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Gina Oselio and Opera in Fin-de-Siècle Norway
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2022
Abstract
In 1888, Norwegian newspapers eagerly announced the arrival of ‘Miss Gina Oselio’, who was returning to Norway ‘after seven years of staying abroad’. Oselio (Ingeborg Aas (1858–1937)) had achieved tremendous success as an opera singer in Europe and her performance on the Norwegian concert stage did not disappoint. Her new popularity positioned the singer as a member of the country's cultural elite and introduced a new complexity to her operatic identity. Unlike other Norwegian musicians who were treated primarily in terms of their nationality, her ‘Norwegianness’ had been largely incidental during her career. Oselio's private papers, however, offer new insights into the complex relationship between the singer and the nation. Together with her reception history, these materials invite a fresh examination of Oselio's position in fin-de-siècle Norwegian musical life. They show how she cultivated her career and her identity outside Norway, as well as her deliberate decision to assert her ‘Norwegianness’. They demonstrate the roles that Oselio wished to occupy on the country's stages and how other Norwegians responded to these roles. Ultimately, they document a period of transition, as artists, critics and audiences sought to determine the place that opera would occupy within the nation.
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References
1 ‘Sangvirtuoser som Christine Nilsson, Jenny Lind … had allerede for længst vundet de rigste Laurbær paa den store Verdensarena for Sverige … som har formaaet at erobre sig en Plads blandt da saakaldt “stjerner.” Denne er Frøken Gina Oselio, som efter syv Aars Ophold i Udlandet er kommen hjem paa et kort Sommersbesøg og om nogle Dage skal give en Koncert her i Christiania.’ Nordisk musik-tidende 9/9 (1888). Note that although the city's name had been officially changed to Kristiania in 1877 (due to spelling reforms), ‘Christiania’ continued to be used regularly until 1897 and this spelling is used throughout this article. The names of works are given as they were spelled during the period under discussion; translations, unless otherwise specified, are my own.
2 Kristiania Intelligenssedler (2 October 1888).
3 French critics provide an excellent representative example of the ways in which Norwegian musicians and composers were characterised by European observers. Penesco, Anne, ‘La perception de la musique norvégienne dans la France des XIXe et XXe siècles: de l'influence germanique à l'affirmation d'une identité nationale’, in Grieg et Paris: Romantisme, symbolisme et modernisme franco-norvégiens (Caen, 1996), 125–38Google Scholar.
4 There are only two published surveys focused solely on Oselio's life and work: Øystein Gaukstad, ‘Gina Oselio’, Norsk Musikktidsskrift 2/11 (1974), 69–75; Kristin Margarethe Gaukstad, ‘Gina Oselio – Norges første operasangerinne’, Byminner 2 (2016), 28–33. She is also discussed in O.M. Sandvik and Gerhard Schjelderup's seminal Norges musikhistorie (Kristiania, 1921), in Qvamme, Børre, Oper og operetta i Christiania (Oslo, 2004)Google Scholar and in Kindem, Ingeborg, Den norske operas historie (Oslo, 1941)Google Scholar. B.A. Bjørnson-Langen describes Oselio in relation to the Bjørnson family in his chapter on ‘Tante Ingeborg’, in Aulestad tur-retur (Oslo, 1981), 61–2.
5 Oselio never published or even completed further memoirs. Her manuscript (from which the Aftenposten article was adapted) and correspondence with the newspaper about the publication do survive, however. See ‘Erindringer fra barndom og ungdom’ in Ms. 4° 3272, Privatarkiv, Nasjonalbiblioteket (hereafter NBN). I am grateful to Nina Korbu and the staff of the library's spesiallesesalen for their generous assistance in facilitating my access to Oselio's private papers.
6 ‘Gina Oselio's livserindringer’, Aftenposten (24 October 1925).
7 ‘at hun var saa urolig og nervøs’, in ‘Gina Oselio's livserindringer’.
