Liisa Byckling
A Finnish Nora in St. Petersburg:
Ida Aalberg in Ibsen's A Doll's House (1882-1902)
For thirty years Ida Aalberg was the leading actress of the Finnish National Theatre. Since her debut in Helsinki in 1874, she personified the romantic balance of opposites, the period's cult for great actresses coupled with her belief in art as an active force in society. Her growth into an internationally famous tragedienne was a legend come true. In the Golden Age of Finnish art she was the true embodiment of contradictory ambitions – inward and outward strivings. She was a symbol of the national culture, on the one hand, and an icon of the modern progressive woman, on the other.
Finland, which belonged to the Russian Empire in 1809-1917, occupied a special position of autonomy. Unlike other comparable Western borderlands of Russia, Finland not only developed into a separate state apart from Russia but succeeded in preserving this statehood right until its declaration of independence in 1917. The new leaders of the Finnish people were deeply rooted in the traditional, Lutheran world of Sweden-Finland. The cultural orientation towards Scandinavia and Western Europe was dominant through the XIX century.[1]
The national theater in Finland drew its inspiration from two sources, from two great social movements. [2] The first was the national awakening of the Finnish-speaking population around the middle of the 19th century. The results of this cultural revolution include both the national epic Kalevala (published in 1835) and the birth of the Finnish Theatre. The first professional stage in the language of the majority, the Finnish Theater was founded in 1872.
It was a matter of national pride to show that Shakespeare and other classics could be interpreted in Finnish. Dr. Kaarlo Bergbom (1843-1906) was a literary scholar who became the founder and leader of the Finnish Theatre. He also felt an urge to help playwrights create a repertory of native plays. He was assisted by a limited number of enthusiastic theater-goers; even philosophers and party politicians took an interest in promoting the theater. "Theatre was a favorite of the activists of the national movement", wrote a Finnish historian. The theatre was set up following international models, the purpose being to show that Finnish language culture was on par with that of established cultures. Bergbom had not only an educational and artistic purpose but even higher goals: the theatre was called on to express the mission embodying the spirit of nation in her native language. For seven years Bergbom also directed the opera department which performed operas by Rossini, Verdi and other Western composers. When a new theatre in the national romantic style was built in 1902, the theatre changed its name to the Finnish National Theatre. Around the turn of the century another movement joined forces to construct the special organization of Finnish theater life: the social and cultural awakening of the working classes. [3]
A great inspiration for Bergbom was Ida Aalberg, the young actress who made the performances of demanding roles possible. She was born to a railwayman's family in Janakkala, Southern Finland, in 1857, and she died in Petrograd in January 1915. Aalberg took acting lessons in Dresden and Paris. In Helsinki, under Bergbom's inspiring direction, she developed the skill to build her roles as unified wholes. Aalberg rose to prominence as Juliet and Regina von Emmeritz in Z. Topelius' historical drama. Her tragic heroines in Shakespeare's and Schiller's dramas were characterized by emotional complexity and intense dynamism. In the Finnish Theatre she played a series of the great roles of international dramaturgy – from Shakespeare and Schiller to Ibsen and Sudermann – as well as leading roles in the Finnish repertoire. [4] Aalberg was the first Finnish actress to cross the language barrier and win laurels first in Stockholm in the mid-1880's (as Ophelia in the Italian Ernesto Rossi's Hamlet), in Christiania, Bergen, and Copenhagen, and together with Josef Kainz in Romeo and Juliet and Schiller's Kabale und Liebe in Berlin, 1890. She played, besides her native Finnish, also in Swedish, Danish and German.
Ida Aalberg's Nora in A Doll's House is extremely interesting as an embodiment of the feminine ideal with a critical message, from an actress who developed from a national heroine to a figure of international significance. As Aalberg's tours to Scandinavia and Germany have received more critical attention, it is time to evaluate her work as an intermediary between Finnish and Russian theatres.
M. Iankovskii, who researched the stage history of Ibsen in Russia, maintains that Ida Aalberg was the first performer to arouse serious interest among Russians in Ibsen's dramaturgy. [5] Aalberg offered her own solution to the problem that occupied theatre artists: how to convey on stage the special philosophical content of Ibsen's creation, which does not fit neatly into the usual boundaries of realism.
Aalberg brought Nora to St. Petersburg three times – in 1882, 1894, and 1902 – and each time she presented the role in a new light, reflecting something essential not only in her own stage of development at that moment, but also in the "Northern" interpretation of the play, indirectly accepted by the playwright himself but in the attitude, characteristic of that time, of Russia toward Ibsen.
Ibsen in Finnish Criticism. Nora on the Finnish Stage
The study of Ibsen started in Finland even before the appearance of A Doll's House. Finns considered the Norwegian writer to be a renewer of society, a defender of the freedom of the individual and an unmasker of everyday lies. The first Finnish researchers had already written about his merits as a psychologist. This is very important for understanding the history of productions of Ibsen's plays in Finland, even more so because Kaarlo Bergbom was current with journalistic polemics and research, and his productions influenced the understanding of Ibsen's plays.
In his monograph about Ibsen, which appeared in 1879 in Helsinki, the Finnish scholar Valfrid Vasenius defined the main sources of the writer's creativity. [6] Vasenius considers the search for individual freedom and autonomy to be the central idea of Ibsen's dramaturgy. The necessity to find an individual truth – "that is the truth for me, and not just for others" -- was combined in Peer Gynt with the question of calling. "A human being must know for what life's calling he has been created and fulfill it with devotion." Vasenius emphasized that characters in Ibsen's ideological plays are not simply mouthpieces for aesthetic and social ideas, but living people with their own thoughts and feelings, multi-dimensional personalities, who compel readers to wonder: "how did he become the way he is." [7]
Thiodolf Rein, another Ibsen scholar in Finland, offers ideas about Ibsen's skills as a psychologist, although he reproaches the Norwegian dramatist for insufficient attention to social bonds. For the demands of an absolute moral ideal, Ibsen turns therefore to the individual, not to social institutions. From the individual, he demands truth, integrity, and harmony of will, word, and deed. But the bearers of such an ideal are not found in Ibsen's plays, and catharsis does not lighten the gloomy impression created by them, the Finnish scholar argues on the basis of A Doll's House and Ghosts. Ibsen penetrates into the deepest secrets of the human soul, Rein maintains, and his heroes' moral duty must be inherent in the reality he depicts.
