At first a church organist and singer, Swedish tenor Set Svanholm in 1929 became a pupil of John Forsell at the Stockholm Conservatory opera school. In 1930 he had made his debut with the Swedish Royal Opera in the baritone roles of Silvio and Rossini’s Figaro, and in 1937 he was engaged by the company. In 1936 he had made his tenor debut as Radames, and he subsequently took on such heavy tenor parts as Otello, Siegmund, Parsifal and Tristan. He sang at Salzburg and Vienna (1938), Berlin, Budapest and Milan (1941-42) and Bayreuth (1942). In Sweden his repertory included Manrico, Canio, Florestan, Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos), Idomeneus, Tristan and the Ring tenor roles. In 1946 he sang Peter Grimes in the Swedish premiere of Britten’s opera. In the same year he visited North and South America, singing Siegfried at the Metropolitan. At Covent Garden he sang regularly from 1948 to 1957, notably as Lohengrin and Siegfried. His performances were admired for intelligence, musicianship and stamina, as his recordings as Siegfried, Tristan and Loge (in Solti’s Ring) confirm. He was director of the Swedish Royal Opera from 1956 to 1963 and introduced several contemporary operas, among them The Turn of the Screw, Mathis der Maler and The Rake’s Progress. (Carl L. Bruun and Alan Blyth)