Johanna Löfblad

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Johanna Löfblad
Born	Johanna Catharina Enbeck/Enbäck 1733 Sweden
Died	14 September 1811 (age 78) Stockholm, Sweden
Other name(s)	Johanna Enbeck, Johanna Gentschein, Mamsell Enbeck, Madame Gentschein, Madame Löfblad
Spouse(s)	Magnus Gentschein, Jean Löfblad

Johanna Catharina Löfblad, née Enbeck or Enbäck, (b. 1733-d. in Stockholm 14 September 1811), was a Swedish actor, also known as Madame Gentschein and Madame Löfblad. She was active in both Sweden and Finland and employed at the theatres of Bollhuset, Stenborg Troupe, Humlegårdsteatern, Eriksbergsteatern and Stenborg Theatre.

[edit] Biography

Johanna Enbeck debuted at the Swedish national Opera Theatre in Bollhuset in Stockholm as the nymph Chlorix in the opera comique Syrinx, oposite Elisabeth Lillström (Syrinx), Peter Lindahl (Harlequin), Petter Stenborg (Philemon), Trundman (Sylvanus) and Elisabeth Olin (Astrild) in the 1747-48 season.

She became one of the theatre's stars and took place in the managament's board of director's as one of it's twelve directors. She was one of four female directors, others being Lillström, Maria Margareta Fabritz and Sophia Catharina Murman. The last years, she was known as Madame Gentschein after her marriage to Magnus Gentschein, a custom attendant.

When the theatre was closed by the queen after the 1753-54 season, the troupe split in two. She joined the company of Lindahl and Johan Bergholtz and, in 1758, the company of Petter Stenborg. She became a significant member in the Stenborg tropue, which performed in Stockholm and in Finland, where it was the only Swedish speaking theatre at the time. In 1760, she divorced Gentschein and remarried Jean Löfblad, (1728-1774), former tailor and "royal wardrobe servant", the male star and Harlequin-actor of the Stenborg troupe, and became known to the Stockholm audience as Madame Löfblad.

The Löfblad couple was the stars of the Stenborg troupe. In 1760, they where given contracts rights to tour with their own troupe and a puppet theatre ocationally on the Stenborg privilige; Johanna and Jean are given equal in the contract. Since at least 1761, the Stenborg troupe regulary peformed in Finland. In 1767, a new contract was set up betwen Jean and Johanna Löfblad and Petter Stenborg, which displays their status as stars; other than them, only Catharina Lindberg, (the leading actress with Löfblad) and Anders Hagendorf had ben given written contracts.

In 1768, director Petter Stenborg sued Jean Löfblad for having broken the contract and not sharing the profit of the couple's own toures, underi wich a lot of things from their lifes in the troupe are known. Stenborg, claimed that Jean Löfblad had hidden the profit "with all kinds of cunning", even though Stenborg "allowing his wife to have her salary during her childbirths, according to the contract, and given her gifts, but still she is just as difficult to deal with as her husband, who is even so powerful as to influent his wife..." Stenborg won the case, but the Löfblad couple still remaind in his troupe, being the stars among his actors.

In 1774, her husband unexpectedly died while he was getting ready for a performance, and a peformance was given to her benefit "As a support for her in her poor condition". When she was employed at Eriksbergsteatern 1780 and forwards she was mostly used for the numerous roles as "old woman", and was as such quite popular. When dramatic Didrik Björn set up the performance "The odd spectacle" as an after play in 1790, where the actors of the theatre gave thanks to the audience in the shape of their most popular roles, she did so in the shape of Gertrud in Njugg spar, which she had first done in the 1784-85 season.

She was employed at the popular theatre Humlegårdsteatern in 1773-80, at the theatre Eriksbergsteatern in 1780-84, and in 1784 at the Stenborg theatre, where she worked until 1796. She also lived in one of the appartements in the Stenborg Theatre. She retired after the 1795-96 season, thereby having the longest career of all the actors in the first national theatre, and one of the longest careers of a Swedish actor in the 18th century.