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

Formed to Perform
ies (Rosselli 1992, pp. 91–113). The quality of the education was largely
dependent on the abilities of the individual teacher.
Gustav III had founded the Royal Swedish Academy of Music (Kungl.
Musikaliska Akademien) in 1771. Apart from being an institution for promoting
music and supplying orchestral music for Gustav’s official functions, the
Academy was also planned as a music school on the Italian model, giving
children from poor families a musical education. Needless to say, the organisation
was not paid for in full by Gustav III, and it constantly struggled
to make ends meet. Initially, Gustav intended to link the Academy to the
opera, giving deserving pupils vocal education, and ultimately supplying the
opera with much-needed singers. This was not an easy task, and for a few
years the vocal school at the Academy faced competition from a national
music school newly founded by the German composer Georg Joseph Vogler
(Abbé Vogler). The Academy’s singing school was reorganised in 1797 by
Pehr Frigel, the secretary of the Academy, giving it the form of an elementary
school for singing; it lasted until 1812.
The schools initially organised by the Academy taught singing, music
and dance. 2 Tuition was given by individual singers and actors; in the 1780s,
for example, these included the opera singer Carl Stenborg 3 and the actor
Jacques-Marie Boutet, known as Monvel. This famous French actor was
hired by Gustav III in 1781, and together with a select number of French actors,
formed a company that played in Stockholm and the royal castles from
1781 to 1787. In the new opera house, erected in 1782, a small theatre for
students was also built and a singing room attached for practice (Luterkort
1998, pp. 15–19). On Monvel’s departure in 1787 a school of declamation
was formed to complement the existing schools.
Monvel’s successor is unknown. In the year 1792 the French actors
Joseph Sauze Desguillons and Anne Marie Milan Desguillons received a
royal assignment to lead a school fashioned on the French model, which
they implemented the following year. Both actors had been part of the
French troupe that played in Stockholm under Monvel. During the period
in question most of the school’s directors came from within the ranks, and
2 In the eighteenth-century the name was Kongl. Theatrarne, and both drama and
opera were housed under the same administration, even if at times they performed
in separate buildings. From the start it was the music academy, however, that was
responsible for the opera performances and the education of the singers. In 1788 the
drama department was separated using a system based on shares divided among the
actors. Here, “the opera” usually refers either the company or to the house. The name
“Royal Swedish <strong>Opera</strong>” was given later.
3 According to his contract, Carl Stenborg was supposed to teach one or two students.
(Kungliga Biblioteket T8)
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