The collected works of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. 04 (of 11)Ibsen, Henrik
General
The collected works of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. 04 (of 11)
Ibsen, Henrik
Ibsen, Henrik, 1828-1906 -- Translations into English; Norwegian drama -- Translations into English
After a great deal of discussion as to the stage-arrangement, _Peer
Gynt_, largely abbreviated, was produced, with Edvard Grieg’s now famous
incidental music, at the Christiania Theatre in February 1876, Henrik
Klausen playing the title-part. It was acted thirty-seven times; but a
fire which destroyed some of the scenery put a stop to the performances.
In 1892, at the same theatre, the first three acts were revived, with
Björn Björnson as Peer, and repeated fifty times. In the repertory of
the National Theatre, too (opened in 1899), _Peer Gynt_ has taken a
prominent place. It was first given in 1902, and has up to the present
(1906) been performed eighty-four times. In the version which has
established itself on the Norwegian stage, all five acts are given, but
the fourth and fifth acts are greatly abbreviated. In the season of 1886
the play was produced at the Dagmar Theatre, Copenhagen. August
Lindberg’s Swedish Company acted it in Gothenburg in 1892, in Stockholm
in 1895, and afterwards toured with it in Norway and Sweden. Count
Prozor’s translation was acted by “L’Œuvre” at the Nouveau Théâtre,
Paris, in November, 1896, of which remarkable production a lively
account by Mr. Bernard Shaw may be found in the _Saturday Review_ of
that period. At the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna, in May 1902, two
performances of _Peer Gynt_ were given by the “Akademisch-Litterarische
Verein.” I can find no record of any other German production of the
play. The first production in the English language took place at the
Grand Opera House, Chicago, on October 29, 1906, when Mr. Richard
Mansfield appeared as Peer Gynt. Mr. Mansfield would seem to have acted
the greater part of the play, but to have omitted the Sæter-Girl scene
and the madhouse scene.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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