Owe Ander, ‘Rienzi’ in Swedish (1865): The Case of the Stockholm Score

July 2015, Volume 9, Number 2, 19–34.

The Stockholm opera of the 19th century was a geographically and linguistically isolated phenomenon even though it had frequent and continuous contact with the current state of international performance – a version of Singapore or Hong Kong in the 19th-century opera world. The archival source materials reveal both international tendencies as well as local variants. While numerous Swedish artists studied or worked all over Europe, several influential continental artists, singers, musicians, conductors and directors were active in Stockholm for both longer and shorter periods. The archival material is largely intact, due to the happy absence of wars, revolutions and devastating fires.

This article presents and discusses archival source materials from the opera house in Stockholm from the 1860s on, especially those of Rienzi.