Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th ...

32 Juvas Marianne Liljas
Illustration 4. The Björling opera from the early years, Olle, Gösta and Jussi. The singing
position mirror David Björling instructions “the high chest, the open throat and the deep
breaths”. The picture probably taken in 916.
The analysis points to the fact that the boys’ voices constituted an auditive
example of the more masculine tones aimed at in the older Italian School,
and which were narrowed down at the same time as the male register increased
during the later part of the 1800s. According to older sources, this
was a “concentrated, dark timbre” originating in the voice-timbre spectrum
that had been named chiaroscuro (Berg 1868, p. 52). This could be compared
to the Lamperti School, in which all tones emanated from the dark
timbre, voce chiusa, to be nuanced by chiaroscuro (cf. Stark 1999, pp. 33f,
42-45, 92f; Liljas 2007, pp. 368f). Jenny Lind’s teacher, Isak Berg, tells us
in his hand-written scripts that the older Italian tenors were more smooth.
They sounded more like baritones, and all the tones emanated from the
dark timbre to be nuanced by chiaroscuro (Berg 1868, p. 39, 42) 26 Berg also
relates how clashing tenors with French schooling replaced the Italian singing
ideal (ibid., p.53, 43). 27
26 John Forsell, the opera director and also a voice teacher at the opera school in
Stockholm, had real problems deciding whether or not the 17-year-old Jussi Björling
was a tenor because of his baritone resonance, especially in the middle position
(Svanholm 1960, pp. 76-77; cf. early reviews in Bertil Bengtsson: Jussi Björling och
konsertkritiken i Göteborg 1931-1939, 1999, pp. 7, 8, 9).