Louis Joseph Marie Deland, dancer   1772 - 1823.

BALLET DECADENCE.       Louis Joseph Marie Deland

At the turn of the century there was one Ballet Master worth mentioning. He was a member the the Deland theatrical family, which had come from Luxembourg to Sweden in the late 18th century. Louis Joseph Marie Deland51 was a comedian and dancer, trained by Gardel. He did not contribute much to the art, although he choreographed a great number of ballets (please see appendix). It has, though, to be borne in mind that the circumstances in which he lived were extraordinarily tough and hostile. Nevertheless, his pantomime work "A comical ballet" enjoyed a grand total of 127 performances, which is remarkable whichever way one cares to look at it. Another great contribution was "La Dansomanie" which he staged in honour of his teacher Maximilian Gardel. Deland was diligent och hardworking and it is just possible that he would have emerged as a great choreographer if times had not been against him and if he had devoted more time to the ballet. In stead he acted in plays and it was said about him that "his very looks made him funny, he did not have to exert himself. In addition, he was always very jovial and gay". However, when Deland was about 40, his memory began to fail him and he could no longer perform in straight plays. He had also been very fond of a good table and had grown very obese. It was rumoured that after performances he would repair to a nearby inn and devour a supper consisting of eleven courses. As a result he had given up choreographing as well.

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On 21th Sept 1815, there was a performance at The Royal Opera House of "La Fille mal gardée ou Il n'y a qu'un pas du mal au bien", by D'Auberval, staged by J. B. Brulo. Lise was danced by a pretty little 14 year old girl, who had been brought to Sweden by someone who in the history books is labelled "Count, Warrior, Diplomat". His name was Gustaf Carl Fredrik Löwenhielm and during his period as Swedish diplomat in Paris he took a lively interest in the arts. Together with Telemaque Gabrie and Isidore André Carey52 the little Sophie Marguerite Daguin53 came to Sweden. She worked her way up and when she left the stage for good she had ballerina status. Her last performance took place 5th May 1843 in "L'Eléve de L'Amour"54. After that, she devoted herself fulltime to teaching; she had actually started teaching already 1830 and she carried on as a teacher until 1856.

One of Daguin's pupils was Pehr Christian Johansson55. We can assume that he was one of those very rare creatures who are born to dance. That young boy, born in the slums in miserable conditions, somehow possessed both the perfect body for a dancer and the brilliant mind to refine and transfer what he himself had been taught into wisdom for generations to come. Johansson received Royal scholarships to enable him to study in Copenhagen for the great ballet master August Bournonville. Until the middle of the 19th century all ballet masters but two had been foreign. These two Swedes were Per Erik Wallqvist56 and Anders Selinder. Both of them also taught and both were important for the future career of Johansson. Selinder came strangely enough from a bourgeois environment, his father was a Court Jeweller and his mother was a noblewoman. Apart from being a ballet master he was also a professor of dancing at the Military Academy of Karlberg. His career as a ballet master came to a rather sad end - after the age of fifty he left, or rather he was probably exhorted to leave, the opera house and started performing divertissements with a group of young children whom he had taught free of charge in his own home. One can not help feeling rather sorry for Selinder, he was probably a very kind person, but his temperament was not suited to the theatre. There was always an enormous animosity between Selinder and Johansson.
 

In his letters to August Bournonville57, Johansson complains bitterly about Selinder's incompetence and there is indeed one very funny letter. Here is an excerpt from a letter dated Stockholm 16th April, 1837.

