Håkan Hagegård


Nils Olov Håkan Hagegård is a Swedish operatic baritone.

Life and career

In 1967 Hagegård started to attend the class for soloists at the State College of Music at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm. After finishing his studies, he made his début at the Royal Opera, Stockholm in 1968 as Papageno. This same role brought him international acclaim in the Igmar Bergmann televisions film of the opera.
In 1970 he made his first appearance at the Drottningholm Theatre as Pacuvio in Rossini's La Pietra del Paragone. Since 1970 Håkan Hagegård has been attached to the Royal Opera, Stockholm, and his operatic repertoire includes numerous roles, such roles as Malatesta, Guglielmo, Count Almaviva, Figaro, Rodrigo and Wolfram.
Hagegård studied Lieder interpretation with both Erik Werba and Gerald Moore, and made his debut as a Lieder singer in Stockholm in 1970, singing Schubert's Die Winterreise. He has since given Lieder recitals all over Europe, has appeared with the leading orchestras of his native Scandinavia and America, and in many major musical centres including London, Madrid and Salzburg. He has made several recordings, including Die Zauberflöte, and Operatic Recital, and the Philips recording of La Bohème in which he sings the role of Schaunard.
He has performed on stages around the world, including Carnegie Hall, the London Royal Opera House, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Sydney Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, and the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. He sang the baritone solos in choral conductor Robert Shaw's acclaimed and highly popular 1980 recording of Carmina Burana, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. In 1985 he was appointed vocalist to King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. He was the Senior Lecturer in Music at the Indiana University Bloomington School of Music. Hagegård also held a Professorship in Vocal Studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, Norway.
He has premiered notable song cycles by such prominent composers as Dominick Argento and Stephen Paulus.

Honours

In 1996, Hagegård received the International Scandinavian Cultural Award from the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame, held during .

Discography