Elise Hwasser

Infobox actor
name = Elise Hwasser


imagesize =
caption =
birthname = Ebba Charlotta Jakobsson
birthdate = 16 March 1831
location = Sweden
deathdate = 28 January 1894 (age 62)
deathplace = Fiskebäckskil, Sweden
height =
othername = Elise Jakobsson, Elise Hwasser, Elise Jakobsson-Hwasser
homepage =
spouse = Daniel Hwasser

Ebba Charlotta Elise Hwasser, "née Jakobsson", (16 March 1831 – 28 January 1894), was a Swedish actor, the leading lady on the Swedish stage for thirty years and often described as the greatest female actor in Sweden during the Victorian era.

Biography

Elise Jakobsson was born in Stockholm the 16 March 1831 - her father worked as a custom-caretaker - and became a student at Dramatens elevskola in 1849 and had already found employment by the following year at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, were she was originally hired as a replacement for Aurora Strandberg. She was made premier-actress in 1853.

She was from the outset considered to have great promise, but it was nevertheless difficult for her to win the leading roles from more established actors such as Zelma Hedin, Charlotta Almlöf and Fanny Westerdahl, the stars of the 1850s. She had a brief affair with the Crown Prince, the future Charles XV of Sweden, who advised her to marry Daniel Hwasser, the secretary of the royal theatres direction, which oversaw the royal theatre. She took the Crown Prince's advice and married Hwasser in 1858, after which he was made director of the theatre. The fact that Elise Hwasser was suddenly awarded leading roles did not go unnoticed in the press: during her husband's short period as director of the theatre, she played all the leading female parts. Although this may very well have ben the result of nepotism, it is equally clear that she did have talent as an actor - a talent that she was now able to demonstrate. Proof of this is provided by the fact that, after her husband had been dismissed as a director and her royal lover had acquired a new mistress, she nevertheless continued to play the leading female parts. Whatever means she had employed, she had now proven herself and, for the next thirty years, she played the leading female role in well over one hundred and fifty performances.

In 1863, she was given a contract for life, and became known as an actor that followed the new trend of realism in the theatre. Her style of acting was simply desribed as versatile; she was an artist that, according to the critics of the time, could play most parts splendidly, and excelled both as a "spoilt young girl", and in "Mistress" and "heroine"-parts, as well as in tragedy. She played Ophelia, Juliet (1872), Desdemona (1858), Mary Stuart(1868) and Cleopatra (1881) with success, but her most acclaimed roles were as characters in popular novels, such as "Jane Eyre" (1854). She managed to play Nora convincingly in Ibsen's "A Dollhouse" as late as 1881 (during the 1880-81 season), when she had reached the age of fifty, and she was also considered as the perhaps most notable Ibsen-actor. She was also popular in so called breeches roles; her voice was described as very deep and suitable for such parts.

Among her parts where Isabella av Portugal in "En saga av..." opposite Nils Almlöf, Charlotta Almlöf and Zelma Hedin the 1851-52 season, Isabelle in "Skolan för äkta män" by Moliere opposite Zelma Hedin and Georg Dahlquist 1855-56, the main parts in "Ladyn av Worsley Hall" opposite Edvard Swartz and Gustav Sundberg, "Älvjungfrun" opposite Nils Almlöf and Zelma Hedin, and "Fröken de la Segliére" the season 1857-58, Desdemona in "Othello" opposite Dahlquist and Fanchon in "Syrsan" opposite Charlotte Forsman and Karolina Bock 1858-59, Tekla in "Wallensteins död" opposite Dahlquist and Nils Almlöf 1859-60, Puck in "En mindsommarnattsdröm" opposite Axel Elmlund and Nils Almlöf and Karin Månsdotter in "Erik XIV" opposite Swartz, Fanny Westerdahl and Signe Hebbe in 1860-61, teacher in "Blommor i drivbänk" opposite Zelma Hedin and Karolina Bock 1862-63, Myrrha in "Sardanapalus" opposite Edvard Swartz in 1864-65, Sigrid in "Bröllopet på Ulfåsa" opposite Axel Elmlund 1865-66, in "Konstens vapen" opposite Nils Almlöf, Elmlund, Gustav Fredriksson, Helfrid Kinmansson, Betty Almlöf, Clementine Swartz and Knut Almlöf 1867-68, Selma in "De Ungas förbund" 1869-70, Hermione in "En vintersaga" opposite E.Swartz 1871-72, main female part in "Män av ära" and "Skådespelerskan" 1873-74, Mlle de Maupas in "Det besegrade lejonet" opposite Gustav Fredriksson, Elmlund and Sundberg 1875-76, Lona in "Samhällets pelare" opposite Ferdinand Thegerström 1877-78, in "Severo Torelli" towards Georg Törnqvist and Elmlund 1885-86, Karoline opposite Ellen Hartman, Fredriksson and Elmlund in 1887-88. Her last part where queen Anna in "Ett glas vatten" in the 1887-88 season.

In her private life, her habits were considered "manly", and she enjoyed smoking cigars and pipe and drinking punsch.

She retired in 1888, when the theatre was reorginased, and died six years later in her villa Västråt in Fiskebäckskil. Her daughter, Anna Lisa Hwasser-Engelbrecht, also became an actor.

Elise Hwasser was decorated with Litteris et Artibus in 1865, as the first woman ever, which was considered as a sign that it was acceptable for women to be officially decoreated, and the gold medal of the Swedish Academy in 1881.

References

* Carin Österberg, "Svenska kvinnor", "("Swedish Women") (In Swedish)"
* http://runeberg.org/nfbk/0737.html (Biography in Swedish with image)
* Alf Henriksson, "Fram till Nybroplan", "(In Swedish)."
* Thorsten Dahl, "Svenska män och kvinnor, nr 3".
* Georg Nordensvan, "Svensk teater och svenska skådespelare från Gustav III till våra dagar, Andra bandet, 1842-1918".
* Lars Löfgren, "Svensk teater"