#Renée Björling

[byneddiedingo]

Eva Dahlbeck and Gunnar Björnstrand in A Lesson in Love (Ingmar Bergman, 1954) Cast: Eva Dahlbeck, Gunnar Björnstrand, Yvonne Lombard, Harriet Andersson, Åke Grönberg, Olof Winnerstrand, Renée Björling, Göran Lundquist. Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman. Cinematography: Martin Bodin. Production design: P.A. Lundgren. Film editing: Oscar Rosander. Music: Dag Wirén.  In A Lesson in Love, Ingmar Bergman seems to be trying to turn Eva Dahlbeck into Carole Lombard. She certainly has Lombard's blond glamour, and she makes a surprising go at knockabout comedy. But where Lombard had the light touch of a Howard Hawks or an Ernst Lubitsch to guide her in her best work, Dahlbeck is in the hands of Bergman, whose touch no one has ever called light. A year later, the Bergman-Dahlbeck collaboration would make a better impression with Smiles of a Summer Night, but A Lesson in Love sometimes verges on smirkiness in its treatment of the marriage of Marianne (Dahlbeck) and David Erneman (Gunnar Björnstrand). They are on the verge of divorce and she is about to marry her old flame Carl-Adam (Åke Grönberg), a sculptor for whom she once posed. David is a gynecologist who has had a series of flings with other women, including Susanne (Yvonne Lombard), with whom he is trying to break up. But Marianne has not exactly been faithful to their vows either. Meanwhile, we also get to know their children, Nix (Harriet Andersson) and her bratty little brother, Pelle (Göran Lundquist), and David's parents (Olof Winnerstrand and Renée Björling), who in sharp contrast to Marianne and David are celebrating 50 years of marriage. While Bergman sharply delineates all of these characters -- especially 15-year-old Nix, who hates being a girl so much that she asks her father if he can perform sex-change operations -- the semi-farcical situation he puts them has a kind of aimless quality to it. I appreciated Andersson's performance as Nix the more for having seen her as the dying Agnes in Bergman's Cries and Whispers (1972), but in this film her role makes no clear dramatic sense. 

[beautifulactres]

Renée Björling (1898-1975)

[simone-boccanegra]

For the opera character thing, can you do Tatyana, Otello, Tosca, Cavaradossi, and Lensky?

Tatyana: I haven’t seen it enough times to have a top 5, but Renée and Galina Vishnyevskaya are definitely my top choices. 

I’d like to see Yoncheva is this role (has she done it)?

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Otello: I’ve seen 3-4 different Otellos with D*mingo (the bastard was a great Otello but the blackface is Unfortunate), obviously Del Monaco was the ultimate volcano powerhouse,  Jonas is good but I feel like he’s holding back / a bit intimidated by the role,  and I don’t know of black Heldentenors other than Russell Thomas (@COC why didn’t you fuckin film it with him and Finley?)

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Tosca: frankly, no one can compete with Callas

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Cavaradossi: Jonas is perfection, Di Stefano was beautiful, Björling was an angel, sadly again the two original location movies had D*mingo who back then was great but should just Fuck Off currently. I’d love to see Castronovo (presumably he has it in his rep?)

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Lensky: old movie Lensky was an actor but had the Perfect Look. Korchak and Breslik are each ideal in voice and look. I’d LOVE to see Flórez in this role. 

[ozu-teapot]

En lektion i kärlek (A Lesson in Love) | Ingmar Bergman | 1954

Harriet Andersson (with Renée Björling and Göran Lundquist)

[byneddiedingo]

Maj-Britt Nilsson in Summer Interlude (Ingmar Bergman, 1951) Cast: Maj-Britt Nilsson, Birger Malmsten, Alf Kjellin, Annalisa Ericson, Georg Funkquist, Stig Olin, Mimi Pollak, Renée Björling, Gunnar Olsson. Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman, Herbert Grevenius. Cinematography: Gunnar Fischer. Production design: Nils Svenwall. Film editing: Oscar Rosander. Music: Erik Nordgren. Maj-Britt Nilsson gives a stunning performance as the ballerina haunted by death -- both the literal death of the young man with whom she once had the titular summer interlude and the slow death of her career, which depends on the youthful vitality she can feel beginning to slip away. Like Ingmar Bergman's earlier To Joy (1950), which starred Nilsson and many of the same actors, it's a fable about art and life, about the conflict of the public persona of a career with the personal needs of an intimate relationship. Unlike To Joy, in which Nilsson's character is subordinate to that of her musician husband, Bergman has shifted the focus to the woman -- a focus that he would maintain for most of his remaining career. Summer Interlude may be his first great film, and Nilsson's ability to move from the winsome young Marie -- sometimes evoking the young Audrey Hepburn -- to the toughened, successful prima ballerina is remarkable. Perhaps the most startling moment comes when the older Marie removes her stage makeup, which has the effect of making her look older and harder, to reveal the remaining traces of the younger woman -- a fine reversal of the usual film trope of removing the makeup to reveal the effects of aging.