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August Bournonville: Scattered Reminiscences in Honor of the Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth (1905)

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1081/dnc-200061519

1532-4257

Patricia McAndrew,

History of Science and Natural History

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments Editors' Note: Part One appeared in Vol. 28, No. 1 and Part Three will appear in Vol. 28, No. 3. The translations retain Charlotte's spelling of names and notes marked “CB” are hers. Notes Edvard Helsted (1816–1900) composed the scores for Kirsten Piil or Two Midsummer Festivals (Kirstin Piil eller To Midsommerfester, 1845) and Psyche (1850), and contributed to The Toreador (Toreadoren, 1850), Napoli (1842), and Flower Festival in Genzano (Blomsterfesten i Genzano, 1858). Hermann Løvenskjold (1815–70) composed the scores for La Sylphide (Sylfiden, 1836) and The New Penelope (Den Nye Penelope, 1847). August Winding (1835–99) and Emil Hartmann (1836–98, the son of J. P. E. Hartmann) each composed one act of The Mountain Hut (Fjelstuen, 1859). Joseph Glæser (1835–91) composed and arranged the score for Far From Denmark (Fjernt fra Danmark, 1860) with Lumbye and Lincke. Johannes Frederik Frølich (1806–60) composed the scores for Waldemar (1835) and Raphael(Rafael, 1843) and collaborated on The Childhood of Erik Menved (Erik Menveds Barndom, 1845). Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817–90) composed the first and third acts of A Folk Tale (Et Folkesagn, 1854) and J. P. E. Hartmann the second act. Holger Paulli composed and arranged the scores for Conservatoriet (1849) and The Kermesse in Bruges (1851) and collaborated on Napoli (1842) and Flower Festival in Genzano (1858). Rossini's Il Barbieri di Siviglia (Barberen i Seville) was first performed in Copenhagen on September 14, 1822, in Danish, translated by T. Thaarup, and in German on May 10, 1825. Bournonville and Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75) were friends from their youth. Bournonville mounted several operas and plays based on Andersen's libretti and drew inspiration from his fairy tales for several ballets. Wilhelm (or Vilhelm) Christian Holm (1820–66) contributed to a number of Bournonville's ballets, including the first scene of La Ventana (1856), Pontemolle (1866), and The King's Volunteer Guards on Amager—An Episode from 1808 (Livjægerne på Amager, 1871), while a divertissement written for the 1873 production of La Muette de Portici has been inserted in The Kermesse in Bruges, or The Three Gifts(Kermesse i Brügge, eller De Tre Gåfvorna, 1858). Carl Christian Møller (1823–74) wrote the score for Bournonville's last large-scale ballet, From Siberia to Moscow (Fra Sibieren til Moskou, 1876). Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–74), Denmark's leading composer of light music, contributed to many of Bournonville's ballets and divertissements, such as the finale to The King's Volunteer Guards on Amager, while his pieces were used for a number of single dances. Meir Aron Goldschmidt (1819–87) was a Danish writer, editor, and critic who founded the radical journal Corsaren (1840) and then Nord og Syd (1847), and wrote a number of novels and short stories, often on the position of Jews in Danish society, as well as his memoirs, Livs Erindringer og Resultater (1877). The one-act allegorical ballet Psyche, based on Frederik Paludan-Müller's Amor og Psyche, with a score composed and arranged by Edvard Helsted, had its premiere on May 7, 1850, and told the familiar story of Cupid and Psyche. The allusion is presumably to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Antigone for male choir and orchestra, op. 55, as excerpts from it were performed at Musikforeningen (The Music Society) in Copenhagen at concerts in 1850 and 1852. Bournonville's homage to the recently deceased Goethe, Faust, with a score composed and arranged by Philip Ludwig Keck, had its premiere on April 24, 1832. The Conservatoire, or A Proposal of Marriage Through the Newspapers (Conservatoriet, eller Et Avisfieri), with a score composed and arranged by Holger Paulli, had its premiere on May 6, 1849. Carl Steen Bille (1828–98) was the editor of the Copenhagen newspaper Dagbladet . The Danish poet Christian Knud Fredrik Molbech (1821–88) was Professor of Literature in Kiel from 1853 to 1864 