The basis of Ibsen's realism is his ability to create individual personages, and this distinguishes it from the casual imitation of phenomena peculiar to naturalism. "His works continually place before readers the question about what a human being should be. They inculcate this question into the deep consciousness of the reader and touch his most painful places so that he cannot watch these works calmly as poetic works of art." Rein maintains that, while promoting the idea of the individual, Ibsen follows the most prominent representations of his time and glorifies moral strength, the opposite of which is the centripetal idea of collective responsibility. He considers the principal merit of Ibsen's works to be the fact that "they insistently inculcate in our consciousness the demands of a moral ideal, first and foremost, that of individual's obligations with regard to his own inner wholeness." [8]
At the same time that Bergbom carried out a series of Shakespearian productions in the Finnish theatre, Rein glorifed Ibsen as a genius of Shakespearian dimensions. Following the well-known Danish critic, Georg Brandes, Rein saw another peculiarity of the playwright in the fact that Ibsen was a great moralist who did not recognize any other beauty than moral beauty. This concept took root even among Finns.
The influence of Ibsen on Finnish dramaturgy at the end of the century exceeded the influence of all other contemporary foreign authors. But even for the most significant playwright of the time – Minna Canth – at first Ibsen was more a spiritual leader than a master psychologist. If, in her early works, Minna Canth's "Ibsenism" was expressed only in terms of ideological tendencies, later her grasp of Ibsen deepened and by the beginning of the 1890s, her plays displayed Ibsenesque objectivity and multi-faceted representations of human beings. [9] In this sense, the stage productions of Ibsen anticipated Minna Canth and the psychological interpretation of character grew out of Ida Aalberg's performances.
In 1880, the premiere of A Doll's House turned out to be an important landmark in the history of the young Finnish theatre and in the whole cultural life of the country. More precisely, the production revealed Ida Aalberg's skill. Aalberg's Nora is firmly connected with the aspirations of Finnish culture at the beginning of the 1880s toward democracy and realism. Ibsen’s Nora, a woman ripe for independence, embodied a crucial tendency of the time for Finns—the struggle for individual responsibility and the right of the individual to reevaluate traditional values. In the words of Finnish poet and critic, Eino Leino, Aalberg "was the exponent of new ideas which were in opposition to the whole of society and she became a mouthpiece for that literary-artistic circle that was inspired by such ideas" [10]
In the Finnish Theatre, the beginning of the 1880s is marked by an upsurge of artistic activity. After the opera department closed, Bergbom concentrated on directing for the dramatic stage, and together with talented young actors carried the day with productions of Western dramas and folk comedies. In the 1879-80 season, the Finnish repertoire included works by Moliere, Holberg, Beaumarchais, Schiller, Sheridan, Hugo, Oehlenschläger, Bjornson, Runeberg, the Finnish playwrights Kivi and Topelius.
With the production of A Doll's House in February 1880, the theatre took part in a serious social discussion. An uproar stirred up by the press preceded the production. In narrow circles of Ibsen admirers, the play had already been read in the original, and the production expanded and deepened the argument about whether Nora had the right of self-determination – "did Nora act correctly when she left home?" [11] The exchange of opinions aroused by the production put the woman question and other questions connected with social freedom on the agenda. Public discourse on the contradiction between individual freedom and the laws of society broadened.
Having produced A Doll's House, Bergbom showed that Finnish theatre had become an important participant in the cultural life of the country – it dared to tackle important issues of the time and present them in all their depth. From this time on, Ibsen's dramatury in Bergbom's staging constituted a central part of the theatre's modern repertoire. Bergbom's taste as a producer was chiefly for the great classics, but he was also in lively contact with contemporary drama. Influenced by developments elsewhere in Europe, especially Germany, Bergbom's production styles ranged from romanticism to realism. By the end of the century, Bergbom had produced the majority of Ibsen's plays. [12] The world premiere of Ibsen's Johan Gabriel Borkman took place in January 1897 at the Finnish Theatre. The phenomena depicted by the playwright developed out of conditions and social contradictions that were close to the Finns. The writer Juhani Aho called the production of each new play by Ibsen "a festival of new ideas." [13] Ibsen's drama presented the voice of international liberalism which was at loggerheads with the views of national movement, Fennomania. In Finland, Ibsen was understood first of all as a realist; in contrast to Russia, the symbolist interpretation of his work had little currency.
Aalberg and Ibsen
Ibsen's ideas influenced the formation of young Ida Aalberg's views and prompted her to interpret the surrounding world, dramatically accentuating its contradictions. Finland's energetic nationalist movement and Ibsen's plays constituted the intellectual environment in which Aalberg lived at the time of her intensive spiritual development. Not having received a systematic education, Aalberg, the daughter of a railwayman, filled in deficiencies with self-education. She was strongly influenced by a group of university professors and leaders of the national movement. One of them, the radical politician Lauri Kivekäs, became her first husband (until his death in 1893).
Aalberg's secret aspiration was to solve the "mystery" of life – to investigate herself and the surrounding world. The young actress talked about herself in her autobiographical novel Her Self-development as an Artist: "She came from the village. After a long struggle, she broke all of the fetters imposed on her by circumstance. (. . . ) Life stretched before her like a mystery -- whether beautiful, astonishing, and secret or gloomy, sad, and hopeless. She burned with the desire to throw herself into life and investigate all the thoughts that roamed around inside her." [14]
It has to be kept in mind that women in Finland have been more active in male pursuits in all walks of life than in other European countries. Let us just mention several generations of Finnish women painters, the first of whom started in the 1840s when the Drawing School of the Fine Arts Society was established in Helsinki. The well-known and highly talented group, "The Painting Sisters", made their breakthrough in the 1880s. Helene Schjerfbeck, Amelie Lundahl and others studied in Paris; their landscapes and portraits still charm us with their boldness and economy of expression.
Like all Finnish intelligentsia of the time, Aalberg was fluent in Swedish and read the new Scandinavian literature soon after publication. Acquaintance with representatives of Finnish and Scandinavian culture not only broadened her spiritual horizons, but also required intellectual effort and a more conscious relationship to her own work. Bergbom's directing helped Aalberg to master Ibsen. The transition from classical dramaturgy to the modern repertoire forced Aalberg to bridle her passionate, spontaneous approach to a role, subjecting it to analysis, a new step in the realistic actor's method. Aalberg was Bergbom's inspiration and favorite actress; under his direction, she developed an ability to grasp the underlying idea of the play and the skill to build the role as a unified whole without yielding to the temptation of one-sidedness or pedestrian realism. [15]
In the role of Nora, Aalberg was closer to Finnish spectators than at any other time in the 1880s. After the premiere in February 1880, critics and spectators alike expressed their delight with the production, which was repeated thirteen times that spring and revived the following season.
