In full sail: Ida Ränzlöv and the heritage of Birgit Nilsson

Back in May, Ida Ränzlöv shared with Bachtrack readers the honour she felt after being awarded the 2023 Birgit Nilsson Stipendium. Currently based in Stuttgart as a member of the Staatsoper company there, the mezzo-soprano explained what she would do with the prize money of SEK200,000 – more specialist study and training – and announced the kind of repertoire she would sing at her awards-ceremony recital: “A programme that mirrors my opera career so far, and some songs I like by Strauss and Dvořák, to get in some Czech, and obviously some Wagner, to celebrate Birgit.”

In the event, she delivered on her promise – and as Franz Kuznik observes, there is more than promise, a bud in early season, to Ränzlöv. On an initial hearing, it was not easy to determine the scale of her voice within the generous acoustics of the church at Västa Karup, where Nilsson sang in the choir at as a teenager. Ränzlöv filled it, at any rate, with her charisma, transforming the whitewashed walls and Lutheran setting into the sultry grunge of Lillas Pastia’s inn with Carmen’s second-act chanson.

A bouquet of Richard Strauss, from Sehnsucht to Octavian’s “Wie du warst”, displayed the length of her voice (and her German) to advantage. Ränzlöv phrases generously, with reserves of breath and tone to support an urgently communicative intelligence. Heimliche Aufforderung assumed a gravity at odds with the carefree extravagance of its text, but belonged to the occasion and the context, just as she launched Zueignung with the dignity of a galleon under sail, and proceeded to imbue a sequence of Dvořák’s Gypsy Songs, Op.55 with a fierce, almost sacred intensity of expression.

Magnus Svensson gave her a break in the meanwhile with a pair of solo-piano rarities from the verismo pen of Cilea. He expertly teased out Tristan allusions within a dreamy Romanza before throwing caution to the winds with the tarantella-like Seconda Danza. Ränzlöv rounded the recital off in high style with another dramatic entrance to Rossini’s “Un voce poco fa” – she is a creature of the stage who commands the space and draws in the audience to her. Though Ränzlöv began her career as a soprano, it would not be entirely surprising if she returned upwards within a few years: on the strength of this recital, and the encore of “Schmerzen” from Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder, she is not one of life’s natural Brangänes.

"With her well-focused voice,” announced the jury in their citation, “Ida Ränzlöv uniquely communicates both intense warmth and icy coolness. Her mezzo has a Nordic timbre that has already made an impression on the international opera world. In addition, her music-making is heartfelt, communicative and reflective. All this makes her a worthy recipient of the Birgit Nilsson Stipendium.” In so far as this taster recital went, it demonstrated the wisdom of the four-strong jury’s choice, even if the notion of a “Nordic timbre” can more readily be recognised in the hearing than the description of it. Ränzlöv will surely be coming to a stage near you before long.

Read Frank Kuznik’s interview with Ida Ränzlöv here

Peter’s press trip was funded by the Birgit Nilsson Stipendium