The Art of Jussi Björling

Hello, everybody. Thanks to all of you looking in, and special thanks to Janel Lundgren, who extended the invitation to speak, to Walter Rudolph for hosting our event, to Steve Fischman for handling the sound fragments we’ll be hearing, and to my wife, Molly Regan,for all her help getting the fragments out to Steve. I’ve been following the activities of the Society at one degree of separation for many years, and have met or corresponded with several of you along the way, so I know I’m on home ground, among people as devoted as I am to keeping alive an awareness of not only one of our greatest singers, but of our nourishing legacy of Western classical singing in general. I have been thinking about what I might bring to the table here that others might not. I assume my Jussi-appreciation credentials can be taken for granted, and that more celebration of his prismatic tone and extraordinary technical command aren’t really needed here. When asked who I think the greatest tenors are, I’ve always answered that among those I’ve heard live (which I think is a necessary distinction), three stand above the rest: Jussi Björling, Lauritz Melchior, and Franco Corelli, among whom Björling’s voice was both the lightest in calibre and the freest.