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

Staging a national language
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is to go beyond the national gaze and study both transnational interconnectedness
as well as the episodic nature of opera in two capitals situated on the
outskirts of Europe.
The choice of these two Nordic capitals as a point of comparison through
opera can be easily justified on historical grounds. Firstly, the political situation
in both countries was somewhat similar during the decade of interest
(the 1870s). The countries were both semi-independent with a certain
amount of autonomy, yet they were also united to another country – Finland
to the Russian Empire and Norway to Sweden. Secondly, in each case,
the struggle for a national identity was carried out mainly as a language
struggle. In Norway, a national language was to be established in relation to
Danish and Swedish; in Finland, it was in relation to Swedish and Russian.
Thirdly, as these operatic enterprises had no court tradition on which to
build, they started as commercial ventures right from the beginning, albeit
with a certain amount of state funding. Fourthly, the short and intense opera
episodes examined here were followed by a long intermediate period in
both capitals, during which several efforts were made to establish a permanent
opera along with visiting opera companies from the rest of the Nordic
world as well as from Europe. A national and permanent opera house was
not founded until 1911 in Finland and 1957 in Norway. Furthermore, some
of the opera singers from Christiania found their way to Helsinki in 1876;
later, when the opera companies closed down in Helsinki, some of the performers
took the return route, from Helsinki to Christiania. It is also relevant
here that most of the performers originally came from Sweden and
particularly from Stockholm with its rich possibilities for education and the
training of singers, musicians, conductors and directors. This was especially
evident among the artists at the New Theatre in Helsinki, but it pertained
as well to the operatic enterprise in Christiania, which was founded in 1874
by the Swedish director Ludvig Josephson (1832–1899).
Christiania and Helsinki were small cities in those days, although they
were rapidly expanding and urbanizing. In 1870 the population of Helsinki
numbered 30,000 inhabitants; Christiania had nearly three times as many,
with 80,000 inhabitants. The majority of the population in Helsinki (60 percent)
was Swedish-speaking, while 25 percent were Finnish-speaking and
15 percent Russian-speaking. (Åström 1956, p. 31.) However, outside Hel-
of the Finnish National Theatre in four volumes (1906–1910 ) and Tharald Blanc’s
history of the Christiania Theatre (1899). In her article “Theatre Histories and the
Construction of National Identity: The Cases of Norway and Finland”, she analyses how
the nation and the birth and emergence of a national theatre is narratively constructed
in the two historiographies. Her article is an important source for this chapter.