and from 1871 to 1881 censor at the Royal Theatre. Erik Bøgh (1822–99) was a Danish writer and critic. The Lay of Thrym (Thrymsqviden), with music by Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann, had its premiere on February 21, 1868. In Norse mythology Jormungand, the Midgårdsormen, or Midgard Serpent (an offspring of Loke [Loki] and the giantess Angrboda), is a terrible snake encircling Midgaard, the World of Men, and biting his own tail (the Ouroboros). The serpent features in The Lay of Thrym, with this snake and the god Thor killing each other, and Bøgh may be alluding to a mishap during a performance of the ballet or that, a play on “biting its own tail,” it was hard to swallow. Baron Eugène Oscar Ludwig von Stedingk (1825–71) was director of the Stockholm Royal Theatre from 1861 to 1866. Nils Wilhelm Almlöf (1799–1875) was a physician before turning to the theatre, working as an actor for more than fifty years and playing most leading male roles. He was the first actor to be appointed a Knight of the Order of Vasa. The Swedish ballerina Charlotta Norbert-Törner (1824–92) studied with Bournonville in Copenhagen and was praised as Celeste in Toreadoren. She had made her debut in Stockholm in 1842 and her last performance was November 30, 1859, in Festen i Albano. Théodore Martin (1814–70), a French dancer and choreographer, was balletmaster in Stockholm from 1862 to 1870. Ironically, he agreed with Bournonville on the state of the company and repertoire. On January 24, 1862, Bournonville directed the first staged production of the five-act tragedy Torkel Knutson, by the Swedish playwright Bernhard von Beskow (1796–1868), at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm. A silver pen, which Father always used from that time on. [CB] Johan Börjesson (1790–1866) was a Swedish playwright and theatre director who specialized in historical drama. August Blanche (1811–68) was one of Sweden's most popular writers as a playwright, journalist, politician, and more. Johan Christofer Jolin (1818–84) was a Swedish actor and playwright who in 1857 was appointed director of the theatre school. Frans Hedberg (1828–1908) was a Swedish playwright whose four-act historical drama Wedding at Ulfåsa (Bröllopet på Ulfåsa) had its premiere at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm on April 1, 1865, and at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen on January 25, 1866. Bournonville had earlier staged his five-act historical drama Day Is Breaking (Dagen Gryr!, also translated as Day Waxes!) on January 24, 1863. The Dagmar was an independent Copenhagen theatre. Axel Wilhelm Julius Elmlund (1838–1901) was a Swedish actor and pantomime dancer. Ebba Charlotta Elisa Jacobsson, later Fru Hvasser (1831–94), was a leading Swedish actress with an especially large repertorire. Carl Georg Dahlqvist (1807–73) was a Swedish actor who had traveled widely before becoming a member of the Royal Theatre in Stockholm. Bournonville staged the battle scene in the five-act tragedy St. Olaf, The Battle at Stiklestad (Olave den Hellige, Slaget ved Stiklestad), by the leading Danish dramatic poet Adam Oehlenschläger (1779–1850), at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen on March 13, 1838. J. P. E. Hartmann's music for this scene was reused when the theatre restaged Oehlenschläger's play Hakon Jarl in 1857 and again for battle scenes in Bournonville's ballet The Valkyrie in 1861, with a full score by Hartmann. On April 17, 1839, Bournonville had staged the poet's five-act fairy-play Aladdin, or The Magic Lantern (Aladdin eller Den Forunderlige Lampe), with music by Peter F. Funck and Niels Gade. Much earlier Bournonville had played children's roles in Hakon Jarl (written in 1808), Coreggio (staged in Copenhagen in 1811), and the premiere of The Little Shepherd Boy (Den Lille Hyrdedreng, January 23, 1819), among others. Jolin's pseudonym. [CB] Edvard Mauritz Swartz (1826–97) was a Swedish character actor who performed at both the Royal Theatre and the Mindre Teatern (or Little Theatre) in Stockholm. He had a repertorire of some two hundred roles, including Hamlet, Rochester in Jane Eyre, and Timon of Athens. Lovisa Charlotta Helena Michaeli (1830–75) made her debut in 1849 and in 1855–56 sang in Copenhagen, Berlin, Hamberg, and Dresden, among other cities. From 1859 to 1863 she was engaged at Her Majesty's Theatre in London