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

Staging a national language
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and accept an engagement at the New Theatre for the upcoming season.
Later, Signe Hebbe also came to the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> Company, although she
was too late to appear as part of the exhibition.
Fritz Arlberg was the first to arrive, in June; he was to perform at the
Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> Company in Trovatore and Ernani (besides giving voice lessons
to Emma Engdahl during the exhibition. (Kruskopf 1988.). Arlberg
sang his roles in Italian, but as a courtesy to the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> Company, he
had learned to sing the Finale of the third act from Ernani in Finnish (EAH
1907, p. 264). Signe Hebbe arrived in Helsinki in September to perform the
same roles at the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> Company as she had done in Christiania:
Margaretha in Faust, Violetta in La Traviata and Leonore in Fidelio. Neither
Hebbe nor Arlberg was visiting Helsinki for the first time. Arlberg especially
was well known in Helsinki, because nearly every summer he was
on tour in Finland – in Viipuri and Turku as well as Helsinki. He normally
assembled a company among his colleagues at the Royal Swedish <strong>Opera</strong>
and went abroad. However, he was now appearing in the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong>
Company for the first time as was Signe Hebbe, although she had visited
Helsinki and the New Theatre as early as 1870 and Turku in 1863. (Lewenhaupt
1988.)
The Christiania opera’s director, Ludvig Josephson, also happened to
visit Helsinki during the summer, although mainly as a tourist. The New
Theatre’s director, Wahlberg, nevertheless saw an opportunity to persuade
Josephson to direct the first act from Pacius’s The Princess from Cyprus at a
gala performance. The gala (15 July 1876) was intended to display the ability
of the Finnish and New Theatres to cooperate, but it turned out to do
quite the reverse; the difficulties culminated only a few days before the gala
evening, and the performance was remade and renamed in haste. The Finnish
Theatre Company had suggested that the prima donnas Emmy Achté
and Ida Basilier would sing arias from Il Trovatore and Il Barbiere di Siviglia
respectively with full equipment and scenery on stage. The president of
the Council and future senator Leo Mechelin acted as mediator between
the theatre Boards (as he often did later), but the negotiations broke down
because Bergbom apparently did not agree to lower his demands about the
equipment on stage. 36 The gala performance was renamed a “festive representation”
(festrepresentation), and the programme was changed to present
one act from Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amour, with which Emma Engdahl earlier
had had great success. Julius Saloman made his debut at the New Theatre
36 Mechelin to Bergbom, 11 July and 13 July 1876; FLC/LA.