"...because of the progress I have made during your tuition, a lot of jealousy amongst certain people has occurred. M. Bourn: who better than anybody, knows my serious character would find that I, in the company of my colleagues, where often a mauvais ton is prevailing, and where I cannot furnish ni le coeur, ni lèsprit never can find any pleasure. Yes, my good teacher, it is my determination never to faufiler myself with them, because I know that as long as I can retain my heart pure and immaculate, I can also count on your friendship as well as the regard of allrighteous people. Mlle. Daguin takes a lot of interest in me these days. Perhaps she and the Directors together want to decide my coming appointement and that she already knows on what scale it is going to be, otherwise she has told you a lie. I thought Mlle Daguin to be a more straightforward and truthful person. I thank you very much, M. Bour: for your kindness in instructing me how to go about it in case I should be forced to seek employment in Copenhagen. In any case, I had not meant to take this step, but I am forced to do so because of the wicked treatment I have received in Stockholm. Nevertheless, I have a deep love for Copenhagen, though I would prefer to remain in my native country because I feel that given time I shall be successful. But how happy I would be, a bit later when my means will permit me, to make another journey to Copenhagen and to be able to enjoy your wonderful classes one more time. Everything works well. The public watches me with pleasure, and many distinguished people are interested in me. I even think that H.R.H. The Crown Prince [Oscar] in a couple of years time, maybe even earlier, will give me some token of his esteem - Under the guidance of M. Selinder the ballet goes very well. This year "Les Innocens"58 has already been given twice as I have told you before, as well as "La Dansomanie"59. M. Selinder has also mounted a "Mythological divertissement"60, it was only performed twice. The first time it was performed I danced a pas de trois with M. Silfverberg61 and a pupil, in the adagio and the beginning of the allegro we danced with garlands wound around arches. The pas was not applauded at all. The day before the pas was to be given a second time, Selinder was ordered to let me dance in a better pas; then M. Selin: suggested that I should learn a very long and boring pas, but with only one day to go I would not get time to work on it so I flatly refused and suggested in stead that I should dance my beautiful pas de deux, which I had learnt from you, M. Sel. did not like that at all, but our new Directeur Lieutenant-Colonel Backman62 liked my suggestion and approved of my request. I danced and was much applauded, For every ecol [step] I was applauded and for every manifestation I thought of you. It was the first time I had the honour of dancing a pas de deux on the same evening as M. Selinder. In "La Dansomanie" Sel. wanted me to dance an old gavotte en basque; but as I found this ridiculous and I already had been promised by lieut. Backman to insert my own pas, that gavotte came to nothing. I worked out a new pas, the score was given to me by Count Oxenstjerna, (chamberlain to the princess), it was an aria from an opera by Donizetti, a very beautiful polonaise, one of my friends arranged it for dancing, and it was very effective. I wore a new costume of black velvet with white satin and gold, and a very smart toque with one single erect plume. This costume has caused a sensation. One seigneur at the court has made me a present of the costume, he has designed it himself. It cost at least 100 thaler banco. "La Dansomanie" has been performed 4 times, in the first act I danced a pas paysan as jeune marie, towards the end of the ballet my Polonaise, which was generally liked. I have sufficient amour propre to believe that my composition was not so mauvaise, at least better than what M. Sel. could have arranged for me, and in consequence, I am planning to ask for the right to arrange my own pas when my new contract is signed. What do you think about that, M. Bournonville, do you think I am too pretentious? M. Selin: does not know about the dance, still less about my schooling and my aims; consequently, he can not do choreography for me. Farewell, esteemed M. Bournonville, let me always live happily in the belief that I will remain encompassed by your friendship, and that you will always remember with the same benevolence the one who will forever be your devoted and grateful P.C. Johansson".

Pehr Christian Johansson was not the only Swedish pupil who studied with August Bournonville in Copenhagen. Several youngsters were sent from Stockholm and we note Maria Charlotta Norberg, who excelled in "The Flower Fete at Albano", Johanna Gillberg, Jenny Hjort and Sofia Arrhenius, who all left the dancing profession in order to get married.

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There were several ballet masters during the period from the middle of the 18th century to the end of the 19th. They were:

Louis Gallodier. Ballet Master 1773 - 1795, 1st ballet master 1795 - 1803.
Federico Nadi Terrade. 2nd B M 1795 - 1803, 1st B M 1803 - 1806.
Louis Joseph Marie Deland. 2nd B M 1803 - 1806. B M 1809 - 1 April 1816 and second term 1 July 1818 - 1 Feb. 1820.
Ledet. B M 1 May 1816 - 1 July 1818.
Filippo Taglioni. 1st B M 1 Feb. - 1 July 1818
André Isidore Carey. B M 1 Nov. 1820 - 1 July 1823.
Giovanni Battista Ambrosiani. B M 1 July 1823 - 1 July 1827.
Per Erik Wallqvist. Deputy B M 1 July 1827 - 1 July 1833.
Rhénon. B M 1 October 1830 - 1 July 1831.
Anders Selinder. B M 1 July 1833 - 1 July 1845. 2nd B M 1 July 1845 -1 July 1846, B M 1851 - 1 July 1856.
Alexandre Simon Henri Fuchs. 1st B M 1 July 1845 - 1 July 1846.
Per Johan Wilhelm Pettersson.63 Deputy B M 1 July 1846 - 1851.
Sigurd Harald Lund.64B M 1 Nov. 1856 - 1 July 1862.
Theodore Martin. B M 1 Sept. 1862 - 1870.
Theodore Marckhl. B M 1870 - 1886.
Robert Sjöblom. B M 1887 - 1890.
Sigurd Harald Lund. B M 1890 - 1894
Max Glasemann. B M 1894 - 1901.
 