In photographs of the premier of A Doll's House, we do not see a fragile doll-wife. A slender, tall young woman dressed in Neapolitan costume appears in them – the photographs depict the scene after the masquerade. Sorrow is in her youthful face and dark eyes, an urgent question and protest, which lead with invincible strength to the events of the final scene. In her performance, Ida Aalberg's peculiar ability to communicate the contradictions of human nature, these "most delicate movements of the heart," merged with her original view of Nora's personality. Feminine charm softened Ibsen's position, but did not weaken the production's tragic sensibility. The astounding strength with which she communicated apparently effortlessly the most delicate movements of the soul, is comparable only to the strength with which she concealed everything inorganic in the image and presents precisely the image that Ibsen probably intended. [16]
When the production was revived in 1883, because of Nora, a sincere feeling of unity arose between the actress and the public. The salon repertoire Aalberg had seen and studied in Paris could not equal this impression. She had by now included Scribe's plays into her repertoire as a proof of her newly acquired technical skill. Perhaps in defense of Aalberg's much admired "Northern" and unaffected way of acting Vasenius wrote: "In neither the Comédie Française nor in any other theatre in the world can one learn how to create such an effect. This is something born in the heart of an author, communicated by an actor, and through him it affects the spectator." [17]
In the 1880s, Ibsen's plays simultaneously fascinated the young actress and aroused a critical attitude. Like many of her contemporaries, Aalberg considered Ghosts to be a play in the spirit of French naturalism, which she, like her contemporaries, called realism. "It is cruelly realistic and gloomy in the style of Zola,” she wrote from Norway in 1881. “In our time, the dominance of realism, which reigns in literature and art, makes me very sad. People no longer have ideals (...)" In 1887, having started rehearsals for Rosmersholm in the Finnish Theatre, she initially considered this play pessimistic and difficult to understand. But after ten years passed, Rebecca West became one of the masterpieces of Aalberg's second Ibsen period. [18]
Ibsen's views and his "pessimism of indignation" (in Georg Brandes' words) gradually became the substance of Aalberg's own spiritual world. Ibsen's ideas about the contradiction between reality and the ideal coincided with Aalberg's own inner experience, with the conflict she sensed between romanticism and realism. Ibsen's realism concealed a significant share of romantic idealism, which, when comprehended, opened an important path to interpreting his dramaturgy. [19] From the perspective of women's loving nature and ordinary logic, the cogency of Nora's solution – departure from the family – cannot be explained through reference to everyday life. One must search for justification in Ibsen's essential conviction that a human being must realize her or his calling.
Several excerpts from Aalberg's letters are reminiscent of lines spoken by Ibsen's heroes. In spite of the elevated poetic style, these are passionate personal declarations. "You've lost in part the capacity of the soul to rise upwards," – Aalberg reprimanded one of her friends in a letter in 1881. "In our realistic age, we consider it an honour to work out pessimistic ideas about life and people. But I don't do this, on the contrary, I believe in the good, in nobility and sublimity . . ." She advises: "Spread your wings and fly high, higher than the opinions and ideas of the crowd." In this instance, Aalberg's "individualism" protested against the pessimism and wretched conditions which, according to the Finnish writer Juhani Aho, characterize Ibsen's work. "I demand much from life, I raise my ideals high precisely because ideals nourish us with a vital force" – Aalberg concluded her letter, written after playing Nora on the Finnish stage. [20]
A certain idealization characterized all of the Ibsenesque characters played by the Finnish actress. Something else united Aalberg's disposition and Ibsen's spirit: the principle of individual creativity. The actress wrote in honor of the playwright's seventieth year in a book published in Norway: "In stage art it is also necessary to show faith in the individual. We do not give ourselves up, but reveal our individuality in the role we are embodying. I am convinced that, besides the aesthetic problem, the modern actress has a special calling: to fight for recognition of the individual, for faith in women, and to continue the battle we've been waging from time immemorial. Ibsen's female images -- are the confession of the modern, awakening woman. Her confession of suffering, of her most secret secret battles and aspirations." [21]
Reverberations of the struggle for the liberation of the artist from national and linguistic limitations are felt on Aalberg's journey towards spiritual development. Kaarlo Bergbom, the founder of the Finnish theatre, also sought to broaden international connections. As mentioned before, on his initiative, Aalberg was sent to Dresden and Paris for lessons in the art of acting (1878-79, 1882-1883).
Soon after the remarkable premier of A Doll's House in Helsinki, Finnish literary critic V. Vasenius introduced Aalberg to Henrik Ibsen in Munich in 1880. In conversations with the writer in the circle of his family, the twenty-two year old actress was influenced as much by what he said as by his presence. For Aalberg, Ibsen's "incomparable spirit" became a beacon in her own spiritual development. "I consider myself fortunate that I got to know him,” she wrote to a Finnish friend in 1880, “because when storms, darkness, and bitterness threaten to devour my spirit, it is so comforting to remember the minutes of those meetings and in the struggle for one's own emotional strength to be saved by flight to the ideas of these unusual individuals. . ." [22] After their first meeting, Ibsen told Vasenius that Aalberg's appearance and character coincided fully with that of the Italian woman whose image nourished his imagination when he composed A Doll's House. [23] The matter, apparently, was not so much in the Finnish actress's slender figure and femininity, but in the strength of will and impressionability that was concealed behind her reserve.
Aalberg was not alone in her deep involvement with the Norwegian playwright's moral issues. As the Swedish scholar Margareta Wirmark has shown in her book Noras systrar (Nora's Sisters), the influence of A Doll's House was considerable on a whole generation of Scandinavian writers, among them many women, who continued the debate on the stage. [24]
Aalberg's tours abroad began in Hungary in 1880 and continued in Christiania and Stockholm in 1885, where she played Juliet to Ernesto Rossi's Romeo. In Copenhagen Aalberg performed for two seasons (1885-1886) in both Swedish and Danish. Her acquaintance with Georg Brandes, the well known Danish literary critic, and attendance at his lectures helped clarify Ibsen's spiritual turn of mind and role as a denouncer of worldly lies. Subsequent tours to Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia followed right up until 1907.
