Born in 1912 Edith
Oldrup was a leading soprano at the
Danish Royal Opera for a period of fifteen
years from 1934 to 1949. She had studied
with the venerable tenor Vilhelm Herold,
making her stage debut as Michaëla
in Carmen (an extract from the Prayer
is included here, recorded just under
a decade later). She sang in most of
the familiar roles and some less familiar
native ones, as well as making some
films and teaming up with Askel Schiøtz
for some notable recitals, not least
during the wartime occupation (a delightful
souvenir of their work together is the
duet from Hartmann’s Little Kirsten,
a Danish HMV of 1939). Made a Royal
Court singer in 1946 she was fated not
to remain long in her newly elevated
role because in 1949 she married baritone
Sigurd Björling and promptly resigned
her position in Oslo and followed her
Swedish husband to Stockholm. Her concert
and operatic career slowly trailed off
though she did continue to make occasional
appearances back in her native country
but more and more teaching occupied
her time. She made about sixty recordings
on 78 and this selection ranges from
1937 – just a few years after her debut
in Carmen – to 1953, by which time she
had moved to Sweden.
Oldrup had a very light,
well-deployed soprano, somewhat coltish.
It is pretty well supported and on those
occasions when she makes upward extensions
she does so with clarity and no sense
of strain. It’s true that her range
was somewhat limited, at least on the
evidence of these recordings, and she’s
not tested by any overtly technical
demands (though in the acid test of
the Mozart arias she acquits herself
with no little distinction). She has
great clarity of diction and sings with
frequently delightful simplicity – in
fact sometimes with a potentially soubrettish
quality which I find very appealing
– and is capable of vesting expressive
potential with the minimum of vocal
ostentation; a subtle gift and one I
suspect she absorbed from Herold, a
notably intelligent artist.
In the Weyse songs
her runs are bright, her felicitous
affection obvious. She brings out the
Schubertian grace of Der er en Ø
I Livet with cherishable simplicity
but in De klare Bølger
rulled whilst nicely arched and
swelling with lyrical generosity there’s
also a slight lack of colour and expression.
She is charm itself, all soubrette flightiness,
in Heise’s Det var sig Humleranken
(it’s a shame that there are no
texts, in any language, in Danacord’s
booklet) but in the earliest recording
here, the same composer’s Igennem
Bøgeskoven she wanders fractionally
off the note. Her Nielsen songs are
easeful, accompanied by the ever-excellent
Folmer Jensen, and as she shows in Solveig’s
Song (there’s an interesting anecdote
in the booklet concerning Herold’s visit
to Grieg and this song in particular)
she is quite capable of extension at
the top when required. Susanna’s aria
from The Marriage of Figaro is accompanied
by the Italian stalwart in Denmark,
Egisto Tango. The recording itself is
rather recessed but we can still admire
Oldrup’s freedom and naturalness. Her
duet with Nørby is good if not
outstanding but her Michaëla full
of breathless charm and floated tenderness.
Her Mimi is certainly chaste, excellent
technically and rather attractive.
The booklet notes are,
with the exception of lack of texts,
informative and the transfers by Claus
Byrith have been carried out with skill
and fidelity. This is a fine and timely
salute to a notable adornment of Danish
musical life.
Jonathan Woolf
Royal Danish Orchestra, Tivoli Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Egisto Tango, Johan
Hye-Knudsen and Svend Christian Felumb