Graarud, Gunnar

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Graarud, Gunnar

Graarud, Gunnar, Norwegian tenor; b. Holm-estrand, near Christiania, June 1, 1886; d. Stuttgart, Dec. 6, 1960. He was a student in Berlin of Husler and Zawilowski. Following his operatic debut in Kaiserslautern in 1919, he sang at the Mannheim National Theater (1920-22), the Berlin Volksoper (1922-25), the Hamburg Opera (1926-28), the Bayreuth Festivals (from 1927), and the Vienna State Opera (1928-37). He also was a guest artist in London, Paris, Milan, and Salzburg. Among his best roles were Tristan, Siegmund, Parsifal, and Siegfried.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire