Personal Memories of Nicolai Gedda

On 11 June, Nicolai Gedda, one of the foremost Swedish lyrical tenors after Jussi Björling, would have become 100 years old. Calle Friedner heard and met him several times and remembers him warmly. During the 1950s, it was on the radio one generally heard a singer for the first time, particularly if you didn’t live in Stockholm, which I didn’t then. And that was the case for me concerning Nicolai Gedda. What I heard was a radio broadcast of a performance at the Stockholm Opera of Adolph Adam’s opera comedy, Le postillon de Lonjumeau. If my memory isn’t wrong, the premiere was not broadcast but the second or third performance in April 1952. Anyhow, it was a live broadcast, and I was ten years old.