Per Johan Wilhelm Pettersson, dancer 1812 - 1854

 

Of these ballet masters, P.J.W. Pettersson merits a special mention. He was supposed to have been a dancer of rare intelligence. His parents were poor and uneducated working people, yet Pettersson managed by diligent studies on his own to become quite an expert at history, natural sciences and numismatics. After leaving dancing, he obtained a post at the Royal Mint, but died before his career there had advanced.
Sigurd Lund, who had received his entire education at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, really did struggle in Stockholm to get results. Yet, in 1894 he considered that enough was enough, the working conditions were totally intolerable, the ballet had no status whatsoever, and he handed in his resignation. Together with his dancing wife Hilda, he carried on private teaching until his death in 1906.

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THE BOURNONVILLE ERA
 

L. Antoine Bournonville      1760 - 1843 R. August Bournonville      1805 - 1879

August Bournonville had also been employed in Stockholm, but not in capacity as a ballet master - in stead he had been a stage director and he had hated every minute of his stay there as much as Johansson. He did no new choreography while in Stockholm and he found the corps very substandard. Furthermore, he was always at loggerheads with the direction, who, he claimed, refused to see the light. It is obvious that a man of Bournonville's temperament did not do well in Stockholm. Had he been of a more docile disposition, he might have worked on the sly and accomplished something. Not only did he not see eye to eye with the direction, the press was also againt him and wrote that flippant dancing was against the "serious and grave mien of the upright Swedish people". Yet, Bournonville did accomplish a few things of a more practical nature. He saw to it that the corps de ballet got proper training facilities, as the rooms allotted to them had been in a dreadful state. He also liberated them from doing their main bulk of performing as extras in operas and let them do what they were trained for, that is to say dancing.

It was a very great misfortune that August Bournonville happened to be in Stockholm during that particular period - 1 October 1861 - 1 July 1864 - when the ballet had sunk to an all time low.

But before August, and in a more auspicious era, his father Antoine Bournonville had also danced in Sweden. He was a pupil of Noverre and highly esteemed in Sweden. A contemporary wrote thus: "Antoine Bournonville is by virtue of natural gifts, an innate sense of beauty, untiring assiduity and a splendid schooling a most excellent artist. He is impressingly handsome, with great purity of limb and harmonious proportions, and with his attractive face, his easy, noble posture and his graceful movements he evokes the image of a veritable Apollo; his mere presence captivates the eye with male splendour. Furthermore, he possessed in all theatrical dancing an outstanding virtuosity which he employed with good taste. In the gay and mischievous parts, as well as in the noble and imposing ones, if it were a matter of astonishing with tremendous skill or captivating with a determined and assured execution of a pas and beautiful positions; in national dance as well as in artistic dance, in an energetic tour de force as well as in a light floating about, he proved himself to be a master, in whom one could detect neither exertion nor exhaustion".

In addition, Antoine Bournonville also appeared as actor and singer. He left Sweden in the middle of March 1792 and we know that he made an appearance at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen 17 April that same year. Then he left for a sojourn in Paris, but returned towards the end of the year to Copenhagen, where he was employed as first dancer. Though, it is very peculiar that his engagement in Stockholm did not cease until 1795, but there is evidence that he did some guest appearances in Stockholm. During the years 1816-1823 he was a Maitre de Ballet in Copenhagen. In 1792 he had married the Danish actress and dancer Mariane Jensen. Widowed in 1797, he soon remarried, this time with Louise Sundberg from Gothenburg in Sweden; in this second marriage August Anton was born.

There has been yet another Bournonville on the Swedish stage. Mlle. Julie Bournonville, elder sister of Antoine, was a splendid dancer and when she was engaged at the Hoftheater in Vienna, she let her younger brothers Théodore and little Antoine, who was then nine, come to stay with her in order to get tutored by Noverre. Julie subsequently came to Sweden and was a premier danseuse 1782-1798. In 1783 she married the dentist Alix de la Fay, but carried on dancing and appeared on the stage for the last time 12 Feb. 1798 in "Cora and Alonzo65". Though, already in 1795 she had been promised a life pension, on condition that she would teach the theatre pupils.

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