The opinion later spread into Finland and Russia that Ibsen considered Aalberg to be the best interpreter of Nora. This does not correspond to reality, for Ibsen never saw the Finnish actress on stage. Nonetheless, the excellent reviews she subsequently received from the Scandinavian press and personal acquaintance persuaded Ibsen that she possessed certain distinctive features necessary for the role. With regard to the production in 1889 of Lady from the Sea in the Finnish theatre, Ibsen wrote to Bergbom that Aalberg would undoubtedly "be marvelous in the principal role" in his new play. The playwright regarded Bergbom's plan to produce Hedda Gabler in two years with the same confidence. Ibsen believed that the actress's performance style and intelligence were prerequisites for interpreting Hedda. Ibsen wrote to Bergbom on January 19, 1891: "I would be very pleased if the Finnish Theatre produced this play because then I would be certain that the production, in any case the heroine, will be exceptional. Unfortunately, I've never had the opportunity to see Miss Aalberg on stage. But I've heard so much about her brilliant acting and read so much about it in the newspapers, especially when she performed in Copenhagen, and besides, during our private introduction I was so persuaded of her extraordinary intelligence, that I would entrust her utterly with this unusual task." [25]
In Ibsen's homeland, where the actress toured several times in Swedish (1882, 1885, 1888, and 1904), Aalberg called forth delight not only by the passionate emotionality of her interpretation, but also because, according to one critic, she was able to overcome Nora's apparent duality, to represent her integrity and persuade the spectator that the spiritual transformation of the young wife and mother, her departure from her home, were both possible and justifiable.
Ibsen's Norwegian biographer, Gerhard Gran, wrote about the perspective on the role created by Aalberg. "At the beginning of the production, the actress was charmingly playful, but also so anxious that she prompted the spectator to watch her carefully and divine the hidden melody that played beneath her carelessness, forcing him to wait and at times even to fear something." [26] Aalberg raised Nora's spiritual essence to a higher level than other contemporary Scandinavian actresses. She did not play the feminist theme of a woman yearning for freedom, like the Norwegian actress, Johanne Reimers, nor did she play the seductive doll-woman of Danish actress Betty Hennings. [27] Uniting the dominant themes of other Scandinavian actresses, Aalberg presented Nora's complex duality as a unified whole, her spiritual development and final decision were carefully grounded and imperceptibly prepared for. Precisely for this reason Gran considered Aalberg's performance the most perfect of all those he had seen. [28]
Ida Aalberg's early tours in Russia
The Finnish Theatre visited St. Petersburg, performing in Finnish to audiences mainly made up of the numerous (up to 20,000) Finns resident in the Russian capital. In 1873-1902 the theatre toured St.Petersburg twelve times.
The Finnish Theatre's and Aalberg's tours to Russia were part of the intensification of cultural contacts between the Grand Duchy of Finland with the Empire. Oriented culturally towards Western Europe, particularly to Sweden and Germany, Finland took advantage of the unique proximity and variety of contacts available to Finns through union with Russia – a fact that has often been ignored in the history of Finnish culture. Recently a revaluation has taken place. "Given the internationally acclaimed achievements of Russian culture during the years 1809-1917, it is not surprising that the cultural exchange of that period was richly rewarding for the Finns." [29]
In the 1880's came the breakthrough into Russian literature, and, as elsewhere in Europe, it came with Ivan Turgenev. A growing familiarity with Dostoevskii and Tolstoi emerged during the same period. The 1880's were also the time of the first performances in Finland of Russian drama in plays by Gogol, Ostrovskii and Turgenev.
The first signs of serious interaction in the visual arts also date from the 1870s. The culmination took place in 1898 when the exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists was held by the "World of Art" ("Mir Iskusstva") group and by Sergei Diagilev in St.Petersburg. The first decade of the twentieth century also saw closer contacts in musical life. Finnish music had by then reached a level where it was beginning to attract attention abroad. Jean Sibelius conducted his own works in St.Petersburg in December 1906 and attended a concert devoted to his music in Moscow. Sibelius' music had by this time already been performed in the Russian capital under the direction of the Finnish conductor Robert Kajanus.
When the Finnish theatre brought its first production of Ibsen to St. Petersburg, Russia's acquaintance with the Norwegian playwright was just beginning. Dmitrii Sharypkin notes that in the period before the founding of the Moscow Art Theatre, Russian productions of Ibsen's plays had little success. [30]
Along with German and Polish productions, tours by Ida Aalberg, who came to St. Petersburg in 1882 with the Finnish Theatre, marked the beginning of the stage history of A Doll's House in Russia. In 1882 Finnish productions were held in the Merchant Club's auditorium from November 25 to December 23 organized by the Finnish cultural society. The repertoire also included an adaptation of Bronte's Jane Eyre, Toth's The Gypsy and Burglary, a new play by Finnish playwright, Minna Canth.
Thanks to its talented actors, the Finnish troupe attracted the attention of a certain part of the international public. Ida Aalberg provoked the interest of a Russian-German critic as a tragic actress of the first rank. After playing the title role in Jane Eyre, her art received an objective evaluation in the St. Petersburg Herald. "She can charm, horrify or even repulse spectators, but she never leaves them indifferent." Having remarked on several of shortcomings connected with the actress's youth, the critic continued: "When Miss Aalberg came out on stage, it seemed that we were carried away to a flaming volcano. Passion is the atmosphere that surrounds her, smouldering passion flickers in her eyes." [31]
Her performance as Nora forced the critic to change his judgement about the Finnish actress's lack of restraint; he not only acknowledged her talent, but was delighted by it. "Only an actress with fiery genius and a sharp mind could create such a logically thought out, genuinely natural, nuanced image, and now we must strike out the reproach we made concerning her lack of artistic restraint: clearly, in this role she had control over each scene and each of Nora's character traits." Having analyzed Aalberg's interpretation of Nora in detail, the critic concluded that an actress who knew how to play – no, to live on stage – could be entrusted with the most difficult tasks. The critic congratulated Bergbom for recruiting such a valuable talent, one envied not only by every theatre, but by every nationality. [32]
Having experienced her own period of distress and pressure, Aalberg played the dramatic scenes much more persuasively than the Polish actress, Gabriela Snieszko-Zapolska, who performed the role before her. "As the French proverb says 'comparaison n'est pas raison', but we cannot avoid comparing performances by the Finnish and Polish actresses. As it turns out, the Finnish tragic actress not only plays Nora's eccentricities skillfully, but also imparts much of her private self to the character, while revealing the playwright’s allusions which is a result of studying the role carefully, but Miss Zapolska performed diligently and successfully, nothing more. Many of the Finnish actress's most delightful and charming scenes passed unnoticed when the Polish actress played them. [33] The tarantella, which the Finnish actress used to express her inner distress, Zapolska performed with only traditional correctness. Nora's inner torment and growing fear burst forth with desperate force into the tarantella, which, in Helmer’s opinion, she danced with too little control.
