Rheingold (1901)
As the revival of Die Meistersinger in 1900 (see above), Das Rheingold was directed by Johannes Elmblad. In staging the Rheingold in Stockholm, Elmblad secured the assistance of two key figures who had been involved in Cosima Wagner’s production of the Ring in 1896:
Friedrich Kranich Sr., the technical director at Bayreuth from 1886 to 1924, was responsible for the stage machinery; and Max Brückner, who had redesigned the Ring scenery in Bayreuth in 1896, was responsible for the scenery.6868
65 Nya Dagligt Allehanda 16 and 20 April 1917. Further research is needed to answer the question of why Hallén found it necessary to argue this case so carefully. However, it may have been a polemic against Peterson-Berger, whose non-Christian interpretation of Parsifal was published in 1913; see Peterson-Berger 1913. Another possibility is that, as Hallén was familiar with the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, it could have been an attempt to refute Chamberlain’s assertion that Parsifal was not a Christian work. See Beckett 1981, 109–110, for a concise presentation of Chamberlain’s opinion.
66 Dagens Nyheter 22 April 1917. Despite his use of the word “regenerated”, Peterson-Berger was not influenced by Wagner’s so-called regeneration writings. What follows in Peterson-Berger’s review is a very personal reading of Parsifal. An account of this reading, however, is beyond the scope of this more general survey of the Swedish reception of Wagner’s music dramas.
67 For more information about the stagings, see Rödin 1967/68a; 1967/68b; 1968/69; 1969/70 and Johansson 2006.
68 Together with his brother Gotthold, Max Brückner had also been involved in realizing the scenery for the Ring in Bayreuth in 1876; see Carnegy 2006, 80.
The staging was almost unanimously praised by the critics. Karl Valentin stated that under the local circumstances it was excellent,6969 and in the opinions of Adolf Lindgren and Magnus Josephson, it was al-most as good as the staging at Bayreuth.7070 In particular, the first scene with the swimming Rhinemaidens was said to have made an extraor-dinary effect. Kranich had used the new swimming machines he had developed in 1896 for the Ring in Bayreuth.7171 In Stockholms-Tidningen the critic “rt.” claimed that the set for the first scene was the most remarkable ever staged in a Swedish theatre. The movements of the Rhinemaidens, hovering freely in the air, or water, appeared complete-ly illusory, and it was difficult to know what to admire the most – the perfection of the machinery or the sangfroid of the singers, hovering between roof and floor.7272
Despite pronouncing the production successful, Henrik Victorin had some objections. In his view the movements of the Rhinemaidens were not always appropriate to the drama as reflected in the music; the use of steam during the scene changes was too loud (a point also made in other reviews), and the transformations of Alberich were still be-yond the capacity of modern stage technique.7373 Like Victorin, Peterson-Berger criticized the manoeuvring of the Rhinemaidens. Above all, it was striking that they were completely still just before the sun began to shine on the Rhinegold instead of fleeing Alberich, as clearly indicated by the text and the music, or at least they could have been swimming around the cliff at a somewhat faster speed. If this is not done, Peterson-Berger pointed out, the whirling and bustling movements in the music appear pointless.7474
69 Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning 28 October 1901.
70 Aftonbladet 28 October 1901 and Post- och Inrikes Tidningar 28 October 1901.
71 Rundberg 1952, 249 and Carnegy 2006, 151–152.
72 Stockholms-Tidningen 28 October 1901.
73 Nya Dagligt Allehanda 28 October 1901.
74 Dagens Nyheter 27 October 1901.
Siegfried (1905)
Siegfried was directed by August Lindberg (1846–1916), who was di-rector at the Royal Opera from 1903 to 1906, where he also staged the Swedish premieres of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (1903) and Puccini’s Tosca (1904). Lindberg’s background was as an actor, and he was appreciated and known above all for his portrayal of Hamlet.
Thorolf Jansson (1877–1931), scene painter at the Royal Opera from 1899 to 1927, was responsible for the scenery.
It was the direction and the scenery that came in for the harshest criticism after the premiere. For instance, the critic “n.” in Aftonbladet claimed that it was to the scenery and the direction that the most seri-ous objections could be made: he himself missed an artistic vision and, above all, poetic fantasy.7575 Eugene Fahlstedt and Peterson-Berger gave the most detailed accounts of the flaws.7676 According to Fahlstedt, the blacksmith’s cave in Act 1 was unnecessarily complicated, both in the rock formations and in the many mineral colours with their disturb-ing effect. Furthermore, the rack for Mime’s bellows was too solid and neat in its timber construction and the anvil too small, and the forest outside the cave looked more like a park than a primeval forest. The most disturbing element in Act 2 was the large lime tree with its bright reddish-brown trunk and impossibly white-green leaves in half of its crown.7777
Peterson-Berger criticized the same features. Mime’s cave was in-deed a failure: too large, without distinctive architecture, painted in colours that did not meld into a unified whole, and a strange forest outside, which appeared to consist of horse chestnuts in bloom. Half of the lime tree in the second act appeared yellowed. Peterson-Berger assumed that the intention was to suggest bright sunlight, but this did not succeed. And, like other critics, he considered the scene change in Act 3 to be a disappointment.
