Ibsen, Henrik (EN)

Ibsen Henrik Johan, *20 March 1828 Skien, †23 May 1906 Christiania (present-day Oslo), Norwegian playwright. From the age of 15, following his father’s bankruptcy and death, he was forced to support himself and his mother. His early works include satirical poems and a tragedy (*Catiline*, 1849). From 1850, he worked in Bergen as a critic, essayist and journalist with radical social leanings, and from 1851 also as a director and playwright. From 1858, he was artistic director of the Norske Theater in Christiania. Between 1864 and 1875, he lived in Italy and Germany; from 1875, Munich became the main centre of his activities for many years. In 1891, already in the limelight of fame (having been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Uppsala in 1877), he returned permanently to Norway and settled in Christiania. Ibsen’s career coincided with a period of heightened patriotic fervour and cultural revival in Norway following its liberation from centuries of dependence on Denmark. In his early plays, Ibsen was still under the influence of national Romanticism, drawing on motifs from the past and Norwegian legends (including St John’s Eve 1853); however, he soon turned his attention to contemporary issues, becoming in his realistic plays an uncompromising critic of social relations, particularly conservatism and the double standards of the bourgeoisie (e.g. The Pillars of Society 1877, A Doll’s House 1879, The Wild Duck 1884, Hedda Gabler 1890). It was these very plays that brought Ibsen international fame and the reputation of being the leading playwright of his era. They often show affinities with the naturalism that was gaining ground at the time (especially Ghosts 1881). In the late 1880s and 1890s, Ibsen’s desire to infuse his works with symbolic elements became apparent (The Lady from the Sea 1888, The Master Builder 1892, When We Dead Awaken 1899). Ibsen’s plays reached European stages mainly via Germany.

Ibsen gained particular renown for his play Peer Gynt, written in Italy in 1867; described by the author as a “dramatic poem”, it freely combines motifs from Norwegian folk tales, the backdrop of romantic adventurism with elements of satire on national romanticism — all subordinated to the idea of human freedom. The work, long considered too difficult to stage, was finally performed on 24 February 1876 in Christiania as a “musical drama” with music by E. Grieg, whom Ibsen had persuaded to collaborate (cf. correspondence, including letters dated 23 January and 6 February 1874). The drama was a success, partly thanks to Grieg’s music (36 performances in 1876), and toured the major European stages (Copenhagen 1886, Stockholm 1895, Paris 1896, Vienna 1902, Berlin 1903, Lviv 1910, London 1911, Moscow 1912 and others). From fragments of the incidental music for Peer Gynt, Grieg composed two well-known orchestral suites (1888, 1892). Ibsen’s works served as material for Grieg’s compositions on two further occasions; in 1868 he arranged Marguerite’s Cradle-Song (Op. 15) from Pretenders to the Throne, and in 1876 he composed six songs to Ibsen’s poems (Sex digte, Op. 25, including the famous A Swan). Plans to co-write an opera (see correspondence) were never realised. Peer Gynt inspired two other composers: W. Egk, who wrote an opera of the same title (with a slightly altered plot), and H. Saeverud, who attempted to re-compose the incidental music for the play.

Literature: Breve fra Henrik Ibsen, ed. J. Elias, H. Koht, Oslo 1904, German edition Briefe von Henrik Ibsen, Berlin 1905; I. Tedford Ibsen’s Bibliography 1928–1957, Oslo 1961; G. Brandes Das Ibsen-Buch, Dresden 1923; G.B. Shaw The Quintessence of lbsenism, 1891, Polish edition Kwintesencja ibsenizmu, translated by C. Wojewoda, Warsaw 1960; P. Szondi Teoria nowoczesnego dramatu 1880–1950, translated from German by E. Misiołek, Warsaw 1976; J. Horton Ibsen, Grieg and “Peer Gynt”, “Music and Letters” XXVI, 1945; A. Grzymała-Siedlecki Ibsen i ibsenizm, “Teatr” 1956 No. 24; Z. Żygulski Ibsen i ibsenizm, “Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny” III, 1956.