Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th ...

Music at the Royal Swedish <strong>Opera</strong> in Stockholm…
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music as art in Stockholm and the significance of music at the Royal <strong>Opera</strong>.
Rubenson criticised entr’acte music from a musical perspective, and even if
there were aspirations on the theatrical side to cease using music simply to
pass the time it was not considered as big a problem as Rubenson thought
it was. The head conductor (Hovkapellmästaren – the hofkapellmeister) was
the artistic leader of all music at the Royal Swedish <strong>Opera</strong>, but was not
always responsible for choosing the entr’acte music, which did not necessarily
require his expertise. In fact, he officially lost all responsibility for it
in the middle of the century, and the concertmasters conducted the orchestra.
The non-involvement of the head conductor and the mechanical and
decontextualized manner of selecting the music confirmed its low status.
The former was a practice that had become institutionalised by the beginning
of the 1860s with its inclusion in the employment contracts, but it may
have been used before this, as suggested in the quotation from Tidning för
teater och musik from 1836 referring to the times when the orchestra was
conducted by the concert master (Randel) ([NN] 1863).
As Owe Ander found, in some cases the entr’acte customs changed in
that the ladies were also allowed to leave the auditorium for refreshments,
and music was played elsewhere than in the auditorium during the intermissions.
This practice must have been confined to the performance of
grand operas however, because it is clear that entr’acte music, especially
at dramatic performances, was common at least until the mid-1860s (see
Kronlund): this was when the music and dramatic theatre split following
the purchase of Mindre Teatern (the Smaller Theatre), which changed its
name to the Royal Dramatic Theatre. Sometime thereafter the entr’acte
music was phased out at spoken dramas, only to reappear at the beginning
of the 1880s when a new small orchestra was hired for the dramatic
theatre (Kronlund, p. 69). Franz Liszt’s article was republished in an issue
of the music journal Svensk musiktidning 25 in 1881 when there were plans
to reintroduce entr’acte music at the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Liszt 1881).
The editors reminded those planning this to think about the purpose of this
music before reintroducing it. It thus seems that, although such music had
been one of the most common types at the theatre, as time went by it became
redundant. This was probably attributable to the changes in customs
(as there were other activities during the intervals) and the more aesthetical
values regarding the use of music. In time it became isolated as an art
form in its own right, and increasingly separated from other art forms. As
public musical and concert activities expanded in the city during the latter
25 The most prominent music journal after NTM and TfTM (see Grinde 2001)