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Nicolai Gedda -- possessor of one of the widest-ranging repertoires ever, phenomenal technique, and a bright, resonant voice with clarion high notes and a seductive mezza voice -- had one of the finest singing careers of the 20th century. He excelled in music of English, French, German, Italian, Russian, American, and Swedish composers, and was equally adept in traversing styles from the Baroque to the contemporary; he was as noted a performer of oratorio and songs as of opera. His performances were masterpieces of authentic style, from language and diction to phrasing. While performing Samuel Barber's Vanessa, in which he created the role of Anatol, critics consistently acclaimed his diction as the finest in the cast, even though he shared the stage with Rosalind Elias and Eleanor Steber -- both native speakers of English.

Gedda's father was Russian, his mother Swedish, and in 1929 his parents moved to Leipzig, where his father became cantor and choirmaster of a Russian Orthodox Church. As a child he sang in the church and performed Russian songs at weddings and parties. Having no wish to remain in Germany as the Nazi party rose to power, the family returned to Sweden in 1934.

As a teenager, he developed a strong ambition to become an opera singer, but unable to come up with the money to fund his studies, he became a bank teller, though he continued to participate in singing competitions. A wealthy bank client who was also an instrumentalist with the Stockholm Opera happened to hear Gedda mention his aspirations, and asked Karl-Martin Oehmann, a music teacher who had himself been an operatic tenor, to take him on as a pupil. Gedda later credited the development of his spectacular technique to Oehmann's teaching. Shortly thereafter, he won the Christine Nielsson Scholarship, which enabled him to begin music studies at the Stockholm Conservatory as a full time pupil in 1950.

In 1952, Gedda's recording and performing careers began simultaneously. Walter Legge, the famous producer for EMI, was in Sweden, and agreed to audition some of the students. He was immediately bowled over by Gedda's voice, musicianship, and technique; given that Gedda spoke fluent Russian, he signed him on the spot to take on the role of Dmitri in his upcoming recording of Boris Godunov, starring Boris Christoff -- all despite the fact that Gedda had yet to make his stage debut (which came only a short time later, in a production of Adolphe Adam's Le Postillon de Lonjumeau)! This began a lifelong association with EMI.

He made his La Scala debut in the 1952-1953 season as Don Ottavio (Mozart's Don Giovanni), and Carl Orff asked him to create the role of the Bridegroom in Il Trionfo dell'Afrodite; his Paris Opera debut in 1954 was as Huon in Weber's Oberon, and his Covent Garden debut in 1954 was as the Duke of Mantua. These were soon followed by debuts at Salzburg (Don Ottavio, 1957) and the Metropolitan Opera (Faust).

His life-long association with EMI made him one of the most widely-recorded tenors, though in the compact disc era, EMI had been rather dilatory in re-releasing many of his recordings.

Jane Berbié became one of the most popular French mezzo-sopranos of the middle part of the twentieth century. She had a distinctive, saucy, and playful stage presence that made her a natural for ingenue parts and "trousers" roles in comic operas.

Her small French hometown is near Toulouse, where she studied at the Conservatory. She won prizes not only for singing, but also for some of the more academic and theoretical musical subjects.

Berbié was well known as a concert and recital singer, and excelled in a wide range of repertory. She was very early among important singers to add early Baroque repertory such as songs of Monteverdi to her programs, but French nineteenth-century song, plus songs of Roussel, Ravel, and Satie were among the most important.

She made her operatic debut in two roles in Ravel's opera L'Enfant et les sortiléges at La Scala in 1958. She participated in two recordings of the opera, including the classic Lorin Maazel recording on Deutsche Grammophon, in which she sang the roles of the Sofa, the Shepherdess, the female Cat, and the Squirrel. Her signature role was likely that of the lively young wife, Concepción, in Ravel's L'heure espagnole, which she also recorded on DG with Maazel.

She joined the roster of the Paris Opéra in 1959, debuting as Mercedes in Carmen. She was highly regarded in the soubrette roles in the three Mozart-Da Ponte operas: Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Despina (Così fan tutte), and Marcellina (Nozze di Figaro). An appearance in the last-named of these was one of the most notable occasions of her career, as she was chosen to play it in the 1973 Paris Opéra performance inaugurating the administration there of Rolf Liebermann.

Once it became the fashion to return the role of Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville to its original mezzo-soprano register, Berbié excelled in this part also, and chose it for her Covent Garden debut in June, 1971. She continued to sing actively into the 1990s, and participated in an important recording of Roussel's Padmavati in the late 1980s.

Georges Prêtre was one of the leading conductors of the last half of the 20th century, especially known for operatic conducting and performances of French music. He studied trumpet as a boy, graduating from the Douai Conservatory. Nazi occupation of Paris did not substantially interfere with the teaching activities of the famous Paris Conservatory, where Prêtre continued his musical studies. He took first prize in trumpet in 1944 and studied harmony with Henri Challan and Maurice Duruflé. He began studying conducting with André Cluytens, Pierre Dervaux, and Richard Blareau. His conducting debut was in operetta, a fact that eluded biographers since he used the assumed name of Georges Dherain.

His official conducting debut was at the Marseilles Opera in 1946, in Lalo's Le Roi d'Ys. He spent a decade primarily in provincial French opera houses: Marseilles (1946-1948), Lille (1948), Casablanca (1949-1951), and Toulouse (1951-1955). He was appointed music director of the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1956, debuting with Richard Strauss' Capriccio and conducting a wide variety of repertory there. He made his American conducting debut at the Chicago Lyric Opera in 1958. By 1960, he had become well-known and was selected by composer Francis Poulenc, who selected Prêtre to conduct the premiere of Le voix humaine (1959) and was highly esteemed for his performances of Poulenc's full-length opera Dialogues de Carmelites. He also led the premiere of the Sept répons des ténèbres (1963).

In 1959, he joined the staff of the Paris Opéra, becoming music director in 1966. He debuted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1961), the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1965), and La Scala (1965). During this period he became a conductor often requested by opera superstar Maria Callas. He frequently returned to the Met and La Scala, especially known for his French repertory.

His concert conducting career also advanced during this period. Over the years he conducted most of the important orchestras of Europe and America, and in 1962 was appointed deputy director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1971, the Paris Opéra's periodic political problems erupted into a huge backstage dispute that closed the Opéra for several months, during which Prêtre left the company.

Since that painful experience, Prêtre most frequently worked outside of France. He became principal guest conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 1986, holding that post through 1991, when he was named one of its honorary conductors for life. In 1995, he became artistic director and principal conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Among his world premieres were Symphony No. 4 by Marcel Landowski (1988) and Concerto for 15 Soloists and Orchestra by Françaix (1990).

In 1999, he conducted a major series of concerts in Paris in honor of the 100th anniversary of Poulenc's birth.