Erland Hagegård

He made his debut in 1965 on the concert podium and in 1968 on stage (at the Vienna Volksoper) as a baritone. He stayed at the Volksoper until 1971 and spent the next three seasons in Frankfurt; in 1974, he became a member of the Hamburg Staatsoper. Guest appearances at the Vienna Staatsoper (1972), in Stockholm (Germont, 1976) and in Tehran (Danilo, 1976). He sang Papageno, Onegin, Albert, Belcore, Dandini, Graf (Wildschütz), Zar Peter, but also Don Giovanni, Valentin and Escamillo.

In 1977, he decided to switch to tenor, to leave Hamburg and to go on as a freelancer so as to be able to appear more often also on the concert podium without having to ask his theater management for a leave. His first tenor role on stage was Serse at the Drottningholm Festival in 1979. He sang at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm (Rodolfo, Lenskij) and at the festival in Aix-en-Provence (Tamino, 1982).

But obviously, trying to be a tenor didn't do him good, and he terminated his career as early as 1985, although he did later come back for a few lieder recitals. Other than that, he was quite successful as a pop singer and a concert agent.

Reference 1 and picture source: Hagegård's website; reference 2: Kutsch & Riemens