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

Staging a national language
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The opera company was hard to put together and even harder to keep
together. Lange and Engdahl were the first to leave. Emma Engdahl left
for Milano for the season 1877–1878, and as the result the whole opera
company was nearly paralysed. However, it could not have come as a total
surprise to Director Grefberg that Engdahl was leaving, because she received
a scholarship from the Finnish Senate; already in the spring of 1877,
the theatre had arranged a performance for her benefit. The situation was
a sign of poor planning because with all the male singers, the engagements
were already in place for the upcoming season. But now the male singers
became unemployed while still receiving a full salary during the season. No
wonder the opera showed a huge deficit that year, which the Board members
had to cover. (Degerholm’s archive, SLC.)
Grefberg did his best to find a suitable soprano to replace Engdahl, but
succeeded only in part. He engaged Linda Röske-Lund, who, after the fire
in Christiania, was now free to come to Helsinki. She was well known to
Helsinki audiences, who had heard her sing in 1862 when a Swedish opera
company lead by Arlberg visited the New Theatre. Linda Röske-Lund sang
Leonora in Verdi’s Trovatore, which was a daring experiment by the New
Theatre, as this was a signature opera of the Finnish company, which gave
it regularly with either Emmy Achté or Ida Basilier as Leonora. One critic
noticed this too and described this opera as boring. Röske-Lund’s second
role was Lady Durham in Flotow’s Martha.
The repertoire at the three operas
The repertoire at the three operas shows many similarities, although there
were clear differences. Der Freischütz was popular on all three stages as
well as Il Barbiere di Sivilgia. Il Trovatore was also given at all three theatres,
although it seems to have been most popular at the Finnish opera. The
competitive relationship between the Finnish and New Theatres can be
traced in their choices of repertoire. When an opera appeared on one stage,
before long it showed up on the other, with the exception of Robert le Diable
(Meyerbeer), which was premiered in both theatres during the same week
in May of 1877 with somewhat different names, Robert Paholainen and Robert
af Normandie respectively. 40
40 According to Gademan, the reason for translating Robert le Diable into Swedish as
Robert af Normandie was that the Royal Swedish Theatre wanted to avoid “the Devil”
in the opera’s title (2007, pp. 151-177).