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

136 Pentti Paavolainen
Kiseleff’s invitation to the Bergboms to rejoin the Warrants
Society (the spring of 1871)
Nikolai Kiseleff’s correspondence reveals how he approached the theatre,
both strategically and practically. As a merchant, he was a formal, old-style
patriarch. Yet he was also a pragmatist, who carefully considered his next
moves. Kiseleff must have seen potential in the new academic audiences,
the bilingual population of Helsinki, who were willing to see domestic artists
on stage and to hear operatic productions. For him, the question of language,
whether Swedish or Finnish, was a practical and commercial matter.
A member of a Russian merchant family, Kiseleff spoke Swedish because it
was the practical solution for doing business in Helsinki; for him, Finnish
was not a threat. We do not have primary sources to verify his intentions,
which therefore must be deduced from his actions. These suggest that in
general, he seemed to want to be accommodating.
Immediately after the Trubaduuri performances in December 1870,
Kiseleff offered Ida Basilier, the first Leonora, an engagement at the Swedish
Theatre for 1871. The offer can be taken as proof of his plan to promote
and assemble a domestic opera company with which he could produce operas
regularly in his theatre. Among the Fennomans, this offer was taken as
an insult, because it was made on the same day Basilier opened in Trubaduuri,
25 November 1870.
Kiseleff’s offer must also have caused fear among the Fennomans, who
saw that they could lose their young professionals to the more stable conditions
of the Swedish Theatre. The press twisted the offer to Basilier into
a debate about whether the engagement was “good enough for Miss Basilier’s
value as an artist.” The martyr narrative was raised: It was an insult
to offer so little money to an artist born in Finland, “one more sign of how
unpatriotic they are in the Swedish Theatre Company”. All of the economic
disputes were transformed into ideological arguments. However, Basilier
turned down the offer and went to St Petersburg to study voice in 1871.
She was counting heavily on Bergbom to have an important role for her in
Finland in the future. (See Basilier’s letters to K. Bergbom, spring 1871,
SKS.)
Trubaduuri was a sensation in Helsinki, a full-length opera given with
domestic casting with the exception of one Swede. Kaarlo Bergbom had thus
“completed his portfolio” for demonstrating his ability to lead a theatre. He
perhaps dreamt of being appointed an Intendent for the New Theatre. He
borrowed money and travelled to Berlin where he stayed from February to
September 1871, eagerly attending operatic and theatrical performances.