75 Aftonbladet 12 December 1905.
76 Svenska Dagbladet 12 December 1905 and Dagens Nyheter 12 December 1905.
77 A picture of the Act 2 scenery is reproduced in Rödin 1968/69, 18.
The fight with the dragon was another stumbling block. B. Haglund claimed that the scene should have taken place in the background where the stage was darker. As it was, the scene turned into a parody because of its placement in the spotlight where the dragon’s immobility was too obvious. Siegfried picked a little at the monster, and then informed the spectators that he had killed the beast. There was nothing resembling a fight.7878 Fahlstedt also found fault with the dragon, which, contrary to Wagner’s stage directions, was cumbersome. It lay as still as a log, unable to turn towards the hero, who because of the lack of elbow room had to walk calmly behind Fafner and stab him somewhere close to the tail. According to Fahlstedt, a modern stage technician or director should be able to find better ways of staging such scenes. Besides the dragon, the bear in Act 1 was sharply criticized. To Fahlstedt it seemed filthy and looked more like one of the lions in Die Zauberflöte than a huge, frightening bear, and in Peterson-Berger’s mind, the creature made the impression of a black-lacquered orangutan instead of a furry, brown European bear.
Götterdämmerung (1907)
It is not clear who directed Götterdämmerung in 1907,7979 but as with Siegfried, Thorolf Jansson was again responsible for the scenery. This time, unlike Siegfried, Jansson’s sets were praised for their beauty and tastefulness. However, the final scene was an exception, and all critics were of the opinion that it had failed in its effect, even though some excused Jansson by claiming that Wagner had made impossible de-mands. The direction was viewed in a more negative light, but was
78 Stockholms Dagblad 12 December 1905.
79 The playbill for the premiere lacked the director’s name (see Rödin 1970, 17), and no director is mentioned in the reviews. After the second of the two complete Ring cycles that followed the premiere of Götterdämmerung, “Rh.” in Vårt Land (9 April 1907) stated that during the present interim regime at the Royal Opera no one knows who ultimately is responsible for the direction. According to Rödin (1969/70, 17), the German tenor Otto Briesemeister was engaged to direct. However, Stefan Johansson (2006, 222) claims that the baritone Carl August Söderman served as the director.
largely criticized in general terms without specific examples. However, Peterson-Berger mentioned some flaws.8080 The worst was that, in his only scene, Alberich was seen between the legs of Hagen (Act 2, scene 1). Because of this ridiculous arrangement, the scene’s terrible and ghostlike character was lost. Peterson-Berger also found the use of the heavy rope, which the Norns throw to each other, unimaginative:
with every throw it fell to the floor with a heavy thud (this opinion was shared by the critic in Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning8181). Harald André criticized the lighting, especially the “intolerable theatrical ef-fect” (“odrägliga teatraliska effekten”) of having spotlights illuminate occasional points on an otherwise darkened stage. As for the chorus of Gibichungs in Act 2, André was critical of the lack of effective group-ings.8282
Tristan und Isolde (1909)
Tristan und Isolde was directed by Peterson-Berger, who also made the Swedish translation of Wagner’s libretto (Thorolf Jansson once again was responsible for the scenery). During his twelve years as a harsh and ruthless critic, Peterson-Berger had made many enemies. In order to understand the reception of his staging of Tristan und Isolde, it is important to contextualize his relationship to the critics who re-viewed the performance. The most negative was Harald André. André had been hired as a director at the Royal Opera in 1907, and in 1908 he directed the first Swedish staging of Richard Strauss’s Salome. In his review Peterson-Berger wrote that the direction followed international models, “which is not any kind of direction at all”.8383 Owing to financial
80 Dagens Nyheter 1 March 1907.
81 Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning 2 March 1907.
82 Svenska Dagbladet 1 March 1907. In André’s years as a director at the Royal Opera, the skilful use of lighting and the ability to infuse big crowd scenes with life were to become hallmarks of his style, see Helander 1993, 118.
