A RICH OPERATIC TRADITION

Stockholm: Sweden

Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson was determined to preserve her memory by setting up classical music’s largest prize in her country’s capital. She succeeded, says Oliver Condy

On the edge of Stockholm’s Stadsholmen, or ‘city island’, a gigantic 18th-century Baroque palace keeps watch over the capital’s winding, cobblestoned Gamlastan (old town). The Royal Palace is the official, if not actual, residence of the King and Queen of Sweden, and dozens of suites and galleries add up to a Versailles-sized 600 rooms, with the main building sprouting wings of over 150 feet. Still used as a city base for King Gustaf and Queen Silvia, its daily changing of the guard and various year-round pageantries show
that Sweden still cherishes its monarchy.

But the Swedish potentates have competition. A short walk to the north will take you across the tiny island of Helgeandsholmen, home to the Swedish parliament, towards the mainland, where the imposing Royal Swedish Opera stares resolutely back towards the palace from the banks of the mighty Norrström, guarding the memories of Sweden’s operatic monarchs: tenor JussiBjörling and soprano Birgit Nilsson. Until recently, Björling had rather overshadowed Nilsson – he’s the one with the statue outside the opera house, after all. Nilsson may have had a comparable career and recording legacy (see Local Hero, below) but it was the gentle intimacy and romantic ardour of Björling’s voice that captured the popular imagination – witness his gutsy 1950 recording with baritone Robert Merrill of
the duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers.

The late Nilsson, however, is now enjoying her share of the limelight. Channelling her fortune into a foundation just before her death in 2005 (‘You put enough money in, and a glorious voice comes out,’ she’s reported to have said) the soprano gave strict instructions for a $1m prize to be awarded every two or three years to a singer, conductor or institution that had made a significant and lasting contribution to the world of opera – classical music’s richest accolade. The decision to put Nilsson on the Swedish 500 kronor note from 2014 will no doubt have raised some smiles. Back in October, Riccardo Muti was the second recipient, collecting his award at a lavish ceremony at the Swedish Royal Opera from King Gustaf himself, the latest in a line of monarchs to take an interest in opera, including the king’s namesake, Gustaf III, who founded the opera company in 1773.

Of course, Nilsson isn’t around to know that her beloved opera house, with its red velvet and gilded auditorium, is currently looking for funds itself to expand and develop its backstage areas (might she have otherwise come to the rescue…?). ‘We started a project to rebuild the opera house, but because of a lack of money, we had to cancel it,’ the opera house’s head of press Torbjörn Eriksson tells me. ‘So now we are repairing bits and pieces of the house. The intention two years ago was to close down and have one year to rebuild the house, but it wasn’t practical.’ If government subsidies have stayed steady over the past 12 months, a new requirement for the house to pay staff pensions has pushed it further into the red. Perhaps the king could have a quiet word with the prime minister…

Away from the opera house, the city boasts two major orchestras – the Stockholm Philharmonic, based in the nearby Stockholm Concert Hall, and the Swedish Radio Symphony, which performs in its home, the Berwald Hall (named after Sweden’s greatest Romantic composer). The Baltic Sea Festival, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, is now anchored at Berwald Hall, just along Stockholm’s river bank to the east, after spending years at sea with concerts on board ships and in coastal venues. Founded in 2003 by conductors Esa-PekkaSalonen and Valery Gergiev, and Berwald director Michael Tydén, the festival is as much about raising awareness of pollution and overfishing in the Baltic Sea as it is about uniting the countries that border this crowded patch of water in a week of superb orchestral and operatic concerts.

LOCAL HERO

BIRGIT NILSSON

Fortune smiled upon Sweden’s great soprano in 1946, when she was given three day’s notice to replace an ailing singer as Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz at the Royal Swedish Opera. Her performance earned Nilsson the chance to appear in dozens of roles, preparing her for a life on the stage – La Scala, Covent Garden and the New York Met all clamoured for her in the 1950s and ’60s. Puccini may, in Nilsson’s own words, have made her rich, but it was her Wagner singing that proved her métier – Nilsson sang Brünnhilde in Decca’s Ring Cycle, conducted by Sir Georg Solti.