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

114 Anne Reese Willén
individually were members of it. Commitments at the Royal Swedish <strong>Opera</strong>
left very little time for other engagements however, which made it difficult
for private entrepreneurs to organise concerts featuring an orchestral
repertoire. This affected both the feasibility of arranging concerts and the
repertoire, which given that new pieces demanded more time for rehearsal
was limited to works that had been played before and (or) did not need so
much time.
A controller of musical means
The centrality of the Royal Swedish <strong>Opera</strong> in the musical life of Stockholm
was based on several factors. One was its institutional structure, which
gave some organisation and stability. It provided a steady income for a group
of professional musicians and singers, many of which would have had to
seek employment elsewhere, perhaps touring or teaching. It also had a long
tradition of importing musicians and singers who would not have come to
Stockholm otherwise, and was therefore responsible for their being in the
city. Moreover, many of its musicians and singers contributed to musical
life in other ways too, as music teachers at the Royal Swedish Academy of
Music or as military musicians, for example.
Getting an audience
As music started to play a bigger part in people’s lives during the midnineteenth
century the fact that the Royal <strong>Opera</strong> Orchestra was the only
orchestra in the city became more noticeable. The demand for music, and
concerts in particular, increased, and in order to meet these demands the
professional musicians arranged more concerts. This naturally gave them
more earning potential, but it was not without financial risk because they
were relying on a market that was not yet stabilised. The costs of arranging
concerts were high: it was not just a matter of hiring a venue, it also
meant engaging fellow musicians and singers and advertising the concerts
in newspapers, for example. If the tickets did not sell well the whole venture
would run at a considerable loss. Advertising in newspapers was not
enough however, and networks of personal contacts helped to ensure success.
This was pointed out in articles and reviews in NTM and TfTM. The
music critic Wilhelm Bauck described the practice in an article on the autumn
concert season of 1853: