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

Two <strong>Opera</strong>s or One – or None
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ally supported by the audience. Once the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> bought the Arkadia
Theatre in 1875, their presence in Helsinki was quite literally on firmer
ground.
At this moment a new orientation took place in the Swedish Theatre.
Some of the successes of the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> Company, such as Faust in
March of 1876, sparked a reaction from the supporters of the Swedish Theatre
Company (cf. Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen’s article in this volume).
Nikolai Kiseleff was challenged on his own turf. At the end of March 1876,
he was abruptly dismissed, replaced by Wilhelm Grefberg as the executive
director, Ferdinand Wahlberg as the president (ordförande) and Wilhelm
Bolin as the dramaturge. Grefberg and Wahlberg were medical doctors and
Bolin a philosopher and librarian at the Library of the Imperial Alexandre
University (today the National Library of Finland). All three were sworn
“Vikings”, i.e. anti-Fennomans. They wanted no merger, no compromise,
not even discussion of such a move, yet they maintained that opera was
needed. The takeover by Grefberg and Wahlberg has been described as “a
coup.” A fourth person involved may have been the ambitious conductor
Nathan B. Emmanuel, who probably reacted to the challenge by the Finnish
<strong>Opera</strong> Company, where performances had attained a certain standard of
quality and which now had much longer seasons in Helsinki. The Finnish
<strong>Opera</strong> Company would also hire a permanent orchestra, which would give
them a further advantage. In the Swedish Theatre the plan was to increase
the number of operatic productions in order to outdo the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong>.
Professor C. G. Estlander reported to one of his students:
Yet the visual arts have a more secure future in Finland, standing on a
safer and saner foundation than music, which is heading towards brilliant
misery with this insane competition going on in our theatres. The
dull mercantilism in the New Theatre will now be turned into a foolish
swindle in the spirit of Bergbom, and with that, financial ruin will result
for the one as well as for the other. If even the artistic mise-en-scène,
which the New Theatre has cultivated as its tradition, is also lost, then
all the results achieved thus far in the country in the dramatic arts will
be lost, and a considerable number of partly excellent musical talents will
be sacrificed in the coup d’état. (C.G. Estlander to Eliel Aspelin, [17 April
]1876, SLSA/KK)
The summer of 1876 was the summer of the great Industry and Arts Exhibition
in Finland. Both theatres wanted to show themselves at their best.
The emperor himself, Alexander II, visited the New Theatre together with
the Empress Maria, their son Alexander and his wife Dagmar-Maria. But