Sold out to the last seat and in front of a very enthusiastic audience, Ida Ränzlöv - this year's Birgit Nilsson scholarship holder - gave a traditional scholarship concert last night in Västra Karup's church together with the pianist Magnus Svensson. With a broad program - Bizet, Rossini, Strauss, Dvorak, Wagner and Rangström - Ida offered particularly liberally of her great knowledge. And the audience could unanimously state that she was a very well-deserved recipient of SEK 200,000 plus a…

The 2023 Birgit Nilsson Stipendium is awarded to Swedish mezzo-soprano Ida Ränzlöv, who receives SEK 200 000 (c. 18 000 euros) on 11 August when she performs in recital during this summer’s Birgit Nilsson Days. First presented by Birgit Nilsson in 1973, the Stipendium has supported 46 young Swedish singers over the last 50 years, including several who went on to establish successful international careers, such as Nina Stemme, Malin Byström, Hillevi Martinpelto, Anna Larsson and John Lundgren. “I feel…

It was as if the roof lifted at Västra Karup’s church when this year’s Birgit Nilsson Stipendium recipient Cornelia Beskow opened her concert with a jubilant and rapturous interpretation of Elisabeth’s greeting song from Wagner’s Tannhäuser. In a program of great breadth, the lyrical-dramatic soprano offered Nordic romances and opera arias such as the Song to the Moon from Dvořák’s Rusalka and the letter scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Accompanist Elisabeth Boström also played Schubert’s Impromptu No. 4 in A…

The 2022 Birgit Nilsson Stipendium is awarded to the Swedish lyric dramatic soprano, Cornelia Beskow, who receives 200.000 SEK (equivalent to $20.000) on August 12 when she will perform in Birgit Nilsson’s parish church at Västra Karup, as a part of the celebrations for this year’s “Birgit Nilsson Days”. Tickets are sold at juliusbiljettservice.se Winner of the 2017 Lauritz Melchior International Singing Competition, where she was awarded all four prizes, Cornelia Beskow trained at the Copenhagen Opera Academy (Soloist Class, 2009-2012) and the Stockholm…

This year’s recipient of the Birgit Nilsson Stipendium is Soprano Johanna Wallroth. She receives SEK 200 000 which, thanks to an anonymous donor, has recently doubled in value, making it one of Sweden's largest scholarships. Johanna Wallroth was thrust into the limelight in 2019 when she took First Prize in the prestigious Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition with her "immediately engaging, intelligent and detailed performance" (Bachtrack). She subsequently joined the Opernstudio of the Wiener Staatsoper from the start of the 20/21 season…