Birgitte Elisabeth Andersen (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Olsen) (17 December 1791 – 6 February 1875) was a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

stage actor and ballet dancer. Daughter of Iver Olsen, controller at the

Royal Danish Theatre The Royal Danish Theatre (RDT, Danish: ') is both the national Danish performing arts institution and a name used to refer to its old purpose-built venue from 1874 located on Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. The theatre was founded in 1748, first ser ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. Student of Antoine Bournonville at the ballet school from 1801. In 1804, she became one of the first students at the newly founded drama school Den Kgl. Dramatiske Skole, and was considered as the most notable talent the school produced. She debuted at the royal court theatre, Hofteatret, in 1806 and at the Royal Danish Theatre in 1808, and was contracted in 1810. She was described as beautiful, intelligent, cold, with a gift for irony. She was deemed as most suitable for solemn roles, but was criticized for a certain stiffness. She was the first Dane to play Portia (1828), Ofelia (1813) and Schiller's

Jeanne d'Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronati ...

(1819). She retired with a full royal pension in 1838. She married the conductor of the Royal Danish Orchestra, Caspar Heinrich Bernhard Andersen, in 1815.

References

* 1791 births 1875 deaths Danish stage actresses 19th-century Danish actresses 19th-century Danish ballet dancers {{Denmark-actor-stub