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

Rachel the Jewess in Copenhagen
243
invests in her singing”. 33 The critic went so far as to state that “we cannot
imagine a more perfect dramatic singing than that of Mad[ame] Forconi”. 34
The same reviewer soon goes on to admit, nevertheless, that Forconi was
really only a mezzo soprano and had some difficulties with the high notes,
which tended to be a little false (Københavnsposten, 19 November 1841,
here quoted from Schepelern 1976, 85). Thomas Overskou described Madame
Forconi in a somewhat similar manner. He praised her acting for its
energetic passion and her voice for “a pleasant timbre, full and grounded
in the middle register, but somewhat thin and shaky in the top notes, for
which reason she did not usually have much luck with the coloraturas” 35
(Overskou 1864, 494-95).
Pauline Rung’s voice, it would seem, had many of the same qualities.
Even before she re-appeared as Rachel on 26 February 1842, she was compared
to Madame Forconi in the press. Thus, on 21 January 1842, the Danish
newspaper Dagen predicted that the Royal Theatre might very well be
able to compete with the Italians in the Italian repertoire and that audiences
in particular might find in Madame Rung “a fine artist and a lucky
competitor to Mad[ame] Forconi”. 36 It would seem that Rung had lived up
to expectations. Yet opera culture and etiquette were different at the Royal
Theatre. The reviewer in Dagen put it this way after a very positive review
of Madame Rung’s performance as Rachel in Jødinden on 26 February:
Were not, as they luckily are, all enthusiastic celebrations of the artist
after the curtain falls considered foreign to the Royal Theatre, then
surely curtain calls and offerings of flowers, not just from some parties,
but from the entire enthusiastic audience, would not have been missing
from this wonderful performance. 37
The hot, “southern” operatic qualities of Pauline Rung’s performance belonged,
after all (“luckily”!), to the context of our own, cooler, less Dionysian,
more “Nordic” opera culture. In fact, it would seem that the exoticism
33 ”[…] henrivende Foredrag og den mageløse dramatiske Effekt, hun forstaar at lægge
i sin Sang; […]”(Dagen 21 January 1842).
34 ”[…] vi kunne ikke tænke os nogen mere fuldendt drmatisk Sang, end Mad. Forconis”
(ibid.)
35 ”[…] af meget behagelig Klangfarve, fyldig og fast i Mellemtonerne, men noget tynd
og usikker i Høiden, hvorfor hun sjeldent var heldig i Coloraturer; […]” (ibid.)
36 ”[…] en udmærket Konstnerinde og Mad. Forconis heldige Medbeilerinde,”
37 ”Vare ikke, lykkeligviis, alle enthusiastiske Hyldninger af Konstneren, efter Tæppets
Nedgang, fremmede i det kongelige Theater, vilde Fremkaldelser og Blomsterofringer,
ikke af Partier, men af det hele begeistrede Publicum, ikke være udeblevne efter denne
herlige Fremstilling.” (Dagen, 27 February 1842)