding,
wanting others to meet her own high standards, but she was
always co-operative with directors she trusted, and with
them she was willing to work as hard and as long as it took
to create a result full of inner meaning.
In 1950 she married Sverker Olow, and he survives her, as do
their three sons.
John Amis writes: When Elisabeth was invited to make her
debut in New York at the Metropolitan Opera, she took all
three of her sons with her for the season. When they got to
school age, she gave up New York and returned to the Royal
Opera in Stockholm. This was typical of her approach to a
happy marriage, and to being both a wife and a mother. By
that point being rather older than many of her colleagues,
she developed the knack of being an elder sister to them and
coaching them at rehearsals. She excelled in masterclasses,
partly through her good nature, but also because she always
sought to encourage her students to give their best; at the
same time she delighted her audience without ever buttering
her own ego (as many masterclass teachers do).
Elisabeth giggled and laughed a lot, but that only seemed to
complement the seriousness of her devotion to her art.
Sometimes she would point out to people who implied that a
singer's life was an easy one, how hard it could be. "Sweat,
phlegm and dirty feet is often what it's about," she would
say. "What do we do all day when not rehearsing? We memorise
and that takes up a lot of time, all part of the job. And so
is winding down after a performance."
Coming from a country whose language is comparatively remote
from most of the repertoire meant that Elisabeth would often
sing in several languages. Some of the Jan�cek operas, for
example, she sang not only in the original Czech, but also
in German, English and Swedish. She was the least divaish
diva that you could meet. She was a good person, a good
friend, good wife, good mother, good humoured and an
attractive woman.
Sometimes she had a hard time of it. In Jenufa once her heel
caught in a hole in a floorboard: broken knee. Another time
in Offenbach's La P�richole, she took a dive nearly into the
orchestral pit: bad back. Deputising, she was manhandled in
the last scene of an unfamiliar version of Gounod's Faust in
which Margu�rite does not get wafted to heaven, but bundled
down to hell: broken arm.
Elisabeth wrote an informative and readable little book, In
My Own Key (1979), and in the photographs of her in various
roles you can usually guess which role she was playing just
by her facial expression, whether it was Tatyana, Leonore,
The Governess, M�lisande, K�t'a Kabanov� or the Marschallin
or Octavian in Rosenkavalier. She was different in each
part.
At Glyndebourne, we regulars idolised the singer Sena
Jurinac, who left Sussex in 1956 when her marriage broke up,
leaving her husband Sesto Bruscantini to sing there by
himself. We heard that there was some unknown Swedish singer
coming to sing Sena's roles, and we all hated her in
advance. But as soon as she sang the Composer in Strauss's
Ariadne, our hatred turned to love and adoration. The Swede
was of course Elisabeth S�derstr�m.
. Elisabeth S�derstr�m, soprano, born May 7 1927; died 20
November 2009
. Alan Blyth died in 2007
Brian Watson
> Elisabeth S�derstr�m obituary
> Swedish soprano whose perceptive singing and vivid acting
> made her a great heroine in operas by Tchaikovsky, Richard
> Strauss and Jan�cek
And inventor of a bottle system for adding fizz to drinks, of course.
--
Brian
"Fight like the Devil, die like a gentleman."
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