83 Dagens Nyheter 14 April 1908: ”vilket icke är någon regikonst alls.” The review is reprinted in Peterson-Berger 1923, vol. 1, 255–258.
difficulties, the shareholders responsible for funding the opera with-drew their support in 1907. After a provisional rule by businessman Arthur Thiel, the theatre director Albert Ranft (1858–1938), known as the theatre emperor of Stockholm in the early twentieth century, took over the contract to run the opera on 1 July 1908.8484 André left the Royal Opera and returned to music criticism, now at the newspa-per Stockholms Dagblad. It is obvious from André’s review of Tristan und Isolde that he had a grudge against Peterson-Berger. When Ranft gave up the project of running the opera in 1910, Peterson-Berger was dismissed as a director and André was rehired. Now the roles were reversed, and over the following years Peterson-Berger was ruthless in his criticism of André’s productions at the Royal Opera.8585
In the preface to his translation of Tristan und Isolde’s libretto, Peterson-Berger suggested that his direction was going to avoid con-ventional solutions. He intended to exercise artistic freedom to achieve simplification and clarification.8686 In his review André could not under-stand what the simplification consisted of, unless it concerned unnec-essary cuts (see below), while the clarification, in his opinion, seemed to amount to making characters and objects mentioned in the text or in the stage instructions visible to the audience. For instance, at the end of Act 1, Marke and Melot were seen going aboard the ship. The singers’ acting repeatedly testified to inadequate instruction. André advised Peterson-Berger that, instead of relying on a purely super-ficial desire to paw over everything by showing his originality with big gestures, he should study the art of stage direction together with Wagner’s directions.8787
André also criticized the youthful appearance of Kurwenal. André admitted that Wagner did not explicitly state that Kurwenal was an older man. Yet this was obvious, in part from the sources on which
84 Rundberg 1953, 271.
85 Helander 1993, 116–117.
86 Peterson-Berger 1908, 3–4.
87 Stockholms Dagblad 12 February 1909.
Wagner based his text, and above all because Kurwenal’s almost tender and intimate relationship with Tristan easily acquired “an unpleasant flavour” (“en obehaglig bismak”) if he was portrayed as a younger man.
This statement was clearly meant to be a personal jab at Peterson-Berger. In his unpublished memoirs, the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg (1887–1974), another enemy of Peterson-Berger, wrote that around 1910 innuendos began to appear in the press suggesting that Peterson-Berger was homosexual.8888 André’s statement is one example of this trend. A few years later André expressed this opinion in a more palpable way in response to an article in which Peterson-Berger had criticized the Royal Opera.8989
Other critics were less negative than André, and some did not evaluate the direction at all. Yet only one review was positive. Sven Söderman wrote that the direction showed artistic taste and intuition rare in Swedish theatres.9090 However, Söderman was among Peterson-Berger’s circle of friends,9191 and his opinion is no more neutral than André’s. And given this connection, his praise was rather nebulous and non-committal.
Parsifal (1917)
Parsifal was staged by Harald André, and the scenery, as in the preced-ing Wagner productions since Siegfried, was by Thorolf Jansson. André is considered the pioneer of modern opera direction at the Royal Opera,9292 but his most groundbreaking stagings took place after 1920, when new stage and lighting techniques were introduced at the Royal Opera (at André’s instigation). In several articles in connection with
88 Atterberg 1954, 118.
89 Svenska Dagbladet 26 June 1914. The issue of Peterson-Berger’s sexual orientation is complex; see Karlsson 2013, 438–443.
90 Aftonbladet 12 February 1909.
91 See Karlsson 2013, 327.
92 See Helander 1993 for a detailed account of modern direction at the Royal Opera, with emphasis on André’s accomplishments.
his Parsifal and Die Zauberflöte productions in 1917, André complained about the difficulties caused by the outdated stage machinery at the Royal Opera, and he argued that modernization was necessary.9393 For Parsifal a brown tulle veil was obtained from Germany and hung in the proscenium to create a mysterious distance. Technically advanced, electrically-powered, moving forest backgrounds were also introduced.
In the mid-1910s, Peterson-Berger’s grudge against André had sof-tened, and in a review of Rabaud’s Marouf the critic admitted that André was a professionally skilled director, especially in the area of lighting.9494 In his Parsifal review, Peterson-Berger wrote that the Stockholm production had succeeded in capturing the overall mood of the work. This was not only because of the appropriate scenery, the discreetly magnificent costumes and the colour effects of the lighting, but also because of the scenic arrangements made by the director. However, Peterson-Berger did not mention André’s name, and he attributed the production’s success above all to the conductor, the Finnish composer and conductor Armas Järnefelt (1869–1958). In Peterson-Berger’s opinion there were a few flaws in the staging: in the forest scenes and the temple of the Grail he would have preferred clearer groupings of the singers on stage (given that this was one of André’s recognized strengths, the remark was perhaps intended to be more harmful than it appears), and better technical resources (the shimmer of the Grail, the lance glimmering in the air, the Miracle of Good Friday and so on).9595
Other critics were unanimous in their praise of the scenery and of André’s direction. Andréas Hallén considered the scenic arrangements to be admirably carried out, but noted that originality rather than im-itating Bayreuth seemed to be the goal, something that was most ap-parent in Act 2 where the colour was a hellish fiery red.9696 According