8 Anker, Øyvind, Kristiania Norske Theatres Repertoire 1852–1863 (Oslo, 1956), 51–2Google Scholar.
9 See Qvamme, Oper og operetta i Christiania.
10 Svendsen and Grieg, quoted in Finn Benestad and Dag Schjelderup-Ebbe, Edvard Grieg: mennesket og kunstneren (Oslo, 1980), 143.
11 The new dynastic union of Sweden–Norway produced political, civic and cultural change for all three nations – perhaps most significantly for Norway. For a detailed examination of the effects of this during the long nineteenth century, see Barton, H. Arnold, ‘Finland and Norway, 1808–1917: A Comparative Perspective’, Essays on Scandinavian History (Carbondale, 2009), 206–26Google Scholar.
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13 Grimley, Grieg, 30.
14 Schmiesing, Ann, Norway's Christiania Theatre, 1827–1867: From Danish Showhouse to National Stage (Madison, 2006), 101Google Scholar. This painting would prove to be salient for other Scandinavian artistic endeavours, including an 1853 ballet by August Bournonville. Patricia Puckett Sasser, ‘“It was as if my ballet had never existed!”: August Bournonville and the Reception of Brudefærden i Hardanger’, Dance Research 39/1 (2021), 106–24.
15 Schmiesing, Norway's Christiania Theatre, 101–2.
16 Schmiesing, Norway's Christiania Theatre, 44–52.
17 Schmiesing, Norway's Christiania Theatre, 182.
18 Henrik Ibsen to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, 9 January 1884, quoted in Meyer, Michael, Henrik Ibsen: The Top of a Cold Mountain, 1883–1906, Vol. III (London, 1971), 31Google Scholar. Ibsen was responding to Bjørnson's request that he return to Norway and resume his role as director. He emphatically rejected this suggestion, although he proposed that Bjørn Bjørnson might take up the role instead, which he would later do.
19 Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen, ‘Staging a National Language: Opera in Christiania and Helsinki in the 1870s’, Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th Century, ed. Anne Sivuoja, Owe Ander, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen and Jens Hesselager (Helsinki, 2012), 160.
20 Broman-Kananen, ‘Staging a National Language’, 165.
21 Originally known as ‘Klingenberg’, Christiania Tivoli had adopted the new name in an attempt to present itself as a more fashionable (and respectable) venue. The Klinenberg Festsal was renamed the Tivoli Theatre the year after Oselio's performance.
22 Aftenposten (30 December 1876).
23 ‘behalige Stemme’, in Dagbladet (3 January 1877).
24 ‘Nævnes bør, at ved denne Koncert optraadte i flere Numre paa en glimrende Maade en ung, særdeles lovende norsk Sangerinde Frøken Ingeborg Aas fra Kristiania, Elev af Fru Stenhammar.’ Dagbladet (23 July 1879).
25 ‘mycken omogenhet … men den tycks ännu sakna vederbörling utbildning och särskildt hvad man kallar egalitet’, Aftonbladet (11 December 1879).
26 Emma Eames, Some Memories and Reflections (New York, 1927), 52–4.
27 Le ménestrel (30 April 1882).
28 ‘Les belles voix et la méthode de Mlles Sommelius (Stockholm) et Osz (Christiania)’, Le ménestrel (7 May 1882).
29 Marchesi, Mathilde, Marchesi and Music: Passages from the Life of a Famous Singing Teacher (New York, 1897), 183Google Scholar.
30 Marchesi, Marchesi and Music, 801.
31 Melba, Nellie, Melodies and Memories (New York, 1926), 62Google Scholar.
32 John Rosselli observes that Marchesi often devised pseudonyms that were Italianate but still referenced a singer's origins. However, his suggestion that Oselio was derived from Oslo is highly unlikely given the date. See Singers of Italian Opera (New York, 1992), 194–5.
33 Marchesi, Marchesi and Music, 263.
34 Rutherford, Susan, The Prima Donna and Opera 1815–1930 (New York, 2006), 86Google Scholar.
35 Elizabeth Keyser, ‘Gina Oselio’, oil painting, 34 × 41cm, 1882, TM.01048, Teatermuseet, Oslo Museum.
36 Two of her volumes, stamped in gilt with her name and the respective titles ‘Dansemusik’ and ‘Hilda Neupert’, remained in private hands until 2018 but are now in the collections of the Furman University Libraries (hereafter FUL).
