Singer dies

Posted: Monday, October 17, 2011 8:02 pm

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Baritone Ingvar Wixell, one of Sweden’s greatest opera singers, has died. He was 80.
The Deutsche Oper in Berlin, where Wixell worked for three decades, says he died on Oct. 8 in Malmo, Sweden, after a short illness.
One of his most memorable roles was as the villainous Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s “Tosca.”
Wixell joined the Deutsche Oper in 1963 and also made guest performances in Vienna, Milano, London, New York and other cities.
In 1965 he was Sweden’s entrant to the Eurovision Song Contest in Naples, Italy, where he placed 10th.
As late as 2003, he performed in Richard Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos” in Malmo.

Published in The Messenger 10.17.11