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

222 Jens Hesselager
While Weyse was by no means the only one to find fault with the Italians,
many felt that they were a most welcome and refreshingly lively alternative
to the opera company at the Royal Theatre. Thomas Overskou (1798–1873),
the theatre historian, felt that there was both a downside and an upside to
all the fuss. On the one hand, he was critical of what he felt was a trend
amongst the admirers of the Italians towards single-mindedly celebrating
the achievements of individual singers, such as Madame Forconi, while
remaining unconcerned with the artistic value of the collective performance
as a whole. On the other hand, he recognised that the dramatic verve,
energy and warmth of expression which the Italians (or some of them, at
least) brought to their performances represented qualities that had long
been wanting in the opera performances at the Royal Theatre. Indeed, he
felt that the competition from the Italians had a beneficial effect on the general
quality of the Royal Theatre performances, where efforts were now
increasingly made to put more dramatic life, emotion and energy into the
operatic characters (Overskou 1864, 493-98). 2
During these months, opera reviews invariably referred to this context,
explicitly or implicitly. It would seem reasonable, in fact, to suggest that the
entire critical discourse on opera was preoccupied with the project of positioning
Rossi’s company, which performed at the Court Theatre, in relation
to the Danish opera company at the Royal Theatre. 3 Or to put it in more
general terms: positioning “Italian opera culture” in relation to “Danish”,
or even more generally “southern” in relation to “Nordic”. These two poles
might then be considered two general principles along which much of the
discourse was structured, functioning sometimes as opposites in an antago-
1 ”Igaar er Madam Forconi overøst med Blomster […]. De Danske ere og blive nogle
Dumbartler, og vide i Sandhed ikke hvad de gjøre, ved at vise saadan excentrisk
Enthousiasme for disse middelmaadige Udlændinge, høist af tredje Rang, der i alt Fald
synge falsk som al Landsens Ulykke.” (Schepelern 1976, 105) All translations are the
author’s unless otherwise indicated.
2 A similar point was made in Berlingske Tidende, 11 June 1842 (Schepelern 1976, 111-
12).
3 At first Rossi’s company performed at Vesterbros Teater, a wooden building just
outside the city boarders which was otherwise home primarily to comedies, vaudevilles,
popular entertainments, circus performances and the like. But when King Christian
VIII took a personal liking to the Italian company, it was soon offered the opportunity to
perform at the Court Theatre beginning in January of 1842. The Court Theatre opened
nearby in 1767 as a complement to the Royal Theatre at Kongens Nytorv, which had
opened in 1748. The Court Theatre still exists; it was turned into a museum in 1912,
while the Royal Theatre at Kongens Nytorv was replaced by a new building in 1874.
Vesterbros Teater opened in 1834 and closed in 1875.