Nicolai Gedda was born Harry Gustaf Nikolai Gädda in Stockholm, Sweden on July 11, 1925. After finishing high school, he took a job as a bank clerk in Stockholm and earned extra money as a wedding singer. Through a customer at the bank, he was introduced to the tenor Carl Martin Ohman. He began taking lessons with Ohman and later studied at what is now the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.
Gedda made his operatic debut at the age of 26 as the coachman Chapelou in Adolphe Adam's Le Postillon de Lonjumeau with the Royal Swedish Opera. He sang 367 performances with the Metropolitan Opera, from his debut in the title role of Gounod's Faust in 1957 to his final performance, as Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata, in 1983. One of his most famous roles was as Lensky, the young poet in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. His memoir, Nicolai Gedda: My Life and Art, was co-written with his third wife Aino Sellermark Gedda. He died after a heart attack on January 8, 2016 at the age of 91.
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