| With just 4 days to go until the Birgit Nilsson Prize 2025 is revealed on May 21, this year’s Stipendium has been announced. Swedish Soprano Karolina Bengtsson will receive the scholarship worth 250.000 SEK (ca. 25.000 US dollars) when she performs in Birgit’s “own” Västra Karup church on August 8. |
| Created by Birgit Nilsson in 1969, in memory of her first teacher Ragnar Blennow, the Stipendium was first presented in 1973. Karolina becomes the 48th young Swedish singer to receive the annual award this summer, following in the footsteps of predecessors such as Hillevi Martinpelto, Nina Stemme, Anna Larsson, Malin Byström and Christina Nilsson. |
| “What an honour! It is an incredible feeling to be awarded the prestigious Birgit Nilsson Stipendium” said Karolina on receiving the news. “In addition to the honour, it is also recognition – a reinforcing boost to continue following my dreams. My deepest thanks”. |
| Karolina Bengtson has recently established herself internationally with engagements at Oper Frankfurt and Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. At this year’s Birgit Nilsson Festival she will give her Stipendium Recital and perform the role of Priestess in an open air concert performance of Verdi’s Aida at the Båstad Tennis Stadium. She also makes her debut at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence as Camille in the new production of Charpentier’s Louise and at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music as Dori in Traetta’s Iphigenia in Tauride. |
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| Karolina Bengtsson photo credit: Mimmi Holmberg |
| Since the start of the 2023/24 season Karolina Bengtsson has been engaged in the soloist ensemble at Oper Frankfurt where she has performed roles such as Silvia in a new production of Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba, Belisa in Wolfgang Fortner’s In seinem Garten liebt Don Perlimplin Belisa and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. This season she made her debut with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. |
| Together with violinist Malin Broman and Musica Vitae, Karolina has premiered Death and Juliet, a work by composer Daniel Nelson with libretto by Tuva-Lisa Rangström. Her concert repertoire embraces a wide range of lieder, concert and oratorio arias, from works including Haydn’s Die Schöpfung, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Lars-Erik Larsson’s God in Disguise. |
| Karolina Bengtsson studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where her teachers were Barbara Bonney and Wolfgang Holzmair in lieder interpretation and Gaiva Bandzinaite in role preparation. She sang her first Pamina at the Mozarteum in Salzburg in 2021. She has previously received First Prize – the Golden Victoria – at the DEBUT International Singing Competition 2020 and Best Young Artist Award at the international Meistersinger von Nürnberg competition 2022. |
| The Stipendium is awarded by the Birgit Nilsson Stipendium Stiftelsen, whose chairman Bengt Hall, will present the scholarship at the recital in the church of Västra Karup on August 8. The concert is part of the Birgit Nilsson Festival 2025. 21 May 11:00 CEST Announcement at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, Stockholm Follow the announcement live here: www.youtube.com/live |