37 Oselio kept a diary from 1883 to 1891 (Ms. 4° 3272:1:a-b, NBN) and then again from 1912 to 1933 (Ms.4° 3272:1:c-u, NBN).
38 The ways in which such conceptions of Scandinavia, Norway and the ‘North’ were developed and interpreted have been explored by multiple authors. For instance: Wawn, Andrew, The Vikings and the Victorians: Inventing the Old North in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Rochester, 2000)Google Scholar; Fjågesund, Peter, The Dream of the North: A Cultural History to 1920 (Amsterdam, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Walchester, Kathryn, Gamle Norge and Nineteenth-Century British Women Travellers in Norway (New York, 2014)Google Scholar.
39 Barton, H. Arnold, Sweden and Visions of Norway: Politics and Culture 1814–1905 (Carbondale, 2003), 90Google Scholar.
40 Moi, Toril, Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theatre, and Philosophy (New York, 2006), 37Google Scholar. This idea is also explored by Cathrine Theodorsen, ‘Cosmopolitan Figures, Form and Practices in the Norwegian Fin de Siècle’, Comparative Critical Studies 10/2 (2013), 259–81.
41 Balthasar Claes (pseudonym of Camille Benoît) quoted in Annegret Fauser, Musical Encounters at the 1889 Paris World's Fair (Rochester, 2005), 47. Claes was speaking of the Scandinavian exhibitions at the Fair but his remarks accurately summarised long-standing ideas about Norway in continental Europe.
42 Moi, Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism, 57.
43 Georg Brandes, quoted in Moi, Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism, 57.
44 ‘en likesaa stor sangerinde som den dengang saa verdensberömte Trebelli’, Oselio, Ms. 4° 3272:2:b, NBN.
45 ‘i Sant Peters kirken at höre musikken’, Oselio. Ms. 4° 3272:1:b, NBN, 4 April 1884; ‘Det var uhyre interessante’, 9 May 1884; ‘en masse malerier af Poussin Rubins Tizzian Rafaele’, 15 May 1884.
46 ‘It stort skrit fremand! Gud hvilken tid af … sindsbevegelse!’, Oselio. Ms. 4° 3272:1:b, NBN, 12 October 1885.
47 ‘der gjöre en dag visite i [illegible] has mi kjære gamle venninne Georgina Sommelius nu Bottero’, Oselio. Ms. 4° 3272:1:b, NBN, 9 July 1885.
48 Oselio, quoted in Øystein Gaukstad, ‘Gina Oselio’, 73. He does not give the date or the context for the letter, but it is plausible to assume that this invitation came either from the Royal Opera in Copenhagen or the Royal Opera in Stockholm.
49 ‘Gina Oselio’, Scena illustrata 21 (13 November 1885).
50 ‘bionda figlia del Nord’, ‘Teatro Concordi’, L'euganeo (5 February 1883).
51 ‘una volce calda, ben timbrata e sopratutto un talento d'interpretazione, una vivacità di sentire, che promettono al teatro italiano una vera artista. Se in un debutto ella si mostrò tanto padrona della scene e sì ben educata al canto, che cosa sarà in seguito? I miei più sinceri rallegramenti alla signora Oselio.’ Cosmorano pittorico (19 January 1883).
52 D'Amico, Giuliano, ‘Marketing Ibsen: A Study of the First Italian Reception 1883–1891’, Ibsen Studies 11 (2011), 145–75Google Scholar.
53 ‘Il signor Pietro Galletti … è autorizzato a trattare e concludere affair per le seguenti artiste … Gina Oselio, mezz[o]-sopran[o] e contralt[o]’, Asmodeo: monitore settimanale dei teatri (8 October 1884).
54 ‘Italian Opera’, The Times (12 July 1887). Note that the critic is mistaken about the first date of Oselio's appearance in London (1886 not 1885).
