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Elisabeth Söderström, a much beloved Swedish opera singer has passed away.

The Guardian has an article expressing her greatness much better than I could ever hope to do:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/2...rstrom-obituary

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Miss Soderstrom as I well remember her stylish charm and poise as both singer and actress.

She was a mature singer when I first heard her in the late sixties and on stage I witnessed her Countess in Figaro, Fiordiligi, Melisande and Tatyana in casts with some very distinguished singers.

Miss Soderstrom will be remembered by many and for those that did not see her on stage there is a wealth of recordings to admire.

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She was a wonderful, wonderful singer; incredibily moving and expressive. And she was fascinating to watch on stage. She was very versitile, I heard her sing operatic roles in five different languages(English, Czech, Italian, German, and Russian) . In recital, she proved herself to be a master of even more languages.. And her singing spanned musical periods from Monteverdi to Henze, encompassing many different styles.

Soderstrom was one of those performers that was very special to me.

I understand her last few years were difficult and I'm guessing her passing was a release.

RIP

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Elisabeth Söderström, a much beloved Swedish opera singer has passed away.

The Guardian has an article expressing her greatness much better than I could ever hope to do:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/2...rstrom-obituary

I looked at the obit and was a bit confused. Alan Blyth is credited as writing it but the article also notes that he died in 2007. Does anyone know how this is possible? Did he write it in advance of his own passing and it was put on ice?

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Elisabeth Söderström, a much beloved Swedish opera singer has passed away.

The Guardian has an article expressing her greatness much better than I could ever hope to do:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/2...rstrom-obituary

I looked at the obit and was a bit confused. Alan Blyth is credited as writing it but the article also notes that he died in 2007. Does anyone know how this is possible? Did he write it in advance of his own passing and it was put on ice?

In England at least and I am sure elsewhere, informed persons often critics, colleagues or friends are asked to write obituaries often well before the subjects demise

and if they are still relevant they are used.

Alan Blyth was a distinguished critic author and musicoligist. See his obituary: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituari...yth-462271.html

Someone I knew wrote an obituary for Natalia Dudinskaya who died in 2003 and he had pre-deceased her by nine years yet because of its content it was published in

"The Independent."

Edited for misspelling

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Elisabeth Söderström, a much beloved Swedish opera singer has passed away.

The Guardian has an article expressing her greatness much better than I could ever hope to do:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/nov/2...rstrom-obituary

I looked at the obit and was a bit confused. Alan Blyth is credited as writing it but the article also notes that he died in 2007. Does anyone know how this is possible? Did he write it in advance of his own passing and it was put on ice?

In England at least and I am sure elsewhere, informed persons often critics, colleagues or friends are asked to write obituaries often well before the subjects demise

and if they are still relevant they are used.

Alan Blyth was a distinguished critic author and musicoligist. See his obituary: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituari...yth-462271.html

Someone I knew wrote an obituary for Natalia Dudinskaya who died in 2003 and he had pre-deceased her by nine years yet because of its content it was published in

"The Independent."

Edited for misspelling

The same practice is also followed in the States. Publications like The New York Times keep many obituaries of the not-yet-dead on file. I think David Halberstam's obit was written by someone who had already died. Blyth was a fine writer.

Thank you for posting, Pamela.

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Reading tributes to Soderstrom on different opera sites, I was reminded what a witty lady she was. In one interview she comments that colleagues always

told her that her looks were "perfect for radio". In another she is quoted as telling an audience "my voice IS small but it's.... UGLY", a play on the more common "small but beautiful" comment.

For anyone interested in listening, here's a portion of an interview done in 1999, at the time of her last Met appearances while in her early 70s, by George Jellinek.

She is candid, funny, slightly wicked, sings all kinds of bits and pieces for the audience at Lincoln Center .

She tells a story of being contacted by a recording company to do an emergency replacement of .....Jon Vickers! And some wickedness is revealed here in talking of being mannered (ala another, more famous, operatic Elisabeth S)

A portion that I've listened to more than once is a tape of her performing Schubert's Erlkonig. She was a wonderful recitalist. Schubert's song, for those that aren't familiar, is based on a classic Goethe narrative poem that tells a story of a malevolent spirit that is trying to capture a small boy while the boy's father is trying to save the child by fleeing. It's a barnstormer of a song, there are four different characters, a narrator, the father, the boy, and the Erlkonig. All have lines and singers strive to make the four different characters distinct. Soderstrom is just wonderful here and the boy's terror is hairraisingly vivid. "Mein Vater, mein Vater.... " the boy pleads. And the voice she uses for the Erlkonig is very subtle, no scenery chewing villain, but very spooky.

She then tells of how she developed the "voice" she used for the boy, and segues into another, humorous, "rescue" story.

Here's a link for a portion of the interview:

http://cdn3.libsyn.com/chsiegel/VS_Soeders...e9bb37cf33df852

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I just read an obituary in a very respected Swedish newspaper saying that Madame Söderström died from advanced dementia. How terribly sad and unfortunate. I will not here get into any medical details, but I happen to have personal experience of that disease and it is truly horrible - it is hard to know how much the victim suffers towards the end - but for the family it is indeed devastating and terrifying to see a loved one slip away, and then death can only come as a relief.

I did not know this and the news was shatterring.

However, she enjoyed a very long and glorious career.

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