Few classical singers can rival the illustrious pedigree of Anne Sofie von Otter. Her CV glitters with collaborations with the world's finest conductors, including John Eliot Gardiner, Claudio Abbado, James Levine and Pierre Boulez, while her repertoire spans the five centuries between Renaissance mastermind Claudio Monteverdi and the contemporary Swedish composer Sven-David Sandstrom.

Her international engagements stretch ahead into 2009.
Yet her early love was pop music. "I never wanted to be an opera singer," she claims, sipping tea in a small alcove in Helsinki's plush Hotel Kamp.

The multi-lingual daughter of a Swedish diplomat, she projects a regal aura and speaks better English than most BBC newsreaders.

Musical personality

"I thought that was terribly contrived and silly. I could see myself, in another life, as all kinds of singers, singing pop or jazz or musicals. I had Julie Andrews days, and I had Barbra Streisand days, too. Then I started singing lessons, and I ended up with a teacher who taught me to sing classically."

The night before, von Otter had paraded her alternative musical personality with a performance in the Huvila Festival Tent, as part of the Helsinki Festival.

Surrounded by a band of Swedish rock and folk musicians and her faithful pianist Bengt Forsberg, she previewed her new album, I Let the Music Speak, a collection of songs by Abba's Benny Andersson.

In the second half, she mixed songs from her 2001 collaboration with Elvis Costello, For the Stars, with some Kurt Weill pieces and French chanson.

Although von Otter tackles such Abba standards as Money, Money, Money and The Winner Takes It All, anyone addicted to the group's kitschy wall-of-sound arrangements may feel short-changed by her restrained approach, let alone her disappointing avoidance of Agnetha and Anni-Frid's Spandex catsuits.

She fares better with lesser-known Andersson pieces, stunningly so on the heartrending I Walk With You, Mama, an imaginary conversation between a daughter and her dead mother.

Burned previously by harsh criticism of her Costello collaboration, she foresaw the possible repercussions of this new adventure, although she has been buoyed by supportive album reviews in the Swedish papers.

"Criticism adds an element of cautiousness or hesitation, and it can make you think that these projects are too much hard work," she reflects.

"Elvis Costello gets really angry — he leaves the room if journalists ask an impertinent question, he's had enough of it."

Besides, Forsberg, her regular classical accompanist, has never shrunk from pointing out what he considers her errors in judgment.

"Bengt was never a big Benny Andersson or Abba fan like I was, or even a pop fan," reports Anne Sofie, whose teens were soundtracked by the Beatles and Crosby Stills & Nash.

"His taste is slightly more complex, and he has a very analytical ear. Like the stupid singer I am, I just listen in a completely one-dimensional way. But for Bengt to hear something as simple and unscholarly as a Benny Andersson song, containing parallel fifths or other things you shouldn't do, he will say it's not good. But I don't want a slave. We have these fights but they're always creative."

It's the fractious Forsberg's view that "the way I sing Kurt Weill songs, with the huge screaming and shouting, he'd like to see more of that in some Andersson songs.

"Maybe he's right, but I like to keep them quite soft because I think they sound nice like that."

Her record label, Deutsche Grammophon, wasn't slow to spot the commercial potential of recording Andersson's material, though Anne Sofie notes that, while the idea initially provoked surprise, "nobody asks you why you want to record Schubert.

"Some Schubert songs are genius, but some are pretty mainstream if you ask me, but nobody says that. I think Benny Andersson is a great and genuine musician, with a wonderful sense of harmony. I think he'll still be a well-known name long after his death."

She has no quarrel with the commercial logic whereby "crossover" projects subsidise strictly classical recordings, but managed to restrain DG's more lurid commercial instincts.

More tasteful

"They wanted 'ABBA' in big letters on the sleeve, but now they only have a little sticker saying, 'A selection of Abba songs'. But I think I Let the Music Speak is an excellent title. It doesn't milk the Abba cow too much; it's slightly more tasteful."

The crammed von Otter schedule continues to roll on, and there's already another CD visible over the horizon in the shape of her forthcoming Christmas album.

"I'm so happy with this Christmas disc. I've listened to it a lot, just for pleasure," she enthuses.

"It's a mixture of songs written for piano and voice, and Bengt plays seven solo pieces for piano. We all know there are a lot of awful Christmas discs, but this is a true classical Christmas album."

By Adam Sweeting, The Telegraph Group Limited

Articles from the author

Opera diva who sings Abba