55 ‘Fru Stenhammars “en lovende mezzosopran” Arlbergs at jeg var en höi dramatisk sopran, likeledes Signe Hebbe,: höi sopran.’ Oselio, ‘Erindringer fra barndom og ungdom’, Ms. 4° 3272, NBN.
56 ‘omtrent den skjønneste, den merkeligste hun hadde hatt å arbeide med’, Bjørn Bjørnson, Det gamle teater: kunsten og mennesken (Oslo, 1937), 300.
57 Nordisk musik-tidende 9/9 (September 1888).
58 This reference is to soprano Janka Dévay, ‘a kedvéért ki olaszul énekel Ugyanazon előadásban Michaela szerepét’ (who sings the role of Michaela in Italian for [Oselio's] sake), Pesti Napló (28 August 1886). I am grateful to Márton Karczag (Head of the Archives, Magyar Királyi Operaház) and Ferenc János Szabó (Hungarian Academy of Sciences/AIBM Magyar Nemzeti Csoport) for their assistance in tracing Oselio's work in Hungary.
59 ‘smakfullt och med god musikalisk känsla’, Egyetértés (29 September 1885), quoted in ‘Udställningen i Budapest’, Post-Och Inrikes Tidningar (8 October 1885).
60 ‘Italian Opera’, The Times (12 July 1887).
61 ‘artisticamente inappuntabile … severa, senza volgarità’, Asmodeo (1888).
62 Henson, Karen, Opera Acts: Singers and Performance in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York, 2014), 153Google Scholar.
63 ‘engageret ved Operaen i Budapest fra 1ste Oktober 1886 med 15,000 kr’, Skandinaven (18 November 1885).
64 Clair Rowden, ‘Deferent Daisies: Caroline Miolan Carvalho, Christine Nilsson and Marguerite, 1869’, Cambridge Opera Journal 30/2–3 (2018), 238.
65 ‘Hun er en dramatisk og – skjønt norsk født – en udenlandsk – iteliensk Sangerinde … I Griegs “Jeg elsker Dig” … men Udførelsen var neppe i Overensstemmelse med Kompositionens Karakter. Men hvad vil overhovedet utpregede dramatiske Sangerinder i denne norske Lyrik? Nej, Oselio er jo norsk født, saa hun følte sig vel forpligtet til at være lidt patriotisk i sit Program.’ ‘Gina Oselios Konsert’, Dagbladet (4 October 1888).
66 ‘Divaer, som hele sit Liv har udøvet sin Kunst bag Lamparækkerne paa de store udenlandske Scener, træffer ikke med engang denne norske Sæterduft.’ ‘Gina Oselios Konsert’.
67 ‘Sange som Griegs “Jeg elsker Dig”, Kjerulfs “Synnoves Sang” og folkevisen “Ole, Ole min ejen onge” gjør derfor mere Indtryk af at være sunge af en Udlænding, der har lært vort Sprog.’ ‘Frk. Gina Oselios Konsert’, Morganbladet (4 October 1888).
68 ‘Carmens roll utföres på norska spräket af Fröken Gina Oselio.’ Kungliga Teatrarnas Arkiv, Serie L, L1A: Kungliga teaterns äldre affischsamling, bunden: Carmen ons 1888-11-14 kl. 1930 Gustavianska operahuset.
69 ‘Fröken Oselio har gjort våld på illusionen, och det är mer är farligt … en liten nästan rödhåring, medelålders … demimondedam, en “Regementets dotter” i sämsta bemäkelse’, ‘Teater och Musik’, Nya Dagligt Allenhanda (15 November 1888).
70 ‘Af denna underbara Carmen ger nu fru Torssell en rikt skiftande bild, utkastad med intelligens och smak.’ ‘Teater och musik’ Aftonbladet (28 March 1878).
71 ‘ej ens våra mest avancerade nutidskomponister vågat förorda någon starkare realism i sina operor’, Nya Dagligt Allenhanda (15 November 1888).
