Portrait by Uno Troili - 1851.
It is easy to understand why
Fredrik August Dahlgren was
nicknamed "Black Fredrik".
|
Fredrik August Dahlgren(1816-1895).
Portrait by Uno Troili - 1851. It is easy to understand why Fredrik August Dahlgren was nicknamed "Black Fredrik". |
Foreword
If one wants to learn something about the theatrical history of Sweden from the olden days one would do very well to peruse "Förteckning öfver Svenska Skådespel uppförda på Stockholms Theatrar 1737 - 1863 och Kongl. Theatrarnes Personal 1773 - 1863 med flera anteckningar" af F.A.Dahlgren. Stockholm, 1866. P.A. Norstedt & Söner, Kongl. Boktryckare. [Catalogue of Swedish Plays performed in Stockholm Theatres 1737 - 1863 and the Personel of the Royal Theatres 1773 - 1863 with several notes by F.A.Dahlgren. Stockholm 1866. P.A.Norstedt & Sons Royal Printers]. The editor of this extremely detailed reference work is a Fredrik August Dahlgren, 1 Ph. D. and "secretarii protocolli" and an industrious translator of foreign plays. His name might be totally unknown abroad, whereas he still enjoys a certain fame in Sweden as the author of a rustic comedy "Värmlänningarne"2 [The people of Värmland]. Dahlgren wrote synopsis of this song and dance play with spoken dialogue, the music was composed and arranged by concert master Andreas Randel3. The dance sequences were by Anders Selinder4. Between 1846-1863 it was performed 89 times, first in opera form and then rearranged as a comedy.
Dahlgren catalogues in great detail the very beginning of how the earliest
known plays were performed in Swedish by Swedish actors only towards the
end of the 17th century. Even before that era, some plays had been performed,
but then only in Latin.
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Christina,Queen of Sweden 1626 - 1689. |
THE EARLY DAYS
Queen Christina of Sweden5 ,who once wrote the sentence: "Les spectacles sont nécessaires et utiles dans les cours", really lived as she learnt. Due to historical circumstances, she became a Queen when she was six and was duly tutored for her vocation. She is supposed to have spoken seven foreign languages and was well versed in theology and philosophy.
But she was also fond of spectacles, she was musical and she liked dancing herself. When she was a child, a French dancing master, Antoine de Beaulieu was called in 1637 to instruct the nobility in "danse et maintien"; his salary was to be 200 Thaler, fodder for one horse plus an additional 200 thaler to pay an assistant. He presented a spectacle for the eleven year old Queen in January 1638 which he called "Le Ballet des Plaizirs de la Vie des Enfans sans Soucy". In 1643, Beaulieu composed a grand spectacle in honour of the young Queen's birthday festivities: "Ballet de Phantaisies de ce temps". It was a for that epoch typical ballet of entrées, in which homage is paid to the Queen by an innkeeper who dances with his wife, a valet and a maid promises a fountain of wine the day the Queen chooses a suitor, a cook brings fire from the kitchen, a merchant is willing to sell his entire stock of ribbons and silks to contribute to the festivities, and finally there is Vulcanus with a band of Cyclops and Apollo bringing a laurel wreath. On New Year's Day 1645, another great spectacle was mounted. It was "Le Monde Reiovi" and now there was a full house of mythological and allegorical figures. The stunned audience saw in turn: Fama and Mercury, Jupiter with Prudentia and Justitia, Mars, Bellona and Victoria, Amphion pulled in a shell by two sirens, Eolus and the four winds, Neptunus and his tritons, Pan with a group of shepherds and shepherdesses, Diana and her nymphs, Hypocrisy trying to infiltrate the court of the Queen, but is thrown out by Time and Truth. There were also a French fencer who dares both life and blood for Christina, an Englishman, who is as fond of her as of a platter of confectionaries, a Dutchman who drinks to her in beer and lights a pipe as a smoke offering, four serfs who symbolize the downtrodden noblemen she is supposed to give freedom, a couple of Spaniards who behave arrogantly and threateningly, but are forced to retreat by two brave soldiers representing Sweden and France, and finally, the grand finale when four suitors appear, two dressed as Swedes and two as Frenchmen, all of them swearing unswerving loyalty.
