Johanna Löfblad

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

Biography

Johanna Embeck debuted at the Swedish national Opera Theatre in Bollhuset in Stockholm as the nymph Chlorix in the opera comique Syrinx by Peter Lindhal/Lars Lalin, composed by Johan Ohl, opposite 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 management's board of directors as one of its 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 were given contracts rights to tour with their own troupe and a puppet theatre occasionally on the Stenborg privilege; Johanna and Jean are given equal rights in the contract. Since at least 1761, the Stenborg troupe regularly performed in Finland. In 1767, a new contract was set up between 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 been 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 tours. The documentation of this legal wrangle provides a lot of the information from which the life of the troupe is 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 remained 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 performance 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. She died in Stockholm.

References

• Tryggve Byström: Svenska komedien 1737-1754 (Swedish comedy 1737-1753) (in Swedish)
• Johan Flodmark: Stenborgska skådebanorna (The Stenborg stages) (in Swedish)