Catharina Anna Grandon de Hochepied (21 May 1767 – 1803) was a Hungarian and Swedish noble. As the wife of the Swedish ambassador in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

, she became the likely first woman ever to have performed on stage in

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. Born to the Hungarian count Jan Daniel Grandon de Hochepied, she married Gerhard von Heidenstam, the Swedish ambassador of the Ottoman Empire, in 1783 and moved with him to Istanbul, where they lived. Heidenstam organized an amateur theatre at the Swedish hotel in the Pera district of the city. In 1786, the theatre opened with the opera ''L’ecole des Jaloux'', the first Italian opera ever performed in Turkey and, likely, in the Muslim world. The music was played by the embassy staff. Catharina Anna participated in the opera, together with a couple of other amateur actresses from the embassy staff's families, in front of three hundred spectators, thereby becoming perhaps the first woman ever to perform on a public stage in a Muslim country. She was complimented on her performance by members of the audience, which consisted of both foreign diplomats and Muslim nobles.

References

Entry in "Anteckningar om svenska qvinnor"

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grandon de Hochepied, Catharina Anna 1767 births 1803 deaths 18th-century Swedish actresses Swedish stage actresses 18th-century Hungarian people Ottoman culture Hungarian nobility Swedish nobility Hungarian expatriates in Turkey Hungarian expatriates in Sweden Swedish people of Hungarian descent Gustavian era people 18th-century Hungarian actors