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

188 Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen
berg first organised the opera performances in relation to the New Theatre
so that he could engage the New Theatre’s orchestra with Hřímalý as its
conductor (at this point the orchestras of the Finnish and New Theatres had
merged into one large ensemble). Later the New Theatre orchestra was
completely overtaken by the Russian Theatre.
The Russian Theatre’s opera company performed in Italy, but this was
not a problem, because it now staged the same operas as had been heard
at the Finnish and the New Theatres’ stages earlier: Faust at the premiere
and then Lucretia Borgia, Rigoletto, Un Ballo in Maschera, La Traviata and
so on. (Byckling 2009, pp. 107–111.) The rumours about Adlerberg’s operatic
passion must have reached the ears of the directors at both the Finnish
and New Theatres, and the threat of a third competitor about the Helsinki
audience was probably one more reason for closing down the operas. The
Italian-Russian company was a very good company (with professional chorus
members and a ballet), and the Russian Theatre’s aim was probably
to overwhelm the Helsinki audience with highly skilled performances and
also attract the Swedish-speaking upper class to the theatre. The Russian
Theatre’s strategy was to offer artistically advanced performances, and
once again, the language did not matter as much when the operas were
well known and the performers excellent. The Russian Theatre came to
the market as a third party and did so forcefully, with the purpose of having
its own share, run by professionals and financed by the tsar. Two opera
companies were already too much for Helsinki, but three were impossible
to support. The discussions of merging the Finnish and Swedish opera companies
continued for a while, but became weaker and weaker until such talk
died out altogether. It was only in the twentieth century, with the dynamic
combination of new personalities, Aino Ackté and Edvaard Fazer, that a permanent
opera company was founded in Helsinki in the year 1911. And as
for Oslo, Kirsten Flagstad became the first Director of a national opera in
1957.
Archives
Helsinki
The National Library of Finland (NLF) (Nationalbiblioteket i Finland)
The Achté collection Coll.4
The Finnish Literature Society, the Literature Archive (FLC/LA) (Finska
litteratursällskapet, Litteraturarkivet)
Emelie och Kaarlo Bergboms archive, Nr 45–54