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

90 Ingela Tägil
in boarding houses at the Theatre’s expense was a common practice, and
this was probably the largest part of Fellborg’s income. However, her boarding
house had low standards. It was cramped, and the girls were often left
without enough food. After a number of grievances, the girls complained
to the theatre management, which relocated the three lodgers to another
boarding house run by Anette Bayard. This incident caused a huge financial
loss for Fellborg. The relationship between Jenny and her mother was
already strained, and after the three girls were removed, it became even
worse, finally leading to Jenny’s running away in October of 1834. She was
placed with the other girls at Bayard’s establishment and lived there until
June of 1836.This episode led to a court case between the Royal Theatre
and Fellborg over who was to be given responsibility for Jenny. She was still
registered as an orphan, but during the trial, Niklas Jonas Lind showed up
and declared that he was her father. Fellborg and Lind married, and Jenny’s
situation was suddenly transformed from that of an orphan to having both
a mother and a father. The court ruled that Jenny should move back home
to be with her new parents. 14 The whole affair affected Jenny very badly.
According to Lindersköld, it paralysed her development (Lindersköld undated
manuscript, pp. 5–6). When Jenny moved in with her parents, their
relationship improved at first, but in November of 1839 she ran away for the
second time, this time to the composer Lindblad. Like most women of the
time, Jenny was not authoritative, and legally, she was a runaway. However,
Lindblad was a sufficiently powerful protector that the parents were unable
to force her to come home again. Jenny stayed with Lindblad until she left
Sweden for good in 1844.
Adding together all of these factors, it is not difficult to understand why
Jenny’s voice was strained. All of these incidents, the personal as well as
those of a technical vocal character, took place in her early teenage years
when she was going through puberty, a sensitive period for any young girl.
Furthermore, Jenny’s sister, Amalia, died of cholera during the spring of
1835 (Rabe, January 1889).The problems with Jenny’s vocal technique
probably worsened because of her vulnerable personal situation, resulting
in severe fatigue of her young voice. In the absence of an adequate vocal
technique, the veiling of her voice never really healed, and when she sang
14 A detailed account is available in the biography by Franzén (1982, pp. 32–35).
Otherwise, not many authors have written about this episode. Lindersköld mentions
it briefly in his undated and unpublished biography, pp. 5–6. The story became public
for the first time through Lindblom’s series of articles, based on interviews with those
involved, and published in Dagens Nyheter, 7–9 November 1887.