72 Compare, for instance, the discussion of Céléstine Galli-Marié's interpretation in Michael Christoforidis and Kertesz, Elizabeth, Carmen and the Staging of Spain (New York, 2019), 32–3Google Scholar.
73 Oselio quoted in Øystein Gaukstad, ‘Gina Oselio’, 74. Gaukstad implies that this statement was made in a letter to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson around 1900 but gives no further information.
74 Susan Rutherford, ‘“Pretending to Be Wicked”: Divas, Technology, and the Consumption of Bizet's Carmen’, Technology and the Diva: Sopranos, Opera, and Media from Romanticism to the Digital Age, ed. Karen Henson (New York 2016), 80.
75 ‘Hun var meget vakker, mörk, usedvanlig graziös, pen stemme’, Oselio, Ms. 4° 3272:2:b, NBN. Oselio promised to say more about her later (‘Jeg kommer senere tilbake til hende’) but unfortunately never did.
76 Rutherford, ‘“Pretending to be Wicked”’, 78.
77 ‘kattaktiga smekningar’, ‘som en utkramad citron’. Alvar Arfwidsson, ‘I rampljus. Några af publikens gunstlingar’, Nornan (Stockholm, 1891), 135.
78 ‘kostbare Blomsterbuketter’. ‘Gina Oselio i Stockholm’, Dagbladet (15 November 1888).
79 Nils Grinde, A History of Norwegian Music (Lincoln, NE, 1991), 247–8. Grinde suggests that this sustained adherence to national romanticism was motivated largely by Grieg's success in the 1860s, which other composers hoped to emulate even as Grieg himself abandoned this style.
80 For an example of how Brandes's conception of modernism could relate to music and nationalism, albeit in a Danish context, consider the discussion in Daniel Grimley, ‘Horn Calls and Flattened Sevenths: Nielsen and Danish Musical Style’, in Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture 1800–1945, ed. Harry White and Michael Murphy (Cork, 2001), 123–41.
81 Henrik Ibsen quoted in Speeches and New Letters of Ibsen, trans. Arne Kildal (Boston, 1910), 92.
82 Qvamme, Oper og operetta i Christiania, 220.
83 Edvard Brandes quoted in Frederick J. Marker, ‘Negation in the Blond Kingdom’, Educational Theatre Journal 20/4 (1968), 511.
84 Note that critics, as in the 15 November 1888 Nya Dagligt Allenhanda review, used both ‘real/realism’ and ‘natural/naturalism’ to characterise Oselio's interpretations, often conflating the two concepts as they would come to be formally defined.
85 Rutherford, ‘“Pretending to Be Wicked”’, 78. Karen Henson's examination of the relationship between artistic, literary and operatic ‘realism’ explores the complex and evolving relationship between this concept and its practice on stage: Henson, Opera Acts, 48–51.
86 Barton, H. Arnold, ‘The Discovery of Norway Abroad, 1760–1905’, Scandinavian Studies 79/1 (2007), 30Google Scholar. Like Et dukkehjem, Det flager i byen og på havnen and Constance Ring excoriate the social and sexual mores of nineteenth-century Norwegian society, especially as these mores produced different standards for men and women. Skram deeply admired Oselio, calling her ‘a pure soul’ (en ren sjæl) in an 1896 letter to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (Brevs.BB 2, NBN) and corresponding regularly with the singer herself.
87 Sally Ledger, ‘Ibsen, the New Woman and the Actress’, The Woman in Fiction and in Fact, ed. Angelique Richardson and Chris Willis (London, 2002), 82.
88 Otto Winter-Hjelm quoted in Qvamme, Oper og operetta i Christiania, 184.
89 Bjørnson had great difficulty in convincing Norwegian actors and singers at the Christiania Theatre to speak Norwegian, since they considered the pronunciations harsh and inelegant. Rehearsal times had also historically been very limited, since the city's small population necessitated a constantly changing repertoire. Schmiesing, Norway's Christiania Theatre, 220–1.
90 ‘At hun synger Partiet paa et fremmedSprog … er ydmygende … men det kan absolut ikke lægges hende til Last.’ Dagbladet (24 October 1890).
