Henriette Widerberg

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Henriette Sophie Widerberg (born 3 September 1796 in Stockholm, died 3 April 1872, Stockholm, was a Swedish opera singer, (soprano), actor and memoir-writer, the most famed singer on the Swedish stage of her time, counted as the most popular singer in Sweden the 1810s and 1830s, and also one of the most talked about beauties on the stage.

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[edit] Background

Henriette Widerberg was born in to a theatrical family as the child of Andreas Widerberg and Anna Catharina Widerbäck, stars in the troup Gemenasiska Sällskapet that performed in the first real theater of Gothenburg, Comediehuset, in the 1780s; her parents met on the stage and married the same night they played lovers on stage in 1787. The same year, her father became the director of the same theater, only to leave it to become one of the most famous actors on the stage of the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm, admired, as it was said, much by women because of his good looks and also complimented by male critics for his "male figure". Henriette's siblings also became actors, but no one so successful as she.

A beautiful child, her mother sent her to the stage very early to contribute to the household; in her memoirs, she described how she played with dolls, while her mother received the presents from Henriette's adult male admierers. She was enrolled in Dramatens elevskola in 1807, were she was under the care of the principal Sofia Lovisa Gråå, who educated her students according to the French traditions of Anne Marie Milan Desguillons and allowed her female student's, according the papers, a shocking freedom. From 1810, she was a part of the De Broen's travelling troup, that performed in the theatre Djurgårdsteatern in Stockholm in the summer; during the 1810s, she was one of the most popular actors in Gothenburg, before she returned to Stockholm in 1817, when she debuted on the stage of the Royal Dramatic Theatre as Laura in "Slottet Montenero", a performance which was " touching to a degree which made the audience melt to tears".

[edit] Career

Though she never learned to read notes, she had a great natural talent and could quickly learn her part in the song simply by having heard it once. Her voice was described as that of a nightingale, and when Jeanette Wässelius, successor of Caroline Halle-Müller, retired in 1820, she replaced her as Sweden's first prima donna in competition to Elisabeth Frösslind and Anna Sofia Sevelin. Her salary can describe her position. She was paid 1.600; as comparission, the male actor with the highest salary was paid 1.800, and the lowest salary for an actress was 200.

In her memoirs, Widerberg talkes about the circumstances regarding the dismissal of Jeanette Wässelius in 1820, which led to her own rise to the top. At the time of her dismissal, the celebrated Wässelia (as she was called), was only 36 and on the top of her ability; she was also widely recommended for her professional moral. There was no reason for her dismisal other than the fact that she was involved in a conflict with the influential Edvard du Puy, actor, singer and master of the opera's chapell, a man Henriette describes as "as mean as he was beautiful". Despite of the fact that Henriette Widerberg greatly benefitted by the dismissal of Wässelia, as it made her the prima donna of the Opera, it was her opinion that Jeanette Wässelius had ben treated unjustly, and that du Puy had abused his power, circumstances she points out in her memoirs.

She started with parts in jolly operettes, until her performance in Vestalen (in 1821) proved her capable to perform more demanding parts. She played Emilie in "Målaren och modellerna", Clara in "De bägge arrestanterna", Armida, Cora, Pamina, Zerlina in Fra Diavolo, Anna in Don Juan, Hvita frun and Anna in Friskyttarna; Julia in Vestalerna, Armida in "Det befriade Jerusalem" and Amazili in Ferdinand Cortes also belonged to the parts she played.

In her performance as Zerlina i Fra Diavolo 17 May 1833, she became the first actor to do a scene of undressing on the stage of the Opera, which shocked the press; "Now, a woman can do on stage what she could not do even in the most intimate circle of a decent company, and undress herself until her petticoat."

[edit] Technique and judgements

She was seen as a great natural talent with a fantastic mezzosoprano, but she had an easygoing character which made her lazy and uninterested in developing herself, as her natural talent made many things easy for her; she never bothered to read notes- instead, she asked someone from the orchestra to sing and play her the part, and after hearing them, regardless of what instrument was used, she was able to sing them without much effort. Her performances was said to have been dependent upon whether she liked the part or not, and she was described as bad and screamy in parts she did not like, mediocre in parts she was indifferent for, and fabulous in parts she liked; " If she pleased to adjust herself to the situation - and she could, when she wanted to - then this voice was irresistibly enchanting, intoxicating. The poetry of voice was something no singer new more than she." She was called the "Malibran of Sweden", as Orvar Odd wrote; "A Malibran without learning but what voice, oh, thou nightingales!"

