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

182 Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen
chant who had made a fortune in Helsinki as a brewer. His money was now
needed to cover the opera’s financial losses. 45 Sinebrychoff’s fortune was
also needed for another reason. The theatre company’s five-year contract
with the Theatre House Company expired in the spring, and a new company
was about to be hired. The Finnish Theatre Company also made an offer,
which actually was lower than the Swedish Theatre’s. Eventually, Wahlberg
and his father-in-law, Sinebrychoff, offered to pay what was needed for the
Swedish Theatre company to become re-elected as the regular company of
the theatre (Keski-Suomi 28 April 1877), and so the Finnish Theatre Company’s
offer was rejected.
After Grefberg’s resignation Kiseleff was asked to return, to which he
agreed. As usual, he paid his own share of the deficit caused by the opera.
Once again he wrote down his demands on paper, and the new Board (to
which his old friends Berndtson and Herzberg had returned) accepted.
It can be argued that the theatre Boards had taken over the planning of
the operas at both houses in Helsinki, at least partly, and with disastrous
results. At the New Theatre the artistic planning of operas was practically
non-existent, as the five-member group consisted of physicians or merchants
and knew little or nothing about how and when to engage new opera
singers. The theatre director Albert Åhman (Wilhelm Åhman’s brother,
who came to Helsinki with the Åhman-Pousette company in the 1860s) was
apparently not a very forceful theatre director either, at least not according
to Josephson (“Ideal och verklighet”). The Board’s political conviction,
however, was very clear; as one newspaper pointed out, all of the members
of the New Theatre Board were former editors of the Swedish-minded
newspaper Vikingen (The Viking )(Keski-Suomi 28 April1877).
At the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> Company Bergbom could hold out against the Party’s
political influence artistically, which probably resulted in opera productions
of better quality, but he could not control the audience, which now
took sides in the language struggle. There was obviously no clear decision
taken to end the operatic production at either theatre. At the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong>
Company the performances just stopped during the spring of 1879, and at
the New Theatre the opera production slowed down noticeably when Kiseleff
returned in 1878. The productions now centred around Emma Engdahl,
who returned from her studies abroad. Curiously, when the competition
with the Finnish <strong>Opera</strong> Company was over, the production of operas at the
New Theatre ended too. In 1880 the Russian Theatre inaugurated its the
45 Degerholm’s financial statistics show that many other Board members also participated
in covering the deficit, in the amount of ca 100,000 Finnish marks. (SLC/STA)