Ingvar Wixell
Karl Gustaf Ingvar Wixell (May 7, 1931October 8, 2011) was a Swedish baritone who had an active international career in operas and concerts from 1955 to 2003. He mostly sang roles from the Italian repertory, and, according to "The New York Times", "was best known for his steady-toned, riveting portrayals of the major baritone roles of Giuseppe Verdi — among them Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, Amonasro in "Aida", and Germont in "La traviata"". Life and career. Ingvar Wixell was born in Luleå in 1931. After studies at the Stockholm Academy of Music, he made his debut in Gävle in  1952, then in 1955 as Papageno in Mozart's "The Magic Flute" at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm where he was member of the company until 1967. He made his British debut during the Royal Swedish Opera's visit to the Edinburgh International Festival in 1959. Wixell returned with this company to Royal Opera House in 1960, and sang Guglielmo at Glyndebourne and at the Proms in 1962. For the Royal Opera, London he sang Boccanegra in 1972. In America he appeared at Chicago Lyric Opera (Belcore, 1967) and the Metropolitan Opera (Rigoletto, 1973). He was engaged at the  Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1967 where he was a member for more than 30 years. At Salzburg he sang a noted Pizarro at the Festival, where he appeared from 1966 to 1969, and at Bayreuth he sang the Herald in "Lohengrin" (1971). Among other roles, Wixell sang Figaro in Rossini's "The Barber of Seville", Escamillo in Bizet's "Carmen", Amonasro in Verdi's "Aida", Baron Scarpia in Puccini's "Tosca", and the title roles in Verdi's "Rigoletto", "Simon Boccanegra", Mozart's "Don Giovanni", Verdi's "Falstaff" and Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin". Wixell performed all the songs in the  competition to select Sweden's Eurovision Song Contest 1965 entry. The winning song was "Annorstädes Vals" (Elsewhere Waltz), which Wixell went on to perform at the international final in Naples. In a break from the then prevailing tradition, the song was sung in English (as "Absent Friend"). This led to the introduction from 1966 onwards of a rule stipulating that each country's entry must be sung in one of the languages of that country. Wixell ended his career in 2003 by singing the Music teacher in Richard Strauss's "Ariadne auf Naxos" at Malmö Opera. Wixell died in Malmö  on October 8, 2011, aged 80, survived by his wife, Margareta, and their two daughters, Marit and Jette.