91 ‘Men for sin egen Værdigheds Skyld bør norske Kunstnere, der gjæster i Sverige, kræve at synge paa sit Morsmaal … Norske Kunstnere bør ikke medvirke til, at det norske blir vurderet som noget ringere.’ Dagbladet (23 October 1890).
92 ‘en fast national Opera’, Dagbladet (24 October 1890).
93 Bjørn Bjørnson i anledning af 25-aars-jubilæet den 22. marts 1905 (Kristiania, 1905), 3. Grieg recalled this occasion as a performance of Boito's Mefistofele but from his description of the event it seems more likely that it was in fact Gounod's Faust.
94 Gustav Mahler was a classmate and Bjørnson also heard Anton Bruckner's lectures on harmony during this period. Berit Erbe, Bjørn Bjørnsons vej mod realismens teater (Oslo, 1976), 27–8.
95 Bjørnson became Streben's private pupil after the latter left the conservatory. Streben's own understanding of naturalism on stage was primarily in contradiction to the ubiquitous Viennese ‘Burgtheater’ conventions, especially its highly stylised mode of speaking. See Erbe, Bjørn Bjørnsons vej mod realismens teater, 105–8.
96 ‘Dette var altsaa den første Opera, udført af udelukkende norske Kræfter. Det næste Skridt maa være en af en norsk Nordmand komponeret Opera.’ ‘Kristiania Theatre’, Dagbladet (26 April 1888).
97 Johansen, Rune, Teatermaler Jens Wang: Dekorasjonskunst og sceneteknikk 1890–1926 (Oslo, 1984), 66Google Scholar.
98 Qvamme, Oper og operetta i Christiania, 185.
99 The first Danish translation was prepared by Hans Peter Holst in 1881 and revised by Pietro Krohn in 1887. Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen, ‘A Woman or a Demon: Carmen in the Late Nineteenth-Century Nordic Countries’, Carmen Abroad: Bizet's Opera on the Global Stage, ed. Richard Langham Smith and Clair Rowden (New York, 2020), 247. For more details on the libretto itself, see also Broman-Kananen, ‘Carmen i Ultima Thule: fyra nordiska tolkningar av en spansk zigenerska under sent 1800-tal’, Musiikki 48 (2018), 13.
100 Broman-Kananen, ‘A Woman or a Demon’, 248.
101 Prosper Merimeé, Carmen: en fortællning fra Spanien, trans. Hans Aanrud (Høvik, 1891).
102 ‘som storartet … undtømmelig … overordentligt’, Dagbladet (16 May 1891).
103 ‘Svenskerne og Danskerne har jo klandret den Maade, hvorpaa hun spiller Rollen. Hun understreger nemlig det vilde, det brutale i denne halvciviliserte spanske Zigeuner-kokette, og … hun faar sine Landsmænd, iafald de fleste, med paa denne Opfatning. … Carmen er ingen Salondame, men simpelthen et forslagent, et overmodigt, med Kjærligheden frækt legende Kvindemenneske.’ Dagbladet (16 May 1891).
104 ‘Kassen var gal – av glede.’ ‘Herregud, å få stå ved pulten og dirigere disse kveldene. Jeg sover ikke hele natta. Har ikke tid. Hører bare den deilige stemmen. Jeg ligger og er glad.’ Bjørnson, Det gamle teater, 299–300.
105 ‘Concert’, Fredrikshalds Tilskuer (6 October 1894).
106 ‘i takknemlighet fra den, hvem ingen kjenner’ (Bugge); ‘til min allerkjæreste fru Bjørnson’ (Schjelderup); ‘fra deres hengivene Michael’ (Michael Krohn). Oselio collection, FUL.
107 Magda Bugge, ‘Melodi, Op. 9’, FUL. ‘De 3 sange i manuskript og den allersidste “det döende barn” skal bli sendt den strax jeg har afskrevet dem.’
108 Edvard Grieg, ‘Våren’, Mus.ms.9999, NBN. Like the FUL materials, this piece is also privately bound and stamped with Oselio's name.
