Dorothy Irving

British-Swedish singer (lyrical-dramatic soprano) and singing teacher with interpretation as his specialty, born 23 January 1927 in London, died 2 December 2018. She lived in Sweden from 1960.

She studied cello at the Royal Academy of Music 1939–1941, at London University 1945–1949 and at The National School of Opera 1956–1959 where she studied for Lotte Lehmann, among others.

Irving excelled above all as a romance singer, among other things in close collaboration with Erik Werba and as a performer of newly written repertoire. She was very interested in the communicative aspect of the art profession and gave many courses and Master Class.

Dorothy Irving held a professorship in singing at the Malmö Academy of Music. She was a member of the Royal Academy of Music. She was part of the repertoire group - together with Carin Bartosch Edström, Kjell Ingebretsen and Anders Wiklund - who was responsible for the selection of the Swedish opera anthology: Swedish opera arias 1874–2009 for voice and piano with 147 arias from 89 operas by 54 composers, published by Stims subsidiary Swedish Music Edition Suecia.

Dorothy Irving was married in 1948–1963 to pain and hypnosis specialist Basil Finer (1925–2020), with whom she had a son, the London-born medical writer David Finer in 1949. From 1963 she was then married to the mathematician Lars Fjellstedt (1930–2019), who was a university lecturer. She is also the grandmother of the artist Sarah Dawn Finer.