Erik Saedén Biography

Swedish baritone. Educated in Stockholm, he joined the Royal Opera there in 1952 . He appeared at Bayreuth ( 1958 ), Edinburgh ( 1959 and 1974 ), Covent Garden ( 1960 ), Montreal ( 1967 ), Munich and Berlin, where he created the title role in Luigi Dallapiccola's Ulisse ( 1968 ), but his career was centred on Stockholm, where he sang in the repertory operas of W. A. Mozart , Giuseppe Verdi , Richard Wagner , Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini . His roles also included Wozzeck, Nick Shadow, the title role of Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero, Yevgeny Onegin, Ferruccio Busoni's Faust, Baron Prus (The Makropulos Affair), Mr Gedge (Albert Herring) and Tovey (The Mines of Sulphur). He created the Mimaroben in Karl-Birger Blomdahl's Aniara ( 1959 ), Julien in Lars Johan Werle's Drömmen om Thérèse ( 1964 ) and Saint Phar in Franz Berwald's Drottningen av Golconda ( 1968 ) and sang in the premières of Hilding Rosenberg's Hus med dubbel ingång ( 1970 ) and Nekrotzar in György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre ( 1978 ). He sang Schigolch in Lulu at Covent Garden ( 1981 ) and the Royal Father in Jan Sandström's Slottet det vita in Stockholm ( 1987 ). Although his voice has no special beauty of timbre, his outstanding musicality and dramatic conviction combine to make him an artist of exceptional interest. Claes håkan Ahnsjö and Gösta Winbergh were his pupils.

Elizabeth Forbes