Gösta Winbergh

Who was Gösta Winbergh?

Gösta Winbergh was a Swedish tenor.

Winbergh was born in Stockholm. He is considered as among Sweden's and the world's finest tenors, included with Jussi Björling and Nicolai Gedda.

There was no musical tradition in Winbergh's family. He himself was a building engineer when he watched his first opera performance in 1967; the experience so moved him that he decided on an operatic career. Accordingly he applied for the opera class at Sweden's prestigious Royal Academy of Music, and was admitted on his first attempt. He trained at the school between 1969-71. He began singing at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, and gradually began to receive international attention in the 1980s when he guest performed on stages abroad. Copenhagen, Aix-en-Provence, San Francisco and in 1980, Glyndebourne, where he sang Belmonte, scoring a great success for his honeyed voice and elegant singing. He later worked several times at the opera house in Zürich and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His leading performances in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Wagner's Lohengrin, Verdi's Rigoletto and Puccini's Turandot were particularly well received and celebrated.

For the first two-thirds of his 30-year career, Gosta Winbergh was greatly admired as a singer of Mozart's operas. His Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni was applauded at the Metropolitan, New York, at the Salzburg Festival, in Houston and Chicago, Berlin and Barcelona. He sang Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte at the Drottninghom Court Theatre and Tamino in The Magic Flute for his debut at La Scala, Milan. Other Mozart roles in his repertory were Idomeneo, Mitridate and Titus.