93 Helander 1993, 118.
94 Helander 1993, 117.
95 Dagens Nyheter 22 April 1917.
96 Nya Dagligt Allehanda 22 April 1917. Hallén stated he had visited Bayreuth in 1884 in order to see Parsifal. The truth of this claim can be questioned; see Knust 2011, 57.
to Olallo Morales, Wagner’s “dictatorial instructions” (“diktatoriska föreskrifter”) did not leave much freedom for a director’s independent creativity, but what was intended for Bayreuth’s perfect stage was not suitable everywhere. In general, André had succeeded in rendering the dignified simplicity the story demanded, and even in the more viv-id scenes had avoviv-ided trite theatricality, maintaining the moderation necessary to prevent this “lofty work” (“upphöjda verket”), as Morales put it, from descending to the level of ordinary theatre. Morales con-sidered Jansson’s scenery to be among his highest accomplishments.
The exception was Klingsor’s Enchanted Garden, which was unimag-inative and whose lighting was tiring to the eye. The scenery of Act 2 was thus below the standard of the luxurious and exotic Eden created in the Bayreuth productions.9797
Cuts and longueurs
In accordance with the performance practice of the time, both Die Meistersinger in 1887 and Die Walküre in 1895 were extensively cut when they were performed at Stockholm’s Royal Opera. The Swedish critics were almost unanimous in the opinion that, given the longueurs in Wagner’s works, these cuts were beneficial, and some thought they could have been even more extensive.9898 Das Rheingold was performed in 1901 with only minor cuts, but this time no critic complained about longueurs. On the contrary, Magnus Josephson wrote that this work was one of Wagner’s most accessible precisely because of its relative brevity. However, many other critics argued that, in this continuous music drama without separate acts, the lack of intervals made de-mands that were too great on the audience and on the performers.9999 The critic for Stockholms-Tidningen asked whether it really would be too brutal a violation of the master’s work if an interval were
intro-97 Svenska Dagbladet 22 April 1917.
98 Tillman 2012, 208–209.
99 Post- och Inrikes Tidningar 28 October 1901.
duced after the second scene.100100 Another critic, Hilder Sandström, wrote that he had seen the work several times in Vienna with just such an interval,101101 and Adolf Lindgren pointed out that several opera houses abroad performed Das Rheingold with an interval.102102 Thus, ac-cording to Lindgren, there should be no problem for the Royal Opera to introduce an intermission. It is obvious that there would be no neg-ative consequences for the Royal Opera if such an arrangement were made, claimed Stockholms-Tidningen, because the critic knew many people who would be frightened by the prospect of two and a half hours of continuous music, and therefore would refrain from attending the performance.
Just over a week after the premiere, starting with the performance on 7 November, a ten-minute interval was indeed introduced between the second and third scenes “for rest and recreation for the audience and the performers”.103103 In 1905 Siegfried was performed without cuts,
“amazing to relate” (“vidunderligt att förtälja”), wrote Peterson-Berger in his review, indicating how extraordinary he considered this event to be. He pointed out that, despite the length of the work and the late hour, the audience was delighted with the performance.104104 Besides Peterson-Berger, two other critics mentioned that no cuts had been made, and both viewed this circumstance in a positive light. B. Haglund in Stockholms Dagblad wrote that it had gradually become the custom on all stages of any artistic rank to perform Wagner’s works without abridgements, and he claimed that there could no longer be any ar-gument that this practice was justified. According to Haglund, every scene in Siegfried was so logically constructed and so closely joined to
“amazing to relate” (“vidunderligt att förtälja”), wrote Peterson-Berger in his review, indicating how extraordinary he considered this event to be. He pointed out that, despite the length of the work and the late hour, the audience was delighted with the performance.104104 Besides Peterson-Berger, two other critics mentioned that no cuts had been made, and both viewed this circumstance in a positive light. B. Haglund in Stockholms Dagblad wrote that it had gradually become the custom on all stages of any artistic rank to perform Wagner’s works without abridgements, and he claimed that there could no longer be any ar-gument that this practice was justified. According to Haglund, every scene in Siegfried was so logically constructed and so closely joined to