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

272 Camilla Hambro
academic publications. With the rare exceptions of Suzanne Cusick’s monograph
on Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero (2009) and Jacqueline
Letzler’s and Robert Adelson’s Women writing opera: Creativity and
controversy in the age of the French Revolution (2001) , even international
research on women and music drama is scarce.
Without leaving a trace in Nordic music historiography or opera history
books, identities and social roles of women and men at the dawn of what
the Norwegian feminist pioneer Ragna Nilsen predicted would be “The
Women’s Century” were at the top of the agenda of public debate: “This
is a prophecy in many quarters, and we hope that it is a true foreboding.
At the moment we may feel only the happiness of living in a state of becoming”
(Nylænde, 15 April 1896). The socio-political climate for women’s
rights was steadily improving, but opinions on femininity were considerably
different from today’s. Old discussions about women’s innate nature and
what was fitting for women to do intensified. Inspired by the feminist movement,
Nordic women composers expressed themselves about their roles as
women composers and about their works.
The numbers of women composers who had their music published and
performed increased so much between 1890 and 1920 that it was considered
something of a sensation in daily newspapers, music magazines and women’s
magazines. Music historical research has not seized the opportunity
to stage or analyze sufficiently how changing conventions of (wo)manhood
and music theatre were negotiated in women’s operas in general and specifically
in opera and other dramatic music, particularly by Nordic women.
Since questions about women’s identity and social situation in the Nordic
societies were debated publicly, gender-sensitive analyses of Nordic women’s
opera and theatre music might prove a fruitful avenue to understanding
this subject.
Among the sleeping beauties in our archives, Helena Munktell’s In
Florence (1889) is of particular interest, because she was the first Nordic
woman whose composition made its debut at an opera house on the same
terms as her male colleagues. During Munktell’s lifetime her opéra comique
enjoyed success and repeat performances for more than a season as well
as acclaim from critics and audiences, only to vanish from music history.
Tekla Griebel’s The Rose Time was commissioned by the heavily genderladen
Women’s Exhibition from Past to Present held in Copenhagen in 1895,
a crossroads in history at a time when women’s liberation caused a major
crisis in male identity and masculinities. In a steady stream of interaction
between social norms and audience expectations, these highly interest-