31 Facts About Nicolai Gedda

Harry Gustaf Nikolai Gadda, better known as Nicolai Gedda, was a Swedish operatic tenor.

Nicolai Gedda's singing is best known for its beauty of tone, vocal control, and musical perception.

Harry Gustaf Nikolai Gadda, who later changed the spelling of his surname to Nicolai Gedda, was born out of wedlock in Stockholm to a Swedish mother and a half-Russian father.

Nicolai Gedda was raised by his aunt Olga Gadda and his adoptive father Michail Ustinov, who sang bass in Serge Jaroff's Don Cossack Choir and was cantor in a Russian Orthodox church.

Nicolai Gedda grew up bilingual in Swedish and Russian, and from 1929 to 1934 when his family were living in Leipzig, Germany, he learned German.

At the age of 5 Nicolai Gedda took part in a vocal quartet in the orthodox church in the city.

Nicolai Gedda worked first as a bank teller in a local bank in Stockholm, and was obliged to support his hard-pressed parents financially; his sleeping arrangements were an alcove off the kitchen in their Stockholm apartment.

Ohman was enthusiastic about Nicolai Gedda and took him as a pupil, at the beginning without payment, because Nicolai Gedda was at the time supporting his parents.

At the Royal Academy of Music and Opera School in Stockholm Nicolai Gedda was in the class of Kurt Bendix and Ragnar Hylten-Cavallius from 1950 to 1952.

Nicolai Gedda made his debut at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm as part of the vocal quartet in the premiere of Der rote Stiefel by Sutermeister in November 1951.

An early appraisal of Nicolai Gedda's singing was offered by Walter Legge, after first hearing Nicolai Gedda sing for the role of Dmitry in a planned recording of Boris Godunov.

The first to sing to me was Nicolai Gedda who had, I believe, sung only once in public.

Nicolai Gedda sang the Carmen Flower Song so tenderly yet passionately that I was moved almost to tears.

Nicolai Gedda delivered the difficult rising scale ending with a clear and brilliant B flat.

Nicolai Gedda was based in France at this time, and began an association with the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 1954, starting with Belmonte in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail and Vincent in Mireille, then Orphee in Orphee et Eurydice, Thespis and Mercure in Platee, and Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte; several productions being recorded.

In 1966, prior to assuming the role at Covent Garden, Nicolai Gedda said that Cellini was one of his favourite parts; when he prepared the role for the Holland Festival production in 1961 he became totally absorbed in the historical figure of the 16th-century Italian goldsmith and sculptor.

In Salzburg, he took part in the August 1957 premiere of the three-act version of Rolf Liebermann's Die Schule der Frauen, conducted by George Szell, where Nicolai Gedda "matched his free lyric tenor with an animation of personality that came as a surprise".

Nicolai Gedda was the last singer to stand on the stage of the 'old Met': the final curtain of the gala evening fell after his appearance in the finale from Faust.

Nicolai Gedda made his Royal Opera House Covent Garden debut in 1954 as the Duke in Verdi's Rigoletto.

Nicolai Gedda returned in 1963 for La damnation de Faust and for Benvenuto Cellini ; Alfredo in 1972, Gustavus III in 1977, Nemorino in 1981, Lensky and Abdisu in Palestrina.

Nicolai Gedda was supposed to sing Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival in 1967, but his engagement for an American television film of Faust in the summer of that year prevented it.

Nicolai Gedda had a small role in the 1952 film Eldfageln, in which he sang "Ack, Varmeland du skona".

Nicolai Gedda sang, and recorded, sacred music, including Russian liturgical music.

Nicolai Gedda's discography includes large-scale sacred works such as the Mozart Requiem, Beethoven's Christ on the Mount of Olives, Missa solemnis and Ninth Symphony, Lelio, ou le retour a la vie, Elijah, the Verdi Requiem and The Dream of Gerontius; while his song repertoire extended beyond Swedish composers and folksongs to Schubert, Schumann, a wide range of Russian romances from Glinka to Rachmaninoff, melodies, Janacek's The Diary of One Who Disappeared, and many Russian folksongs.

Nicolai Gedda was a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and in 1994 he was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy.

Outside music Nicolai Gedda had many hobbies, as a keen sportsman, a connoisseur of painting and sculpture, and well-read in literature, often reading works of major novelists in the original where he commanded the language.

Nicolai Gedda had a passion for visiting zoos, saying that if he did not have to travel for his profession he would like "to keep a complete menagerie in my home".

Nicolai Gedda's first marriage was to the pianist Nadine Sapounoff-Nova, his second to Anastasia Caraviotis, an American of Greek origin, and last from 1997 to the journalist and writer Aino Sellermark.

Nicolai Gedda published his first memoir, Gavan ar inte gratis in 1977, with the help of his future wife, Aino Sellermark.

Nicolai Gedda died after a heart attack at his home in Tolochenaz in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland.

Nicolai Gedda was buried in an unmarked memorial plot in Galarvarvskyrkogarden, Stockholm.