before returning to Stockholm, where she sang all of the leading soprano roles. Carl Oscar Arnoldsson (1830–81), a Swedish actor and tenor, made his debut in 1855 at the Mindre Teatern and in 1858 at the Royal Theatre, where he sang the leading roles in the Swedish premieres of Faust, Roméo et Juliette, Tannhäuser, and Aida. A name by which Father, in his Theatre Life, denotes the anonymous advisers in the Swedish theatre administration. [CB] Allusions to Father's successor in Stockholm. [CB] The private Mindre Teatern, directed from 1754 by the actor by Edward Stjernström (1816–77), flourished in Stockholm between 1842 and 1863, when it was purchased by the Royal Theatre and became the principal stage for drama and small ballet performances. Mlle. Mars, born Ann-Françoise-Hippolyte Boutet (1779–1847), was a leading actress, most notably in comedy, at the Comédie-Française from the 1790s until her retirement in 1841. In My Theatre Life Bournonville called her “Talma's sole contender for the dramatic throne” (p. 38). Jules-Gabriel Janin (1804–74), a French writer and critic during the 1830s and 1840s, wrote many ballet reviews for the Journal des Débats, including a review of Bournonville's last guest performance at the Paris Opéra in 1834, and they remained great friends. Adolphe Nourrit (1802–39) was the leading tenor at the Paris Opéra from his debut in 1821 until he unexpectedly left in 1837 (on the hiring of a rival tenor, Gilbert Duprez) and committed suicide in Naples in 1839. He created leading roles in operas by Rossini, Meyerbeer, and Halévy, among others, and wrote the scenario for Filippo Taglioni's ballet La Sylphide. In My Theatre Life, Bournonville wrote of Marie Taglioni (1804–84) that “I witnessed her first triumphs in 1827–1829 and danced with her a number of times. She lifted one up from this earth, and her divine dancing could make one weep. I saw Terpsichore realized in her person” (p. 48). Bournonville's only comment in My Theatre Life on Arthur Saint-Léon (1821–70) is that Coppélia “was, on the whole, quite entertaining, without making any further intellectual demands” (p. 611). In My Theatre Life Bournonville wrote of Jules Perrot (1810–92) that “He truly created an epoch at the time when the diabolic was the predominant element on the French stage. He became the ideal of male dancing, and one cannot be surprised that the danseuses laid hold of everything that paid homage to beauty and grace” (pp. 47–8). André Isidore Carey (1790–?) studied with Vestris in Paris and then went to Stockholm where he was a leading dancer from 1815 to 1823 and balletmaster from 1820 to 1823. He later worked as a balletmaster in Vienna, Paris, and Lisbon. He married the dancer and choreographer Joséphine Sainte-Claire. Their first son, Édouard (1816–73), was a French dancer who appeared at the Paris Opéra in the mid-1830s and early 1840s and in most of the leading European theatres. In 1841 he was Bournonville's traveling companion on a trip from Paris to Naples. Like his brother, Gustave (1818–81) studied with Bournonville in the 1820s and was entrusted with the direction of the Royal Danish Ballet between 1861 and 1864, when Bournonville was working in Stockholm. His career was largely spent in Vienna, Italy, and Copenhagen. In My Theatre Life Bournonville pays special tribute to the Danish actor Nicolai Peter Nielsen (1795–1860), who began as a leading man and then turned to character roles, the Danish actress Anna Nielsen (1803–56), who began as a singer and then became “the ideal of a Nordic romantic heroine come to life” (p. 331), and Henriette Jørgensen, who was famous for character roles like Holberg's Magdelone in Maskerade and of whose Mme. Rust in Henrik Hertz's Sparekassen he said “she produced a veritable explosion of comic effect” (p. 326). Peter Anders Heiberg (1758–1841), the father of J. L. Heiberg, was exiled from Denmark for his plays, novels, poems, and essays satirizing the monarchy and the German aristocracy and spent the rest of his life in Paris. Christian VIII was born in 1786 and reigned from 1839 to 1848. From 1818 to 1822 he and his second wife, Caroline Amelie, toured Europe, which is when Bournonville would have met him in Paris. The French author Oscar Comettant (1819–1898) wrote on music for Le Siècle and his book on Denmark, Le Danemark Tel Qu'il Est (1865), is warmly mentioned in My Theatre Life, p. 653.