But the Finnish production remained unknown to Russian spectators while the Polish actress was able to atract Mariia Savina, the Aleksandrinsky Theatre's leading actress, to the play. There were several reasons for this: Polish language and culture were closer to the Russians because of their common origin, and, what was more important, because Polish theatre was oriented towards French theatre which was so much admired by Russians. A Doll's House was produced on Savina's initiative as her benefit in 1884. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, Ibsen's Nora remained an insoluble enigma for the Russian theatre.
Mariia Savina's Russian biographer writes that the actress failed to communicate Nora's spiritual crisis or the critical bias of the play. The first Russian production of A Doll's House sank in a sea of plays about families and everyday life. The American scholar Catherine Schuler remarks that after the play was ravaged by critics, Savina did not attempt another Ibsen part for years. "Although the women's movement enjoyed a certain amount of influence, it had little general support in Russia, especially from theatre critics. To be publicly associated with feminism was a risky business for any actress who valued her popularity ..." [34]
During the tour in 1891 the Finnish Theatre showed Hedda Gabler, Canth's Family of a Pastor and Romeo and Juliet. Bergbom's cycle of Shakespeareґs drama began with Romeo and Juliet in 1881, with Ida Aalberg and Axel Ahlberg; the cycle culminated in Julius Caesar and Midsummer Night's Dream at the end of the last century. "We can be happy with the artistic results,” Bergbom wrote to his sister and assistant Emilie after the tour. Especially Canth's family play and Shakespeare's tragedy were a success. Bergbom referred to the extremely favorable review in St. Petersburger Zeitung and concluded: "The Russian press admired Ida Aalberg, even if their attitude in general was not very positive. But undoubtedly she far surpassed her partners especially as Juliet." [35]
Aalberg played Juliet's role masterfully, wrote the critic of Novoe vremia. He continued: "Before the public was an actress of an entirely original type. An actress with a delicate sensibility, with a mass of characteristic features in her interpretation. From the very first scene, when Shakespeare's Juliet appears, the viewers saw an unusually simple interpretation, alien to any sort of pretentiousness or thrashing about in the 'winning' scenes. Not even raising her voice, she performed the role from beginning to end with an unusual softness, femininity, and truthfulness." (Novoe vremia, 2.5.1891).
When Aalberg toured St. Petersburg with her Finnish troupe in 1894, the atmosphere was much more favorable for producing Ibsen. Beginning in the 1890s, Russian interest in Ibsen intensified. Lively theoretical debates about his works arose, extreme positions – from populist to symbolist – offered conflicting appraisals. Ibsen's dramaturgy was established in Russia first as a fact of literature, of philosophic and social thought, and only later as a fact of theatre. [36] Tours by famous foreign actresses –Duse, Sorma, Rejane, all of whom played Nora as well as other roles – played a significant role in propagandizing Ibsen at a time when his dramaturgy was still largely unknown. [37]
For her part, the Finnish actress demonstrated the psychological diapason of the writer who won the fame as both a philosopher and prophet of the new drama. In St. Petersburg in 1894, Ida Aalberg once again made Nora a role she had created. The way Ida Aalberg conveyed the dramatic tension between her visible and concealed lives fascinated audiences in St. Petersburg. "She played the transitions between the mournful pathos and gaiety of a seemingly happy, beautiful young woman brilliantly." [38]
The tours merit attention because for the first time an interpreter of European dramaturgy came to St. Petersburg from Finland, wrote a reviewer from Birzhevaia Gazeta, who apparently did not know about the Finnish theatre's earlier tours. This time, Aalberg's touring repertoire included Sardou's Let's Get a Divorce, Zola's Therese Raquin, Minna Canth's Sylvi, Grillparzer's Medea, Dumas fils Camille, and Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvrer. The first production of A Doll's House was performed before a half-empty auditorium because the announcement of the performance was late. Nonetheless, according to Novosti, "a few inveterate Russian theatre goers were noticeable among the spectators of a distinctively Finnish type". There were several Russian artists and journalists, and also members of the St. Petersburg Ibsen Society, among them Baron Alexandr Uexkull-Gyllenband, Aalberg's future husband.
According to Grazhdanin (21.1.1894), productions by Aalberg's troupe were of interest even to people unfamiliar with the Finnish language. But the St. Petersburgskii Listok (21.1.1894) wrote: ". . . Miss Aalberg is a prominent actress and, of course her appearance in St. Petersburg would be important to all true lovers of theatrical art, if only. . . If only she performed in a more generally accessible European language. . ."
Comparisons inevitably arose between Aalberg and other actresses who performed the same European repertoire – especially Eleanora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt. "In terms of the nature and peculiarities of her talent, Miss Aalberg resembles the famous Italian actress more than Bernhardt. Extraordinary naturalness, spontaneity, and simplicity are the distinctive qualities of her acting, she has no studied gestures or conventional poses; her way of communicating is truthful and lifelike." [39] Aalberg's acting made a excellent impression on another Russian critic. "Her acting is distinguished by remarkable simplicity and, in several scenes, her sincerity completely captivates spectators."
The anonymous Petersburg critic was not, however, pleased with the expressiveness of Ida Aalberg's performance of the dance. He wanted to see "more delicacy and beauty" in the performance, although as a whole Aalberg's acting met with his full approval. "Of course, even the sun has spots; Miss Aalberg performs the dance in the final scene of the second act awkwardly, overemphasizing the onset of hysteria and forgetting that if Nora behaved that way in reality, her husband would have to become aware of her inner moral struggle."
It is interesting to note that Aalberg's decision to play the scene this way was consistent with that of the famous Russian Nora – Vera Kommissarzhevskaia. The St. Petersburg actress played Nora in 1904. In Vsevolod Meierkhold's opinion, expressiveness of gesture characterized Kommissarzhevskaia's playing of the dance scene. He cited this scene as an example of acting by allusion, contrasting it to naturalistic acting. [40] The deepening horror of Nora's dance, as performed by the Finnish and Russian actresses, rose to a level of tragic expressivity free from pedestrian prettiness.
