The Swedish tenor Rickard Söderberg begins this season with An Evening with Thalia, gala performances featuring operetta classics. Last season Rickard appeared in Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers as L’Opinion publique at Malmö Opera. He has also been on tour in Sweden with a staged jubilee production for Malmö Opera where he, except for his participation in the performances, also has produced the script. In 2019 Rickard was a guest at Folkoperan in Stockholm, where he appeared in the role of the Doctor in Annelies Van Pary's contemporary opera Usher.
Rickard Söderberg studied at the Danish Opera Academy in Copenhagen with Kirsten Buhl Möller, Tonny Landy, Anthony Rolfe Johnsson and Fiona McSherry. Already during his studies his career took off with appearances in concerts with major Scandinavian symphony orchestras and in roles like Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Egeo in Cavalli’s Giasone.
Rickard has previously has appeared at the Malmö Opera in roles like Sellem in The Rake’s Progress, Chevalier de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites, Goro in Madama Butterfly, Chefstekniker 2 in Aniara by Karl Birger Blomdahl, Max Westleton/Clem in Britten’s Let’s Make an Opera!/The Little Sweep, Duke of Cornwall in Aribert Reimann’s Lear and the title role in Idomeneo (in concert). He sang his first Loge in Das Rheingold in the acclaimed Nibelungens Ring production at the Wermland Opera. During the summer of 2012 he appeared in the title role of Haydn’s Orlando Paladino at the Drottningholm Court Theater.
Rickard Söderberg has sung roles like Oronte in Alcina, Lurcanio in Ariodante, the title roles of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and J. C. Bach’s Temistocle, Ritornello in Grassman’s L’Opera Seria, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at Oper Leipzig, the Drottningholm Court Theatre, in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Toulouse and elsewhere. In 2006 Rickard Söderberg received the Swedish Wagner Society Scholarship as a result of successfully adding heavier roles to his repertoire, like Steuerman and Erik in Der fliegende Holländer as well as Balzar Horn in Die Meistersänger von Nürnberg. He has also appeared as Don José in Carmen, Lenskij in Eugene Onegin and Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus.
Equally at home at the concert platform Rickard Söderberg sings the tenor parts in works like Handel’s Messiah and Saul, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Mozart’s Requiem and C-minor Mass, Haydn’s Creation as well as Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, Saint-Saëns’ Requiem and Gounod’s Mors et vita. He is a dedicated lieder interpreter and performs song by Schubert, Schumann and others.
Rickard Söderberg has also made a name for himself as a dedicated spokesperson for LGBT and environmental issues and has actively through Greenpeace helped free captive activists out of Russia. Through his charismatic persona and dedication to human rights issues he has become a much desired and respected guest and host in Swedish media and Television.