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

12
The national gaze inherent in methodological nationalism has obscured
the cross-Nordic contacts of artists, including their tours and the circulation
of production ideas within the Nordic countries and beyond, to capitals such
as St Petersburg and Riga (a Baltic opera capital). Fennoman historiography,
for instance, has blanked out the long period during which Finland was part
of Sweden, as well as all that could remind us of this time (Engman 2009).
As a result, in the Finnish historiography of opera the European cultural
heritage that was transmitted to Finland through Sweden has not been acknowledged.
In a history of opera, this has led to a distorted view that needs
to be readjusted.
To claim that opera took part in the cultural transfer of values and practices
is merely stating the obvious, but what this anthology seeks to address
within the select perspective offered by individual articles is how this
was done in practice in different Nordic countries, where conditions for performing
opera varied.
***
This collection of articles is an outcome of a NOS-HS funded Exploratory
Workshop “<strong>Opera</strong> on the Move in the Nordic Countries: Touring Artists
and the Construction of National Identities in the Long 19th Century”
(2011–2012). The opera research network enhanced by this workshop has
worked in tandem with the research project “The Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> Company
(1873–1879) from a Microhistorical Perspective: Performance Practices,
Multiple Narrations and a Polyphony of Voices” funded by the Academy
of Finland (2010–2013). The two projects found their academic home in
the DocMus Doctoral School at the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki), and it is
within its Research Publications Series that this anthology is published.
Among so many who have helped in shaping this volume we would like to
thank the peer reviewers for their contribution in improving the articles
and especially Glenda Goss and Joan Nordlund for their help in revising the
language of the articles.
Bibliography
Aspelin-Haapkylä, Eliel 1906–1910: Suomalaisen teatterin historia I–IV.
Helsinki: SKS
Berger, Stefan & Lorenz, Chris (eds.) 2010: Nationalizing the Past. Historians
as Nation Builders in Modern Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.