Jussi Björling

Swedish opera singer

• Born: February 2, 1911
• Birthplace: Stora Tuna, Sweden
• Died: September 9, 1960
• Place of death: Siarö, Sweden

As a singer gifted with a voice of unsurpassed beauty and impeccable technique, Björling set a high standard for operatic tenors.

The Life

Johan Jonaton “Jussi” Björling (JUH-see BYUR-lihng) was born into a musical family in Sweden in 1911. His father, David, was a singer, and Björling’s older brother, Olle, and his younger brother, Gosta, both pursued musical careers within their native Sweden. Baptized as Johan, Björling became known personally and professionally as Jussi. His voice can be heard in an early recording by the Björling Male Quartet, and he made his first solo recordings in 1929. From then, until his premature death in 1960, he produced a steady stream of recordings of operatic arias, Swedish art songs and popular tunes, and complete operatic recordings with the finest international casts.

He made his stage debut in the small role of the Lamplighter in Giacomo Puccini’s opera Manon Lescaut (1893), at the Swedish Royal Opera in 1930. His international operatic debuts came in swift succession in the mid-1930’s: the Vienna Staatsoper in 1936, in New York and in Chicago in 1937, and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1938, in one of his signature roles, Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème (1896). He was awarded his first opening night at the Metropolitan Opera in 1940, when he portrayed King Gustav III in Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera (1859), but then he returned to his native Sweden for the duration of World War II.

His choice of repertory was conservative, and even in an era of cautious and unimaginative stage productions he was known as a stolid stage performer. Nevertheless, he was a hardworking and conscientious performer, and he had fifty-five leading roles in his repertory. He most frequently appeared as Rodolfo in La Bohème, as title role in Charles Gounod’s Faust (1859), and as Manrico in Verdi’s Il trovatore (1853). He commanded an impressive one thousand dollars for a performance in the 1950-1951 season.

In 1957 Björling was diagnosed with serious heart problems, probably the result of his longtime chronic alcoholism, and he died suddenly of a massive heart attack during the summer of 1960, at age forty-nine. Despite his severe alcoholism, he was said never to have given a bad performance.

The Music

Among the great operatic tenors of his generation, including Richard Tucker, Jan Peerce, and Mario del Monaco, Björling was recognized for the purity of his vocal production, his thoroughness of technique, and his sheer beauty of voice. Anna-Lisa Björling, in her biography Jussi (1997), compares the sound of her husband’s voice to “a silver bell struck by a crystal hammer,” and enthusiasts of Björling’s artistry, who often evoke the metaphors of silver and velvet, have always marveled at the purity of his technique.

Performance. His reputation for hard work is proven by his activities in November, 1950. He sang six performances, in New York and Philadelphia, of the title role of Verdi’s Don Carlos (1867), in a spectacular new production at the Metropolitan Opera under the auspices of its new general director, Rudolf Bing; he sang at a memorial concert for the king of Sweden; and he appeared in a live television performance on The Voice of Firestone, a half-hour showcase for opera singers. On the television show, Björling sang Franz Schubert’s “Was Ist Sylvia?” (1826), Georges Bizet’s “Flower Song” from Carmen (1875), and a song by Victor Herbert, as well as the show’s opening and closing maudlin theme songs, which show how uncomfortable he was singing in English. Björling shows effortless charm, as when he spontaneously awards the rose he held during the “Flower Song” to a woman in the chorus. As one of the relatively few visual records of Björling on stage, the videotape of this performance confirms Björling’s astonishing vocal technique and personal appeal.

Recordings. Björling’s most endearing album is probably a set of operatic duets with the American baritone Robert Merrill; the duet from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers (1863) on that album still turns up in movies and television commercials. Björling’s final complete operatic recording, of Puccini’s Turandot (1926), with the Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson (who was then at the beginning of a great international career), shows no diminution of the tenor’s ability, except for an uncharacteristic avoidance of a couple of high C’s.

