Magnificent Gala concert, lovely sunshine and sold out to the last seat! This year’s Birgit Nilsson Days ended on Saturday evening at the Birgit Nilsson Museum – more specifically, the large meadow next to the great singer’s parents’ home.

With Mark Levengood as an extremely confident and entertaining presenter, the audience enjoyed a program composed of brilliantly performed highlights from Birgit’s early operatic repertoire. From Weber’s Friskytten (Agathe was her debut role at the Royal Opera in 1946), to Verdi’s Macbeth and the Un ballo in marchers and Wagner’s Dutchman.

On a gigantic, especially at the moment huge outdoor stage that surpassed most in Sweden, the audience was treated to grand opera. Many thanks to all around 190 participants: eight opera soloists (Alexandra Büchel, Christina Nilsson, Fredrik Zetterström, Taras Shtonda, Oksana Kramareva, Elisabet Strid, Joyce El-Khoury and Jonathan Tetelman), the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, several choirs from northwestern Scania with Birgits Bjäre peninsula as the epicenter and not least the evening’s fantastic and enthusiastic conductor, Evan Rogister!

The concert ended with Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera where two international star soloists – Canadian Joyce El-Khoury and American Jonathan Tetelman – made their acclaimed Scandinavian debut!