Denmark - Culture - Theatre and Drama

Denmark
4. Culture
4.8 Theatre and Drama

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Painting; Johanne Luise Heiberg, actress

Johanne Luise Heiberg, née Pätges, 1812-1890, the undisputed prima donna of the Romantic age. She began as a child in the ballet school of the Royal Theatre in 1820, but finally moved into drama when Johan Ludvig Heiberg wrote the vaudeville Aprilsnarrene (The April Fools) for her in 1826. They married in 1831, and Johanne Luise thereby found herself at the centre of Copenhagen intellectual life. Dramatists vied with each other to write parts for her: from the dreamily erotic to the passionate and demonic, but also with due respect to Romanticism's ideal of beauty. The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote a detailed description of her art. After leaving the stage, she worked for some years as a producer, not least of a couple of plays by Henrik Ibsen. Mrs Heiberg left one of the greatest works of Danish memoir literature, Et Liv gjenoplivet i Erindringen (1891-1892, A Life Re-Lived in Memory). Her career is often compared with that of Hans Christian Andersen, and in 1981 the Swedish dramatist Per Olov Enquist brought the two together in Fra regnormenes liv (From the Life of the Earthworms).
Bent Holm
Wilhelm Marstrand (1858-59), Frederiksborg Museum
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Ludvig Holberg, 1684-1754, was the author who created a professional Danish drama. Born in Bergen in Norway, he was a keen traveller especially during his younger years, and France and Italy were of particular significance for his artistic development. He had an international outlook and worked consciously to bring Danish intellectual life up to the European level. His comedies represent only a small part of an enormous output comprising many kinds of creative writing plus science and philosophy. Examples are his Moralske Tanker (Moral Thoughts) and Epistler (Epistles) written in the spirit of Seneca and Montaigne. As a dramatist Holberg was close to Molière and was at the same time fascinated by the robust comedy of Italian commedia dell'arte. However, although his gallery of characters has foreign forebears the old fathers, the young lovers, the wily servants, etc. Holberg created a comedy based on the Denmark of his own day, with recognisable types, usually such as were found in Copenhagen; and there was a constant emphasis on the fact that there is a moral purpose behind the fun. This latter aspect was also a pragmatic quality of use to Holberg outside the theatre: Since 1717, he had been a professor in the University, and as such it was not entirely appropriate for him to spend his time on such frivolous things as the theatre.
Bent Holm
Christian Fritzsch (1731), Royal Library

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