Fanny Elsta

Fanny Rebekka Elstad (26 April 1899 – 4 February 1978) was a Norwegian opera singer and founder of the Bergen International Festival.

Early life Fanny Rebekka Elstad was born on 26 April 1899 to engineer and mineralogist Sigvard Elstad (1870–1928) and midwife Martha Winhuus (1864–1940) in Christiania (now Oslo), but grew up in Ås, Akershus. She was the youngest of three sisters. Her father's ambitious plans to earn money from precious stones and metals did not materialise, and he lived in the United States for most of Elsta's childhood, while her mother supported the family by running a boarding house. Elsta also received financial support from her sister's father-in-law, farmer and factory owner Hans Hoelstad, which allowed her to take singing lessons with Mally Lammers in Christiania from 1920 to 1924.

Career

Her debut concert was at the University Aula (a performance and exhibition hall at the University of Oslo) on 24 February 1924. She sang songs by Franz Schubert and Thorvald Lammers, and her performance was well received. Elsta then received a grant from the Lammers Fund, and she further developed with voice with Ellen Gulbranson as her teacher. She would also later study with Antonino Votto in Milan and with Sara Cahier from 1935. After the composer Bruno Walter took an interest in her, Elsta was contracted to sing at the Vienna State Opera from 1936 to 1937. She also performed several times at the Salzburg Festival and at the Bayreuth Festival from 1938 to 1939.

In addition to this, she performed concert tours both in Norway and abroad, as well as a tour in the United States in 1947. Among her famous roles were Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Erda in Das Rheingold, Fricka in Die Walküre, Walture in Götterdämmerung, Kundry in Parsifal and Amneris in Aida.

In 1950, she published the book Boken om Ellen Gulbranson.

Later life and death Elsta retired in the 1950s and spent her retirement in Oslo. She received the gold King's Medal of Merit in 1957.

Elsta died on 4 February 1978, at the age of 78 in Oslo.