Queen Christina was not only interested in dance, music was equally important. Her court orchestra did not only consist of lute players and trumpeters. She had Continental ideas and called in six violinists from Paris - here she got an equivalent to the famous vingt quatre violons du Roy in France. The English ambassador Bulstrode Whitelocke6is reported to have been most impressed with these musicians. His Excellency had arrived at the seaport of Gothenburg in November 1653 and remained in Sweden for almost a year. During this period he was very close to the Court and he wrote down his impressions in a diary which was subsequently published in England in 1772.
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The above-mentioned M. Beaulieu, who obviously was a rather tempesteous person, achieved a certain notoriety as time went by, and in the protocol from the Law Courts one can gather the following:- There was a law suit between dancing master Beaulieu and the Cashier. The dancing master had come to claim his salary at four in the afternoon, but had been told to come back the following day in the morning. Whereupon the dancing master was supposed to have growled, threatened with a stick, called the Cashier a cur and stormed out. The Cashier pursued, in his turn threatening with a poker, but while avoiding the stick, he managed to slap the dancing master. In the ensuing hearing, the witnesses claimed that Beaulieu had called the Cashier "A Swedish Cur". The Judge pressed the witnesses, who said that they had not really understood what was going on, but that they clearly had heard the word "cur". Beaulieu denied having called the Cashier a cur, but maintained that he had been thrown out of the office like a dog. The Court assembled and came to the conclusion that nothing had actually happened and that the two parties ought to shake hands. They were also exhorted to remain friends, show good will and not assault each other, which they both promised not to do. In spite of the fact that Beaulieu was enfeoffed with two estates by the Dowager Queen, he died in poverty in 1663.
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After Queen Christina's abdication, dance and spectacles were not entirely forgotten. The new King, Carolus X Gustavus7 , was not at all hostile to the theatre, but he spent most of his time on warfare. It was therefore evident that the grand events at court gradually came to an end.
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The students, primarely at the University of Upsala8, staged and performed comedies in Latin as part of their curriculum. The sons of the apothecary Wolimhaus, who were knighted and then were called Gyllenborg and Lejonstedt respectively, were in those days very active in the theatre. Count Carl Gyllenborg9was the author of the comedy in five acts, "Den svenska sprätthöken" [The Swedish Fop], which was premiered 1737. This play was the first original play written in Swedish to be premiered at a Royal Theatre. He also did a great many translations, one example of this was a comedy called "Baron Sorgfri eller En förbättrad Villhjerna" [Baron Carefree or An ameliorated Madcap]. This comedy in five acts by Richard Steele10 (The lying Lover or the Ladies friendship) was a rearrangement of P. Corneilles11"Le Menteur" which in turn was a translation of Alarcons12"La verdad sospechosa". Count Gyllenborgs translation was premiered 11th February 1745. He loved to play the role of a grand-seigneur, he was generous, eloquent and his appearance was magnificent.
Today he is not remembered for his career as a politician, but rather as a man of letters. He was a Chancellor of both the university of Lund and of that in Upsala, and as such Gyllenborg was a great pioneer in the use of the Swedish language. He published a pamphlet in which he proclaimed:
"The Swedish language will soon be forgotten. The court and the capital, those arbiters of taste, have been so enchanted with attending French spectacles that they now hardly even care to think in Swedish". One can not help making the reflection that the knowledge of foreign languages must have been rather good in the 17th and 18th centuries, perhaps better than it is today. Nowadays, the knowledge of English in Sweden is generally supposed to be reasonable, yet a survey shows that only about 4% of the entire population can follow a play or a motion picture with no subtitles, whereas the knowledge of such languages as German, French and Spanish is almost nil. Two to three hundred years ago there were hardly any Swedish playwrights, why? Even the most insignificant farce was a foreign product, translated into Swedish. As an example of this one could mention the comedy in three acts premiered 10 October 1787, originally a Spanish play called "No puede ser", then translated into French as "Guerre ouverte, ou Ruse contre ruse". This particular comedy, however, was translated into Swedish, so one can conclude that there were at least some people with more than a basic knowledge. Perhaps one could also argue that the predilection of the audience for foreign plays performed in foreign languages was merely a snobbish attitude. One suffered through a play of which one could gather maybe five words, just in order to be able to boast to one's friends about one's accomplishments.
