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

Staging a national language
Vernacular or professional opera: Tensions between the Boards
and the directors
159
The history of the three opera companies has a beginning and a clear end. It
has a certain trajectory, a certain direction of change, although not in a deterministic
manner (Giddens 1984). In these three opera histories the middle
of the trajectory was a turning point in which the enterprises reached a
certain climax after which they began to decline. This kind of turning point
is more obvious in the Helsinki operatic enterprises than in the Christiania
<strong>Opera</strong> Company, where a clear turning point occurred in a dramatic ending
by fire. At these turning points, tensions between the Boards and the directors
were intensified, and the three opera companies demonstrate different
strategies for handling these tensions. In Christiania Director Josephson
had persuaded the Board to be solidly on his side and for the opera, but
when fire destroyed the theatre, the Board withdrew its support. In Helsinki
the interdependence (or competition) between the two opera companies
became more and more exhausting during the latter half of the decade.
Both theatres were working under pressure of an ongoing public debate,
in the press as well as in other public forums. 4 The main subject of these
discussions was the plan to merge the two operas into one Finnish opera
at the New Theatre. 5 This highly provocative proposition was presented to
the Finnish Diet in 1877. The plan was also supported by the Senate, as the
state funding was being (momentarily) withheld from the New Theatre in
order to persuade the Board to accept the merger. These plans were also in
line with the ambitions of Kaarlo Bergbom (1843–1946), the director of the
Finnish opera, who had long dreamed of being able to command the New
Theatre’s stage with all its facilities and scenic possibilities (see Paavolainen’s
chapter in this volume). Some of the New Theatre’s Board members
reacted negatively to the thought of a merger and demanded counteractions
from its longstanding director, Nikolai Kiseleff (1820–1883). <strong>Opera</strong>, which
up to this point had been staged at a languid pace at the theatre, now became
the very centre of the theatre’s existence. As a result of the Board’s
pressure the liberal and financially realistic Kiseleff resigned from the directorship,
and a five-member board took over his position in April of 1876.
This was the beginning of a new era in the capital. Visible and audible signs
4 This was also the case in Christiania. (Blanc 1899.)
5 Petteri Kumpulainen of the Peasants Estate presented this petition at the Diet’s
meeting on 23 February 1877. (EAH 1907, p. 344.) It was also the Peasants Estate
which had made a similar petition about the not yet founded Finnish Theatre Company’s
state funding earlier at the Diet’s meeting in 1872. (EAH 1906, pp. 254–256.)