109 Grieg quoted in Foster, Beryl, Edvard Grieg: The Choral Music (New York, 1999), 109Google Scholar.
110 ‘Jeg hørte Oselio, og syntes ogsaa udmærket godt om hendes Foredrag.’ Hilda Neupert to Edvard Grieg (9 June 1895), Griegsamlingen, Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek.
111 ‘Джина Озелiо’, Всемирная иллюстрация (21 January 1889), 162.
112 Musikalisches Wochenblatt (8 August 1889); Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (14 August 1889); Berliner Börsenzeitung (23 August 1889).
113 Het vaderland (22 August 1889).
114 Her notes also include other practical details, such as a list of expenditures (either by herself or by others on her behalf) and the exchange rates for foreign currency. Ms. 4° 3272:1:a, NBN.
115 Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek, Griegsamlingen, Brev, Gina Oselio til Edvard Grieg, 1898 03.09 [Kristiania].
116 Øystein Gaukstad, ‘Gina Oselio’, 74.
117 Edvard Grieg, Edvard Grieg: Diaries, Articles, and Speeches, ed. and trans. Finn Benestad and William H. Halvorsen (Columbus, 2001), 165.
118 Schrøder had repeatedly rejected works by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Ibsen, claiming later that such plays could not ‘be presented to the Christiania Theatre public of those days with any hope of winning applause or even being tolerated’. Hans Schrøder, ‘Schrøder explains why he refused to produce Ghosts in 1881’, National Theatre in Northern and Eastern Europe 1746–1900, ed. Laurence Senelick and Peter Bilton (New York, 1991), 180.
119 The desire for a national theatre was a long-standing one, but Bjørnson provided the final impetus that brought the project to completion. Schmiesing, Norway's Christiania Theatre, 219.
120 Lucie Wolf, Skuespillerinden fru Lucie Wolfs livserindringer (Kristiania, 1898), 301–3.
121 Wolf, Skuespillerinden fru Lucie Wolfs livserindringer, 303. There is no evidence that Oselio asked that other singers not be given ‘her’ roles but, in light of Oselio's popularity, the theatre management appears to have feared permanently offending her – or the negative comparisons that another singer might provoke.
122 Ringdal, Nils Johan, Nationaltheatrets historie: 1899–1999 (Oslo, 2000), 11Google Scholar.
123 Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, ‘The Development of Norway's National Theatres’, in National Theatres in a Changing Europe, ed. S.E. Wilmer (London, 2008), 94.
124 Gustav Lærum, ‘Karikatur av: A) Bjørnson B) Bjørnson C) Ibsen D) Oselio’, 1900, OB.03908, Oslo Museum.
125 ‘Glans og Magt’, ‘den største Begeistring’. Morganbladet (10 May 1891).
126 Grieg, Diaries, Articles, Speeches, 164.
127 Bjørnson-Langen, Aulestad tur-retur, 61–2. Bjørnson-Langen was only a child at the time that these events took place (he was born in 1899), so it seems unlikely that these impressions were drawn from his own observations.
128 Bodil Stenseth, Sangerinnen: Cally Monrad livs og kunst (Oslo, 1990), 87.
129 Stenseth, Sangerinnen, 85. She mentions that critics did observe that Monrad's performance might have been more positively perceived if Oselio had not dominated the role.
130 Schmiesing, Norway's Christiania Theatre, 208.
131 ‘Man kan jo ikke snakke et Ord om Sang, uden at man straks skal kastes Oselio i Næsen! [literally ‘in the nose’] … kan jo andre ogsaa faa Lov til at eksistere vel? Det er da ikke bare hende vel?’ Edle Hartmann [Sfinx], Hjemme og gadelands (Kristiania, 1911), 117.
132 A national opera company would not be permanently established in Norway until 1959, when Kirsten Flagstad became the director. In 1924, Oselio had the opportunity to hear the young soprano in Carmen but declined: ‘I do not go to hear a Carmen where Micaëla is the main character.’ Rein, Aslaug, Kirsten Flagstad (Oslo, 1967), 67Google Scholar.