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

284 Camilla Hambro
The Rose Time and the “Women’s Exhibition from Past to
Present” of 1895
In contrast to Munktell, who confidently set a libretto dealing with the arts’
portrayal of women in music and submitted it to the Swedish Royal <strong>Opera</strong>,
Griebel’s The Rose Time was commissioned by “The Women’s Exhibition
from Past to Present” for a performance in Copenhagen in August of 1895.
With this event we encounter gender as the fundamental structuring category:
Only women could participate in the production. More than 80,000
people visited the exhibition, leaving it with a surplus of 13,000 kroner
(Lous 1999: 48). The purpose was to show that not only was intersectional
collaboration between active women from different fields desirable and possible,
but that skilled women could tutor and develop the abilities of other
women. Through the exhibition Scandinavian women created an imaginary
women’s museum with performances of music, drama and ballet as obvious
components. Danish women carried out organisational as well as historical
pioneering work. Still, spectacle-wearing, “what-we-want” women
with short hair who were commonly associated with Kvindelig Fremskridtsforening
7 were mostly conspicuous by their absence. Hence, Dannebrog described
the event as “the fashionable summer meeting of the fair sex” (9
June 1895). Nevertheless, national and international media coverage was
impeccable.
Officially, the organising women disapproved of the women’s liberation
movement. Heads of several disciplines made negative remarks to the
press about “militant feminists”. Feminism, the non-issue they were referring
to, was still passionately discussed among the organisers, press and
audience. “Feminist women acting in armies are pretty horrible, and I’d
rather die than listen to lecturing ladies”, Emma Gad stated in Dannebrog
on 17 August 1895. During the exhibition Gad still presented herself as a
playwright and operetta librettist as well as the author of the ballet plot I
Rosentiden (The Rose Time). And, of course, women lectured during the
exhibition. When the Swedish “difference feminist” Ellen Key (1847–1926)
presented her new book, Misused Women’s Power, more listeners turned
up than the premises could accommodate. 8 Despite her claims that wom-
7 “The Advance Association”, a Danish women’s liberation movement founded in
1885.
8 In Misused Women’s Power (1896) Key highlighted gender differences and focused
attention on women’s distinctive skills and responsibilities, a set of values she labelled
“Mothering Society”. In her opinion women did wrong when they demanded equality
instead of developing their equal, specifically feminine qualities as mothers and in
personal relationships. Key feared an abuse of female power, and she also feared that