As a person, Widerberg was described as witty, happy and kind; she had the ability to laugh at herself, and was neither greedy nor someone to plot against her colleagues. She was also very talked about because of her private life and her many love affairs. She had no sense of ecenomy and lived without thinking about tomorrow, lived " with no restraint" and " Had a tendency to change the object of tender affection". In her memoirs, she describes her many adventures, when admirers invites her to manors in the country, dresses themselves to women to be let in to her rooms and tries to throw her in to the river when she turns them down.

They are a lot of anecdotes of Henriette's career, and a lot of stories from herself as well, as she wrote her own memoirs. One known incident, causing quite amusement among the public, took place when she played Susanna in Figaro in 1821. The male actor who played Figaro, Edvard du Puy, (the very same responsible for the dismissal of Wässelia desribed above) invited her to his room to rehearse the play, but when she arived, he tried to seduce her. She declined the offer and leaved, which made him much disappointed. Next day, she did not know her part, and du Puy then raported her to the director, who placed her in house arrest in her room for delaying the rehearsals. She was deeply angered by this treatment, and when the caretaker wanted to put extra locks on her door, she threatened to jump out of the window, but she was comforted by her colleages, who visited her and cheered her up with a little party in her rooms. When she had served her time, she demanded to be allowed to inspect the theater's reglement to see if it was legal to place women in arrest; unfortunately, it was- this was a disciplinarian rule, which was one of the things that the actors demanded to be removed in the great strike made by Ulrik Torsslow and Sara Fredrica Strömstedt-Torsslow in 1827. During the performance, she received such enthusiasm from the public, that her anger vanished, but when they reached the part of the play, when Susanna was to slap Figaro seven times over, she did so with such enthusiasm that the audience started laughing- the whole story was well known.

During a conflict with one of the theater's directors, who was said to have ben less careful about his hygiene, and he questioned her about her bills regarding such things, she replyed; "It is easy to say, mr Count, for someone with no idea how much it costs to keep one self clean and fresh!" She also writes, that when she complained about all the men and boys trying to take a look at her when she had to change during performances, he chased them all away, but guarded her from them by observing her himself- though she adds, that he was really quite harmless. She remained neutral during the great theater- strikes of 1827 and 1834.

[edit] Later life

In 1837, she was given the title court singer. The same year, however, she was fired from the Swedish Royal Opera because of her "irregularity" and the lack of effort she had shown the last years. She continued as a guest-actor the closest following years, but soon withdrawn to a private life, which were dominated by economic troubles. She was a guest artist at the Opera in the 1838-39 season, and between 1842-44, she was employed at the theatre Mindre teatern, where she according to Aftonbladet performed with the same talent one had admired before, but was at the time heavily indebted to a nobleman and indebted her boss Lindeberg, who had placed himself as her security. The plawright August Blanche visited her in her powerty, where she and her brother Fredrik Julius Widerberg, the alcoholized former leader of a theatre troup, was helped only by Emilie Högquist. She opened a restaurant in 1848, and in 1850–1851, she published her memoirs, En skådespelerskas minnen (The memories of an actress). She was eventually given a larger pension by the Opera.

Henriette Widerberg has often been compared with Emilie Högquist, as their personality and life story was very much a like, and Emilie in many ways was to fill the place of Henriette when she retired.

Widerberg never married, but she had several children; she describes in her memoirs, how the children watched her in the death scene in Romeo and Juliet and started to cry "Mother is dead, mother is dead!" Her daughters Georgina and Julia was also to be famed on the stage, Georgina as an actor and Julia as a singer, though not as famous as their mother, and her son was to become a well known musician; Georgina Wilson, née Widerberg (1821-1858), was active as an actor from 1835 within travelling companies, in Djurgårdsteatern and Mindre teatern (1843-44), where she was appreciated within "finer comedy", and Julia Liedberg, née Widerberg (1824-1847), debuted as a singer at the Opera in 1841 and was described as musical, sensitive and loveable; both of them "left after themselves a beautiful non clouded memory". The son of Henriette was known and liked as a street musician, a gituarrist, where he was found singing with "a high and beautiful tenor and he sang with such and expression" and placed as a student in the Opera in 1858, but he soon left the Opera as he preferred to sing and play on the street as a free "Boheme" and was known by the name of "The Beautiful Rose".

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