Although by the magnitude of their talent, Duse and Bernhardt were much more important than Aalberg, the Finnish actress deserves recognition as one of Nora's best interpreters. [41]
Aalberg's new artistic influences at the turn of the century. The Russian years
The end of the nineteenth century was marked by significant changes in Ida Aalberg's stage and personal lives. This was a time of new artistic influences from Europe, a time of rapprochement with Russian culture. Having married Baron Alexandr Uexkull-Gyllenband, in 1894, Aalberg settled in St. Petersburg where she lived until her death in 1915. She traveled to Europe, toured Finland every year and sometimes other countries where she performed in Swedish and German.
At the beginning of the century, Aalberg became familiar with Russian theatre, its artists and modernist tendencies. Letters preserved in the National Library of Finland and the Moscow Art Theatre Archive attest to her creative connections with Konstantin Stanislavsky, with the famous Moscow actress, Maria Ermolova, and with Russian writers of the period. [42]
Over the many years in which she played Nora, Aalberg put greater emphasis on the last scenes of the play. She uncovered and refined the tragic essence of her heroine. In the same way, she anticipated the definitive Russian interpretation of Nora by Vera Kommissarzhevskaia, which appeared in 1904.
The last time the Finnish actress played Nora in St. Petersburg was in 1902, on the eve of her second Ibsen period. As if in preparation for a big foreign tour she performed in German for the next three years at Elizaveta Shabelskaia's theatre, with a group of German amateurs headed by Karl Böller. If her earlier Nora was more a child of nature than a doll, now neither interpretation was possible – from the inside or the outside. The actress's tall, proud figure and sharp features did not create the impression of a 'little lark'; her noble individuality, which was perceptible in all the registers of the tragedy, anticipated her rebirth. A Russian-German critic maintained that although Aalberg wasn't Ibsen's Nora, her art was persuasive and truthful. She was "a woman who moved [spectators] to tears and stunned [them] with her terrible spiritual suffering and the tragedy of her inner development." [43]
Aalberg gave meaning to each word of the role, transforming it into part of a unified whole; thanks to her powers of expressive mimicry, even the mute scenes held the audience?s rapt attention. "This Nora reveals her selfless soul to the public gradually, the dramatic essence of her situation exites them and each whispered word beats like a hammer, stuns, and creates an indelible impression." [44]
The Finnish production made its own contribution to the history of Russian tours by foreign actresses, which, on the cusp of the century, gave rise to a lively polemic in the press regarding the interpretation of Ibsen’s roles. Both Russian and Scandinavian spectators agreed that Aalberg's 'quiet tragedy' was distinguished from interpretations by her contemporaries.
A Norwegian critic wrote: "At the end of the play, Agnes Sorma conveys tragic disgust, while Rejane does not spare the purely external means of expression." Miss Dybwad is also incapable of expressing the secret inner torment in this heartfelt revolt. The Finnish actress's tranquility born of hopelessness, her restrained horror when faced with the baseness of life created a stronger impression. Silence about her insights into her own individuality was stronger than the drum and trombone of tragedy. And for the sake of this Nora, who is gripped with terror, torment, and grief, we willingly forget that the small singing bird of the first act did not seem to have sufficient conviction." [45]
In 1904 - 1905, Aalberg and her Austrian troupe completed a tour of Scandinavia, Finland, Riga, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. She enjoyed a remarkable triple success as Rebecca West in Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, and Maria Stuart. In St. Petersburg she met with great critical acclaim, which was repeated in Moscow, where Stanislavsky and Ermolova came to see her performances. Aalberg was considered the leading interpreter of Ibsen's late work. The tour marked the culmination of Aalberg's career.
At every stage of her development – in her faceted interpretation of the Western popular repertoire (Dumas fils Camille, and Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvrer), in her naturalistic role by Zola and Canth, and in her late roles in Shaw's Candida, Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (Elena, Scandinavian and Finnish tour, 1904), Ostrovski's The Storm (Katerina, Finnish National Theatre, 1911) – she drew upon a creative process that was rooted in the close analysis and accumulation of psychological detail.
Influenced by the Moscow Art Theatre, she made an attempt at modern directing at the Finnish National Theatre in 1909-11 (she played Ella Rentheim in John Gabriel Borkman, 1909, and other parts).
The last time Aalberg played Nora in 1914 when she toured Finland with her young troupe, Studio.
Over time, Nora's theme turned into Aalberg's own inner melody. As Nora gave herself wholeheartedly to the vocation of love, so Aalberg devoted herself to art and searched for new paths in it. During the last years of her life, inspired by Konstantin Stanislavsky, she entertained the idea of creating an art theatre in Finland. Due to lack of support from the public, her intention was not realized.
In January 1915, Ida Aalberg died. She died in Petrograd, but was buried in Helsinki. In Aalberg's obituary, published in the St. Petersburg journal Teatr i iskusstvo (Theatre and Art), her image arose again – embodied not just in Shakespeare's Juliet, but in Ibsen's Nora: "In the first phase of her career, she became prominent in Shakespeare’s tragedies, but when the opportunity to play Nora presented itself, everyone felt that the Norwegian playwright had found [in Aalberg] a remarkable embodiment of his female images. Perhaps other actresses, including Kommissarzhevskaia and Duse, singled out Nora’s individual moments better, but only Aalberg conveyed the Nora that Ibsen carried in his mind ..." [46]
Alluding to the tragic incompleteness of the actress’s creative life, the Finnish poet V.A. Koskenniemi saw the role of Nora, which she played for the last time a year before her death, as her artistic monument: ". . . like Nora, she also believed in a 'miracle'. Her spirit lived for this miracle – a miracle that could not be realized. Ida Aalberg knew life's joys and sorrows, its suffering and passion, but she did not know people. She never stopped waiting for a 'miracle' from them. In both the broad and narrow sense, her relationship to the public could be compared with Nora's relationship to the lawyer, Helmer." [47]
In a poem dedicated to the memory of the recently deceased 'Russian Nora', Vera Kommissarzhevskaia, Aleksandr Blok sounded a similar note of theatrical castles in the air:
"So sleep, exhausted by fame,
Love, life, slander . . .
Now you have found it -- your sublimity,
Your castle in the air." [48]
Translated from Russian: Catherine Schuler
Bibliography
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Aspelin-Haapkylä, Eliel. Suomalaisen teatterin historia III. Helsinki 1908.
Blok, Aleksandr. Sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh, tom 2. Leningrad, 1980.
Brandes, Georg. Björnson och Ibsen. Stockholm 1882.
Brandes, Georg. Novye veianiia. St. Petersburg, 1889.
