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Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include ''Brand'', '' Peer Gynt'', ''An Enemy of the People'', ''Emperor and Galilean'', '' A Doll's House'', '' Hedda Gabler'', ''Ghosts'', '' The Wild Duck'', ''When We Dead Awaken'', ''Rosmersholm'', and ''The Master Builder''. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and ''A Doll's House'' was the world's most performed play in 2006. Ibsen's early poetic and cinematic play ''Peer Gynt'' has strong surreal elements. After ''Peer Gynt'' Ibsen abandoned verse and wrote in realistic prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later ...
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Peer Gynt
''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five- act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1876. Written in Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed '' Per Gynt'', the Norwegian fairy tale on which the play is loosely based, to be rooted in fact, and several of the characters are modelled after Ibsen's own family, notably his parents Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg. He was also generally inspired by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen's collection of Norwegian fairy tales, published in 1845 (''Huldre-Eventyr og Folkesagn''). ''Peer Gynt'' chronicles the journey of its title character from the Norwegian mountains to the North African desert and back. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, "its origins are romantic, but the play also anticipates the fragmentations of emerging modernism" and the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones."Klaus Van Den Berg, "Peer Gynt" (review), ''Theatre Jo ...
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A Doll's House
''A Doll's House'' ( Danish and nb, Et dukkehjem; also translated as ''A Doll House'') is a three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. The play is set in a Norwegian town circa 1879. The play concerns the fate of a married woman, who at the time in Norway lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world, despite the fact that Ibsen denied it was his intent to write a feminist play. It was a great sensation at the time, and caused a "storm of outraged controversy" that went beyond the theatre to the world of newspapers and society. In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen's death, ''A Doll's House'' held the distinction of being the world's most performed play that year. UNESCO has inscribed Ibsen's autographed manuscripts of ''A Doll's House'' on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of their hist ...
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Knud Ibsen
Knud Plesner Ibsen (3 October 1797, in Skien – 24 October 1877, in Skien) was a Norwegian merchant from the city of Skien and the father of the playwright Henrik Ibsen. He is widely considered the model for many central characters in his son's plays, including Jon Gynt in ''Peer Gynt'' and Old Ekdahl in '' The Wild Duck''. Early life Knud Ibsen was the son of ship's captain Henrich Johan Ibsen and Johanne Plesner; his paternal great-grandfather had immigrated from Denmark to Norway in 1726. His father died at sea outside Hesnesøya near Grimstad in November 1797, and the following year, Johanne married ship's captain Ole Paus; in 1799 Ole Paus bought the estate Rising near Skien after selling the Ibsen house in downtown Skien, and the family moved to Rising in 1800. Knud Ibsen grew up at Rising with most of his half-siblings, among them the later lawyer and member of parliament Christian Cornelius Paus and shipowner and banker Christopher Blom Paus. One of his half-br ...
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Sigurd Ibsen
Sigurd Ibsen (23 December 1859 – 14 April 1930) was a Norwegian author, lawyer and statesman, who served as the prime minister of Norway in Stockholm (1903–1905) and played a central role in the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905. Early life Ibsen was born in Christiania (now called Oslo), but grew up mostly in Germany and Italy. Being the only child of playwright Henrik Ibsen and his wife Suzannah Thoresen, he struggled all his life to meet his family's high expectations. Ibsen developed 'remarkably early', being able to read at the age of four and was fluent in Norwegian, German and Italian. Growing up however, Ibsen struggled to find friends who were Norwegian and his age, further complicated by the fact that his family was often deep in penury, and thus he appeared throughout his life to be impersonal to others who did not know him. He excelled in academics however, aiming to please both his parents and himself, and subsequently came top in ...
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Ghosts (play)
''Ghosts'' ( no, Gengangere) is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882 in Chicago, Illinois, in a production by a Danish company on tour. Like many of Ibsen's plays, ''Ghosts'' is a scathing commentary on 19th-century morality. Because of its subject matter, which includes religion, venereal disease, incest, and euthanasia, it immediately generated strong controversy and negative criticism. Since then the play has fared better, and is considered a “great play” that historically holds a position of “immense importance”. Theater critic Maurice Valency wrote in 1963, "From the standpoint of modern tragedy ''Ghosts'' strikes off in a new direction.... Regular tragedy dealt mainly with the unhappy consequences of breaking the moral code. ''Ghosts'', on the contrary, deals with the consequences of not breaking it." Characters * Mrs. Helen Alving, a widow * Oswald Alving, her son, a painter * Pastor Manders, an old fri ...
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The Master Builder
''The Master Builder'' ( no, Bygmester Solness) is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's more significant and revealing works. Performance The play was published by Gyldendal AS in Copenhagen in 1892 and its first performance was on 19 January 1893 at the Lessing Theatre in Berlin, with Emanuel Reicher as Solness. It opened at the Trafalgar Theatre in London the following month, with Herbert H. Waring in the name part and Elizabeth Robins as Hilda. The English translation was by the theatre critic William Archer and poet Edmund Gosse. Productions in Oslo and Copenhagen were coordinated to open on 8 March 1893. In the following year, the work was staged by Théâtre de l'Œuvre, the international company based in Paris. The first U.S. performance was at the Carnegie Lyceum in New York on 16 January 1900, with William Pascoe and Florence Kahn. Characters * Halvard Solness, master builder * ...
