Ingvar Wixell

Ingvar Wixell (born May 7, 1931 in Luleå) is a Swedish baritone opera singer. Wixell made his debut 1955 as Papageno in Mozart's "The Magic Flute". He worked at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm 1955–1967. He was engaged at the Deutsche Oper Berlin 1967 where he was a member for more than 30 years.

Among other roles he has sung Figaro in Rossini's "Il barbiere di Siviglia", Escamillo in Bizet's "Carmen", Amonasro in Verdi's "Aïda", Baron Scarpia in Puccini's "Tosca", the title characters in Verdi's "Rigoletto", "Simon Boccanegra", and "Falstaff", as well as Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin".

In 1965, Wixell performed all the songs in the competition to select Sweden's Eurovision Song Contest entry. The winning song was "Annorstädes Vals" (Elsewhere Waltz), which Wixell went on to perform at the international final in Naples. In a break from the then prevailing tradition, the song was sung in English (as "Absent Friend"). This led to the introduction from 1966 onwards of a rule stipulating that each country's entry must be sung in one of the languages of that country. (This rule was cancelled for the years 1973 to 1977, reinstated in 1978, and cancelled again in 1999.)

Selected recordings

• Mozart, Count Almaviva in "Le nozze di Figaro," conducted by Sir Colin Davis, 1971, with Jessye Norman
• Larsson, "Förklädd gud" (and "Pastoralsvit"), conducted by Stig Westerberg, 1968–1974
• Mozart, "Don Giovanni," conducted by Colin Davis, 1973
• Verdi, Cavaliere di Belfiore in "Un giorno di regno," conducted by Lamberto Gardelli, 1973
• Puccini, Baron Scarpia in "Tosca," conducted by Colin Davis, 1976, with Montserrat Caballé
• Verdi, il conte di Luna in "Il trovatore," conducted by Richard Bonynge, 1976, with Dame Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne
• Donizetti, Belcore in "L'elisir d'amore," conducted by Sir John Pritchard, 1977, with Plácido Domingo
• Donizetti, Don Alfonso in "Lucrezia Borgia," conducted by Richard Bonynge, 1977
• Leoncavallo, Tonio in "Pagliacci," conducted by Giuseppe Patanè , 1977, with Mirella Freni
• Puccini, Michele in "Il tabarro," conducted by Lorin Maazel, with Renata Scotto, 1977
• Puccini, Sharpless in "Madama Butterfly," conducted by Lorin Maazel, 1978, with Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo and Gillian Knight
• Verdi, Renato in "Un ballo in maschera," conducted by Colin Davis, 1978–1979, with José Carreras
• Puccini, Marcello in "La bohème," conducted by Colin Davis, 1979, with Katia Ricciarelli
• Verdi, Rigoletto in "Rigoletto," conducted by Riccardo Chailly, 1983, with Edita Gruberova and Luciano Pavarotti, a film directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
• Puccini, Baron Scarpia in "Tosca," conducted by Daniel Oren, 1990, with Raina Kabaivanska
• August Söderman, Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Wilhelm Stenhammar and Ture Rangström, "Svenska ballader" (Swedish ballads), conducted by Johan Arnell, 1997

External links

• Discography (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

References

• Swedish Wikipedia