Byckling, Liisa. "Neizvestnye pis'ma Idy Aalberg M.M. Ermolovoi i K.S. Stanislavskomu." Teatr 1979, 1.
-----. Moskovskii Khudozhestvennyi teatr i finskie i teatral'nye deiateli v nachale XX veka. Studia Slavica Finlandensia IV. Helsinki 1987.
-----. "Gastroli Finskogo teatra v Peterburge (vtoraia polovina XIX v.)." Studia Slavica Finlandensia XII. Helsinki 1995.
-----. Teatterivierailuja. Suomi ja Pietari. Helsinki 1995.
Gran G. Henrik Ibsen. Liv og verker. II. Kristiania 1918.
Hellman Ben, The reception of Russian culture in Finland. Finland and Poland in the Russian Empire. A Comparative Study. Edited by Michael Branch, Janet Hartley, Antoni Maczak. School of Slavonic and East European Studies. University of London. 1995.
Karkhu. E.G. Istoriia literatury Finliandii. Leningrad, 1979.
Koskenniemi V.A.K. Ida Aalberg. Aika 1915.
Laurila, K. S. Ibsen Suomessa. Valvoja 1928.
Leino, Eino. Kootut teokset XIV. Helsinki 1949.
Meierkhol’d, V.E. Stat'i, pis'ma, rechi, besedy, ch. 1. Moscow 1968.
Niemi, Irmeli. Maria Jotunin näytelmät. Helsinki 1964.
Nilsson, Nils-Еke. Ibsen in Russland. Stockholm 1965.
Rein, T. Henrik Ibsen. Valvoja 1883.
Räsänen, Ilmari. Ida Aalberg. Porvoo 1925.
Schuler, Catherine A. Women in Russian Theatre. The Actress in the Silver Age. London and New York 1996.
Sharypkin, D.M. "Ibsen v russkoi literature (1890-e gody)." Rossiia i Zapad. Leningrad, 1973.
Shakh-Azizova, T.K. "Repertuar." Istoriia russkogo dramaticheskogo teatra 1882-1897, t. 2. Moscow 1982.
Shneiderman, I. Mariia Gavrilovna Savina. Moscow – Leningrad 1956.
Tal'nikov, D. Komissarzhevskaia. Leningrad – Moscow 1939.
Thaden, Edward. Traditional Elites, Religion and Nation-Building in Finland, the Baltic Provinces and Lithuania, 1700-1914. Finland and Poland in the Russian Empire. 1995.
Tiusanen, Timo. Teatterimme hahmottuu. Helsinki 1969.
Tiusanen, Timo. The Theatre in Finland. Theatre in the Five Scandinavian Countries. The Scandinavian Theatre Union. Stockholm 1971.
Vasenius, V. Henrik Ibsen. Valvoja 1906.
Vasenius, V. Suomalainen teatteri. Valvoja 1883.
Viljanen Lauri. Henrik Ibsen. Elämä ja teokset. Helsinki 1962.
Wirmark, Margareta. Noras systrar. Nordisk dramatik och teater 1879-99. Stockholm 2000.
Endnotes
1. See: Byckling 1979 & 1987.
2. St. Petersburg Zeitung 9/22.12.1902.
3. Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta 9/22.12.1902.
4. Aftenposten 1904 (Kristiania), Räsänen 1925, 426-427.
5. Teatr i iskusstvo 1915, 2, 25 (the obituary is unsigned. It may be the work of K. Tiander, who published an obituary in the newspaper Rech (8./21/1/1915).
7. Aleksandr Blok. “Na smert? Komissarzhevskoi.” (1910) Blok 1980, 150.
8. Finland belonged to the Kingdom of Sweden as a province until 1809 when it was occupied by Russia during the War of Finland. Having been closely associated with Sweden since the twelfth century, the Finns shared with the Swedes common laws and political and social institutions. Before the 19th century Finnish speakers who achieved success professionally or in commerce, the military and the civil service usually became Swedes in language and culture. Yet the Finnish language was always widely used throughout Finland, and Swedish speakers in Finland were much more prone in the nineteenth century to accept the national identity and the culture of the majority of the population of their country than was the case for Germans in the Baltic provinces or Poles in Lithuania. (Thaden 1995, 9-10.)
The Tsar was represented by a Russian governor general (general-gubernator), but Finland's existing laws and institutions were respected. Since 1863 reforms approved by the Finnish Diet encouraged a distinctive economic and cultural development in Finland which differed appreciably from that of the other parts of the Empire during the second part of the nineteenth century. (Thaden 1995, 12). Finland had her self-government (senat), budget, army, postal services, customs; the Finnish and Swedish languages (not Russian) were the official languages of the country.
9. The first theatre performances in Finland were organized in the university of Turku (Abo Academy) in 1640. During the 18th century theatre in Finland relied solely on travelling Swedish players and players who performed in German in St.Petersburg and the Baltic lands. In 1827 a wooden theatre building, the Arkadia opened in Helsinki. In 1866 the New Theatre was built in Helsinki for the visiting Swedish troupes.
10. Kaarlo Bergbom, a native Swedish speaker, learned Finnish as student and became one of the leaders of the movement for national Finnish culture. Author of a Ph.D.thesis on German historical drama (1868), two romantical plays and newspaper articles on literature. Bergbom who spoke fluent German and French traveled every year to Central Europe to study modern theatre and classic and modern drama, which he brought to the Finnish Theatre. As director of classics and Finnish historical plays he was influenced by the Theatre of the Duke Meiningen. As pedagogue of his young actors he underlined emotional approach to a role and technical skills; for the development of technique of acting members of Berbomґg troupe were sent to Germany and France to study on a state scholarship.
Significant plays were written by Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) who attained the status of Finland's national author. Kivi's tragedy Kullervo, which was inspired by Kalevala, the national epic, his comedy The Heath Cobblers, and several other plays have remained in the stock repertoire. Bergbom established Kivi's plays, which are now classics of the Finnish stage. He commissioned and directed the socio-critical plays of the first Finnish woman playwright, Minna Canth (1844-97) (Burglary, 1883, Children of Hard Destiny (1888), Sylvi (1893), and others).
11. In Shakespeare's tragedies, Aalberg played Juliet, Ophelia, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and Cleopatra (1879-1896), in Schiller's dramas -- Luisa, Mary Stuart, the Maid of Orleans (1879-1887). Roles in Ibsen's plays: Nora (1880), Rebecca West (Rosmerholm, 1887), Ellida (Lady from the Sea, 1889), Hedda Gabler (1891), Rita Almers (Little Eyolf, 1895), and Ella Rentheim (John Gabriel Borkman, 1909).