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The Wild Duck
''The Wild Duck'' (original Norwegian title: ''Vildanden'') is an 1884 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is considered the first modern masterpiece in the genre of tragicomedy. ''The Wild Duck'' and '' Rosmersholm'' are "often to be observed in the critics' estimates vying with each other as rivals for the top place among Ibsen's works." Characters * Håkon Werle, a wholesale merchant * Gregers Werle, his son * Old Ekdal, the former business partner of Håkon Werle * Hjalmar Ekdal, Old Ekdal's son, a photographer * Gina Ekdal, his wife * Hedvig, their daughter, aged fourteen * Mrs. Sørby, housekeeper and fiancée of Håkon Werle * Relling, a doctor, lives below the Ekdals * Molvik, formerly a student of theology, lives below the Ekdals * Pettersen, servant to Håkon Werle * Jensen, a hired waiter * Mr. Balle, a dinner guest * Mr. Flor, a dinner guest Plot The first act opens with a dinner party hosted by Håkon Werle, a wealthy merchant and industrialist. T ...
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An Enemy Of The People
''An Enemy of the People'' (original Norwegian title: ''En folkefiende''), an 1882 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, followed his previous play, '' Ghosts'', which criticized the hypocrisy of his society's moral code. That response included accusations of both ''Ghosts'' and its author being "scandalous," "degenerate," and "immoral." In ''An Enemy of the People'', a man dares to expose an unpalatable truth publicly and is punished for it. However, Ibsen took a somewhat skeptical view of his protagonist, suggesting that he may have gone too far in his zeal to tell the truth. Ibsen wrote to his publisher: "I am still uncertain as to whether I should call 'An Enemy of the People''a comedy or a straight drama. It may avemany traits of comedy, but it also is based on a serious idea." Plot overview Act I Dr. Thomas Stockmann is the medical officer of a recently opened spa in a small town. The play begins with a dinner party hosted by Dr. Stockmann and his wife, Katrine ...
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Suzannah Thoresen
Suzannah Ibsen (née Thoresen; 26 June 1836 – 3 April 1914) was a Norwegian woman who was the wife of playwright and poet Henrik Ibsen and mother of noted politician Sigurd Ibsen. Biography Suzannah Daae Thoresen was born in Herøy, Møre og Romsdal, Norway. Her parents were Hans Conrad Thoresen (1802–1858) and his second wife, Sara Margrethe Daae (1806–1841). After her mother's death in childbirth, her father married the family's Danish-born governess, Magdalene Kragh (1819–1903), who became a poet, novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her family subsequently moved to Bergen where her father was dean of the historic Holy Cross Church (''Korskirken''). After the success of his first publicly successful drama ''The Feast at Solhaug'', Ibsen was invited to Magdalene Thoresen’s literary salon. It was here he first met and fell in love with Suzannah. Henrik Ibsen was at this time the stage director at the Norwegian Theatre (''Det Norske Theater'') in Bergen. The ...
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Marichen Altenburg
Marichen Cornelia Martine Altenburg (24 April 1799 – 3 June 1869) was the mother of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and is known as the model for several characters in some of Ibsen's most famous plays, including Åse in ''Peer Gynt''.Robert Ferguson, ''Henrik Ibsen. A New Biography'', Richard Cohen Books, London 1996 Early life Marichen Altenburg was born in Skien as the daughter of the merchant Johan Andreas Altenburg (1763–1824) and Hedevig Christine Paus (1763–1848). Her father was a shipowner, timber merchant and owned a liquor distillery at Lundetangen and a farm outside of town; her mother had been born in Upper Telemark to a family that belonged to the regional elite there, the " aristocracy of officials". She grew up in the stately Altenburg house in central Skien. Marriage On 1 December 1825, she married Knud Ibsen, who had established himself as an independent merchant in Skien earlier in that year. Knud Ibsen was the step-son of her uncle, shipowner O ...
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Hedda Gabler
''Hedda Gabler'' () is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The world premiere was staged on 31 January 1891 at the Residenztheater in Munich. Ibsen himself was in attendance, although he remained back-stage. The play has been canonized as a masterpiece within the genres of literary realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama.Bunin, Ivan. ''About Chekhov: The Unfinished Symphony''. Northwestern University Press (2007) . page 26Checkhov, Anton. ''Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentary''. Editor: Karlinsky, Simon. Northwestern University Press (1973) page 385Haugen, Einer Ingvald. ''Ibsen’s Drama: Author to Audience''. University of Minnesota Press (1979) . page 142 Ibsen mainly wrote realistic plays until his forays into modern drama. ''Hedda Gabler'' dramatizes the experiences of the title character, Hedda, the daughter of a general, who is trapped in a marriage and a house that she does not want. Overall, the title characte ...
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Skien
Skien () is a city and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county in Norway. In modern times it is regarded as part of the traditional region of Grenland, although historically it belonged to Grenmar/Skiensfjorden, while Grenland referred the Norsjø area and Bø. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Skien. Skien is also the capital of Vestfold og Telemark county. Skien is one of Norway's oldest cities, with an urban history dating back to the Middle Ages, and received privileges as a market town in 1358. From the 15th century, the city was governed by a 12-member council. The modern municipality of Skien was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The rural municipalities of Gjerpen and Solum were merged into the municipality of Skien on 1 January 1964. The conurbation of Porsgrunn/Skien is reckoned by Statistics Norway to be the seventh largest urban area in Norway, straddling an area of three municipalities: Skien municipality ...
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