Joel Berglund

Commanding a voluminous bass-baritone of stunning beauty and best formation for Wagner (deep pedal shades in the low register firmly helping a sturdy middle and finely concentrated upper enroll), Joel Berglund appreciated considerable success in a number of international venues before supposing the directorship from the Stockholm Opera in his mid-forties. Berglund continuing to sing in various productions there for another 10 years while guiding the fortunes of his country’s most important opera home. Berglund ranks using the twentieth century’s most important performers in his vocal category furthermore to presenting been a shrewd and galvanizing performing actor. After research on the Stockholm Conservatory using the well-known baritone John Forsell, Berglund produced his debut using the Stockholm Opera as Monterone (Rigoletto) in 1929 and continuing as a residence musician in Stockholm for the ensuing 2 decades. Thereafter, he mixed performing with administrative duties as the business’s movie director (1949 – 1956) and, still afterwards, appeared regularly being a visitor musician until 1964. Pursuing appearances in the us being a concert vocalist, the Metropolitan Opera became thinking about Berglund to bolster its roster of performers with the capacity of sustaining heroic tasks in Wagner and Strauss. Anticipated in the Metropolitan for the eve of WWII, Berglund was held from the hostilities from his NY stage debut as the ageing Friedrich Schorr was sorely examined in continuing to meet up the needs from the bass-baritone wing. Berglund do sing abroad, nevertheless, producing an appearance at Bayreuth in 1942 as Vanderdecken in Der fliegende Holländer. When Berglund finally attained the Metropolitan as “a solid, well-detailed Sachs” inside a January 9, 1946 Meistersinger, he was welcomed as an designer of the 1st rank. In quick succession, Berglund impressed critics and viewers as well as the Walküre Wotan and Kurwenal. Through the 1946 – 1947 time of year, a March 15 Parsifal allowed Berglund to demonstrate how comfy he is at the lower gets to of a genuine bass function when he sang a Gurnemanz to particular acclaim. Previously, he sang a robust Wanderer in Siegfried. Through the 1947 – 1948 period, a Ring routine mounted concurrently using the Metropolitan’s initial project with Peter Grimes was strengthened significantly by Berglund’s involvement, his Rheingold Wotan getting designated both for his canny portrayal from the youthful god as well as for the sovereign order he taken to his performing. In his last period on the Metropolitan, Berglund was the Jochanaan on the Feb 4 debut of Ljuba Welitch in Salome, and maintained not to vanish under her dramatic and vocal onslaught. Certainly, his virile performing and realization from the prophet’s fanaticism allowed the red-haired soprano to surpass herself and offer the brand new York house perhaps one of the most talked-about evenings in its background. Right before his go back to Sweden to suppose the directorship in Stockholm, Berglund repeated his “exceptional” Gurnemanz, thereafter departing the Metropolitan with out a leading bass-baritone before entrance of Hans Hotter and Paul Schöffler. While Berglund’s American profession centered on Wagner and Strauss, he sang French and Italian assignments in Sweden (mainly in the Swedish vocabulary). He was an insinuating Mephistopheles in Faust and a profoundly stressed Athanaël in Thaïs. In the Italian repertory, he was celebrated for his Scarpia aswell for his Simon Boccanegra and Filippo II in Don Carlo. Berglund’s stage savvy and versatile performing technique produced him a significant Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro.