Margareta Hallin

Gunhild Margareta Hallin Ekerot (20 February 1931 – 9 February 2020) was a Swedish opera singer, composer and actress. Early life and debut Hallin was born on 20 February 1931, in Karlskoga. Hallin’s voice has been described as a coloratura soprano. She was considered to have the talent required for the international scene, but she chose to stay in Sweden. Her opera roles in the 1950s to 1970s included the blind poetess in Karl-Birger Blomdahl’s Aniara, Anne Trulove in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, the title role in Verdi’s La traviata, Therese in Lars Johan Werle’s Drömmen om Thérèse, and the Queen Mother in Georg Joseph Vogler’s Gustaf Adolf och Ebba Brahe. Hallin also performed in Glyndebourne, Florence, Vienna, Hamburg, Moscow, London and Copenhagen, as well as making a tour in the Soviet Union. In the mid-1980s, she started composing music. Encouraged by composer Eberhard Eyser, she made her debut in 1986 with poems set to music. The poems were by Nils Ferlin, Harry Martinson, Werner Aspenström and Alf Henrikson – she performed a medley of these in the Drottningholm Palace Church. She was elected as a member of the Swedish Society of Composers in 1990 and was awarded the h