Count Gyllenborg must have found the situation ridiculously intolerable. Thus, foreign artists ought to be forbidden, but the problem was that there were hardly any native Swedish artists to be found, and the foreign troupes had to be retained on condition that they obeyed a number of rules. The artistes were required to wear proper and demure clothing at all times and to acquire new apparel whenever necessary. It was also decreed that no buffoons, tightrope walkers, puppeteers, nor German, Dutch or Italian strolling minstrels were allowed to appear to the detriment of the Royal Swedish performers. These foreign troupes must have had a very hard life with severe physical hardship. The world famous troupe [sic] of German players directed by Messrs. Spiegelberg and Denner were due to arrive in Stockholm in the beginning of 18th century. After several days wandering on the frozen Baltic Sea the troupe reached the island of Gotland. The players had wrapped themselves in their theatrical costumes as protection against the bitter cold and the dismayed islanders did not know if they ought to worship or fear the weird creatures. All the actresses had got frostbitten feet and theatre manager Denner's daughter had to have both her big toes amputated.
Those itinerant troupes were thwarted in other ways too. A Councillor of the Court expressed his views: "If there would be nothing offensive to Christianity and perilous to decency in comedies, why should the comedians as long as they remain in their profession, be refused the Holy Communion? We have also proof of other countries where comedians who have not abjured their profession are not allowed to be buried in hallowed ground". But another Councillor expressed another view: "If a high moral is conveyed by the comedians and makes an favourable impression a great many people would abstain from drink and other lechery". In the year 1723 it also became absolutely forbidden to mount performances on Saturdays, as the preparation for Sunday Mass could be disturbed. Court mourning was another reason for the closure of theatres - after the death of Queen Ulrika Eleonora13 all spectacles had to be cancelled for nearly fifteen months.
Conditions did not improve - towards the end of 1760 Count Ehrensvärd14complained:
"The taste for the French theatre is so common and so captivating that the Swedish Theatre is in banishment in its own country, where it can no longer amuse and educate. In the center of the city, where some old and shambling hovels form a narrow alley, high up in an attic, where the daylight with difficulty can penetrate, where Art has been denied stairs, where one must scramble on a rickety and steep ladder - that is where the Swedish Theatre has found its miserable abode. There it is frequented by the base people who meet their fellow beings or for money could see habits portrayed which resembled their own. There was fighting like at an inn. The Actors were acquired from the debtors prison or were a rabble of soldiers, some old fogies and pettifoggers. It was not rare to see Swedish noblemen play villains. The actresses had been picked up from workhouses and the musicians came from houses of low repute. One went to the theatre to laugh at the worst one could imagine. The various acts of the tragedies were played in reverse order - one hung the unfortunate naked in the gallows, one booed out the actor who was not funny enough and laughed at the tragedies. The spectators participated in the performance as much as the actors themselves".
In "Rules and Regulations for Spectators" the following can be learnt:- "The spectators are requested to immediately take their seats as far as these are available, and not to block the aisles; it is strictly forbidden to climb up onto the upholstered seats during the representations. Regarding the ban on noise during the performance it has been found imperative to order that nobody, who ever he may be, should be so bold as to, during or after the performances or during the entreacte make an outrage or practise clamour and pandemonium by screaming, humming, banging, stamping, or running into the theatre and onto the seats, to the detriment, obstruction and inconvenience of the spectators as well as the performers". The audience might have been rowdy, but the performers themselves were not behaving impeccably either. A performance could last half the night due to the inability of the actors to enter the stage on cue. Sandwiches and hard liquor were served in the wings even during the acts and sometimes the actors ran out into the street in full stage costume to the nearest inn to get a bite to eat.
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In the year 1785 spectacular merry-go-round outdoor festivities and booths were arranged near the Royal Castle of Drottningholm15and this was an enormously popular form of entertainment. The public had a grand total of fourteen different spectacles to choose between, among those, one booth where French proverbs were being performed - that is to say, short plays illustrating well known proverbs - one showing marionettes - one where Italian opera buffa was being played - one for the tightrope walker Spinacuta - one where weird animals were exhibited and one booth for the famous doctor Barri from Paris who practised tooth extraction, which in those days was a public spectacle. One rather curious guest appearance was made by Mlle. Alexandra Calipoliti who pretended to be a dancer from Athens and famous from the Turkish Sultan's theatre in Constantinople. After having toured extensively in Europe it was discovered that she was actually born in Germany and that her real name was Augusta Deyss.
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