Only six of the fifty-three theatrical works Björling sang during his three-decade adult career were composed by Verdi, but these half-dozen roles account for a quarter (222) of all his operatic performances. He was in his early twenties when he made his debut in Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, Un ballo in maschera, and Aida, and with the exception of Traviata these works were still in his repertoire twenty years later. By the 1950s indeed these four operas, along with Don Carlo, represented nearly half his active stage repertoire. Yet in spite of his progressive specialization in the roles he found most congenial, Björling is seldom the first name that springs to mind when making a list of Verdi tenors. This has much to do with the fact that he was neither Italian by birth nor professionally based in Italy, where performing traditions were naturally more idiomatic than elsewhere. Although Björling was engaged for an epoch-making revival of Don Carlo at the Met in 1950, he was never actively involved in rediscovering neglected works by Verdi: he performed no music from any of the operas composed before 1850 and had no part in the Stockholm production of the rarely-heard Simon Boccanegra in the early 1940s. Nor did he make a point of reinstating traditionally-cut cabalettas or opening up internal excisions in the music he did sing. This is not really surprising, for interest in “neglected masterpieces” and the integrity of the score only gained real momentum after Björling's death, when it became quite clear that no Italian composer born since 1900 could match the audience appeal of the great masters of romantic opera and verismo.