Björling was comfortable singing in Italian, French, and German. He recorded one of his signature arias, known as “Lenski’s Aria” from Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin (1879), in Swedish rather than Russian. For some listeners, Björling’s greatest musical legacy lies in his recordings of Swedish songs by such composers as Jean Sibelius, Hugo Alfven, Wilhelm Stenhammer, and Tűre Rangstrom.

Musical Legacy

Because of the great number of his recordings, Björling is widely cherished by opera enthusiasts, and his musical excellence sets a high standard for operatic tenors. His complete operatic recordings are his most enduring legacy. He recorded Puccini’s La Bohème and Madama Butterfly (1904) with the Spanish soprano Victoria de Los Angeles, with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting. Both recordings retain their immense charm and youthful energy. This moving ardor is plentifully on display in Björling’s live-performance recording in 1947 from the Metropolitan Opera Saturday broadcast of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette (1867), where he is partnered by the Brazilian soprano Bidu Sayão. Björling is a dashing Duke of Mantua, with Roberta Peters as Gilda, in a recording of Verdi’s Rigoletto (1851). Best of all, perhaps, are the complete recordings of Verdi’s Il trovatore and Aida (1871) with the Yugoslavian soprano (and Met mainstay of the 1950’s) Zinka Milanov. The Aida boasts possibly the most impressive top-to-bottom cast of any operatic recording, with every singer at his or her peak: Milanov, Fedora Barbieri, Björling, Leonard Warren, and Boris Christoff. As Radamès, the doomed young Egyptian commander, Björling conveys the utter collapse into despair of his character in the pivotal third act, when he discovers the true identity of his lover, Aida, and the full extent of his inadvertent betrayal of his country.

Björling capitalized on the tradition set by an earlier generation of tenors, such as Enrico Caruso, John McCormack, and Leo Slezak, to record great operatic arias as well as popular songs and ballads. However, the latter have not retained much musical interest, although they are still worth hearing for the integrity of their performance. The greatest legacy of Björling lies in his recordings of complete operas, individual arias, and Swedish art songs. Few singers have ever matched the thoroughness of his vocal technique, and listeners continue to marvel at the purity of Björling’s voice.

Principal Works

choral works: Tenor soloist in Requiem, 1939 (by Giuseppe Verdi); tenor part in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, 1940.

operatic roles: Don Ottavio in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni, 1930; Lamplighter in Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, 1930; Romeo in Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, 1933; Duke of Mantua in Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, 1937; Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème, 1938; Manrico in Verdi’s Il trovatore, 1939; King Gustav III in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, 1940; Don Carlo in Verdi’s Don Carlo, 1950.

Principal Recordings

albums:Romeo et Juliette, 1947; Operatic Duets, 1952; Il Trovatore, 1952 (with Zinka Milanov); Cavalleria Rusticana, 1953 (with Milanov); Verdi: Aida, 1955; La Bohème, 1956 (with Victoria de Los Angeles); Verdi: Rigoletto, 1956; Tosca, 1957; Verdi’s Requiem, 1960 (with Leontyne Price and Giorgio Tozzi).

writings of interest:Med bagaget i strupen, 1945 (autobiography).

Bibliography

Bing, Rudolf. Five Thousand Nights at the Opera. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972. Filled with gossipy stories of life in the Metropolitan Opera of the 1950’s.

Björling, Anna-Lisa, and Andrew Farkas. Jussi. Portland, Oreg.: Amadeus Press, 1997. Provides an insider’s affectionate view of the Swedish tenor, although it is frank about Björling’s shortcomings as a stage actor and about his difficult struggle with alcoholism.

Steane, J. B. The Grand Tradition: Seventy Years of Singing on Record, 1900 to 1970. London: Duckworth, 1974. Celebrates the splendor of Björling’s voice, while showing less enthusiasm for his dramatic skills.