12. Iankovskii 1958, 752. About the tours of St. Petersburg artists in Helsinki and Finnish touring companies with Ida Aalberg in St. Petersburg, see my two articles in Finnish and Russian: Byckling 1995a and 1995b.
16. For Ibsen's influence on Finnish dramaturgy see: Niemi 1964, 13-16.
18. Aspelin-Haapkyla III, 1908, 34-39.
19. Although the Swedish language troupe, which performed at the New Theatre in Helsinki, had already introduced the Finnish public to works by the Norwegian playwright, their productions were marked by superficiality. The New Theatre specialized in salon comedies and their productions of Ibsen did not exert such a deep influence on the spiritual life of the country as productions by the Finnish theatre. (Laurila 1928, 117)
20. Aho wrote that Ibsen is distinguished by "seriousness, depression, and pessimism, which are engendered by wretched conditions, centuries-old foreign enslavement, and people's pious upbringing. But there was something else: strength free from prejudice, protest against the existing order, a hatred for it which did not appear in any other native writer the way it did in him. (See Karkhu 1979, 379-380.)
21. Räsänen 1925, 236, 239.
22. According to Bergbom's biographer, Jalmari Finne, "sweeping romanticism on a grand scale" was characteristic of Bergbum's style, but he was also peculiarly logical, building a rational foundation for all of the characters on stage." (Tiusanen 1969, 130.)
23. E. Nervander, Morgonbladet, cit. no: Aspelin-Haapkylд 1908, 130. I will try to reconstruct Aalberg's performance: at the beginning of the production, an atmosphere of family happiness prevailed. Nora took mischevious delight in the joys of life, crawled on all fours along the floor with the children, ate sweets in secret from her husband. Nora's drama began to intensify from the moment she understood the consequences of the deception she had accomplished in order to save her husband's life. At this moment, her adult development began. It was revealed by the tension in a silent scene where the couple decorated the Christmas tree. It was apparent that, while staring straight ahead, she imagined the abyss into which she had fallen. Even in the first act, Aalberg was less infantile than Ibsen intended; in 1882, one Norwegian critic wrote that she was a "thoughtful and feisty individual who exerts all her strength until she finds a clear conception of herself and the people around her." (Rдsдnen 1925, 202.) In the second act, Aalberg began an agonizing struggle for her own salvation, for the disclosure of her deception results in her sacrificing herself in order to save Helmer's honor.
In the third act, Nora's expectation gave way to disappointment. The miracle did not happen. Unlike Nora, Helmer was unable to sacrifice himself, unable to take responsibility on himself for his wife's action. In a moment of danger, Helmer and Nora were unable to rise to the same moral height. When Nora's final decision matured, Aalberg's face expressed it in silence. Having gathered the strength to conceal her suffering, she set out with quiet gravity into a new, solitary life.
26. The Finnish scholar L. Viljanen's perspective on Nora reflects her interpretation by Ida Aalberg: "Nora waits for a 'miracle,' in other words, that Helmer will dare to scorn society for the sake of love. But, as Helmer himself says, he will not sacrifice honor for the sake of love. If this is the idea of the play, then A Doll's House is one of the most clear examples of Ibsen's idealism: one must dare to make any kind of sacrifice, in this case for the sake of love since there is no question of another calling in the lives of Helmer and Nora." (Viljanen 1962, 168-169.)
29. Aalberg wrote after visiting Ibsen's family: "I listened to the judgements of this incomparable spirit about life and I felt that his spirit ennobled his surroundings." (Rдsдnen 1925, 107.)
31. Wirmark 2000. See also: Frederick J. Marker and Lise-Lone Marker. Ibsen's Lively Art. A Performance Study of the Major Plays. Cambridge University Press 1989.
33. Räsänen 1925, 201-202. The Norwegian critic wrote about the tours in 1888: "She plays passionately, powerfully, and boldly: her obsession (possession) is always fascinating, even when her skills are inadequate." Räsänen 1925, 270-271 & Gran 1918, 95.
34. The Norwegian actress Johanne Reimers (1848-82) played Nora in the world premiere of the play in the Christiania Theatre in January 1880.
37. This is explained not only by the barbaric language of pedestrian translations, but also by the fact that the public was not trained to understand the "new drama" and the actors, who could not understand or value Ibsen, were disinterested.
38. St. Peterburger Herald 17.12.1882, see: Aspelin 1908, 140-141.
40. St. Peterburger Herald 20.12. 1882, see: Räsänen 1925, 143.
41. Shneiderman 1956, 164. See also: Schuler 1996, 14. Quote Schuler (Schuler 1996, 48.)
42. Kaarlo Bergbom to Emilie Bergbom, May 15, 1891. !spelin-Haapkylä III, 390.
43. Shakh-Azizova 1982, 141. About the reception of Ibsen’s dramaturgy at the end of the last century: Nilsson 1958, Iankovskii 1959, 747-783, Sharypkin 1980, 271-304.
44. Eleanora Duse (1859-1924) toured Russia in 1891 and 1908.
Agnes Sorma (1865-1927) acted in Berliner Theater and Deutsches Theater, Berlin. She played Nora for the first time in 1892. In 1900-1901 she toured in Holland, Italy, Norway, Rumania, Greece, Russia and Sweden. Gabrielle Rйjane (1856-1920) was the first French Nora in 1894. In 1897-1899 she toured Brussels, Copenhagen, Berlin, St.Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Bucarest and Vienna.
45. K. L’vov, Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta 9.1.1894.
46. The Exchange Gazette 18/30.1.1894.
47. In the book O teatre, Meierkhol’d wrote: “Naturalistic theatre teaches the actor absolutely clear and fixed expression, it never allows the performance of allusion, conscious underplaying. (...) Movements with the feet are nervously rhythmic. If one looks only at the feet, they suggest running more than dancing.” (Meierkhol’d 1968, 115).
48. Novoe vremia 2./14.2.1894; sm. Novosti 2./12. I 11./23/2/1894. A critic from Severnyi vestnik agreed that “the Finnish actress has purely realistic talent, with carefully planned details in her performance, but her temperament is insufficiently clear for strong dramatic tasks and perhaps do not give her the right to the appellation ‘Duse of the North.’” (D.D.K. Severnyi vestnik 1894, 5 [mai], otd. 2.)
© L. Byckling
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