Ida Aalberg (4 December 1857 – 17 January 1915) was the most notable and internationally known

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

actress of her time.

Biography

Aalberg was born in ,

Janakkala Janakkala () is a municipality of Finland. Its administrative centre is in Turenki, which is often erroneously shown on maps as being "Janakkala". Janakkala is located along the Highway 3 ( E12) in the province of Southern Finland and is part of th ...

. She was a member of the Theatre of Finland from 1874 to 1883 and later a regular visiting actress. She also performed on foreign scenes, in Scandinavia, Germany, Hungary and Russia among others. Although she never managed a breakthrough in a foreign language she remained respected and highly popular in Finland, even when spending much, or nearly all of her time abroad. A new theatre house that opened in 1902 led to the renaming of the Theatre of Finland as The Finnish National Theatre. A few years later Aalberg began to show an interest in directing and administration which lead to her appointment as director-actor (assistant manager) in 1909. She was not a success as a director. When her contract was terminated in 1911 it caused a cultural scandal and she was never to perform regularly in the National Theatre again. She celebrated her 40-year anniversary as an actress there in 1914 and a visiting performance was being planned but her sudden death in January 1915 in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

came before the plans could be carried out. She is buried in the

Hietaniemi Cemetery The Hietaniemi cemetery ( fi, Hietaniemen hautausmaa, sv, Sandudds begravningsplats) is located mainly in the Lapinlahti quarter and partly in the Etu-Töölö district of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It is the location for Finnish state ...

in Helsinki. Aalberg's first marriage was to a well-known Finnish nationalist from 1887 until his death in 1893, and the second in 1894 to Baron from St Petersburg, who was a lawyer and philosopher and later became an influential person in the Finnish theatre scene.

Legacy

On the other side of The Finnish National Theatre, in Kaisaniemi Park, there is a monument called ''The Curtain'', designed by sculptor

Raimo Utriainen Raimo Utriainen (24 September 1927, Kuopio — 27 April 1994, Helsinki) was a Finnish visual artist, best known as a modernist sculptor and a moderniser of Finnish sculpture. Biography Utriainen initially studied mathematics at the University o ...

and raised in memory of Ida Aalberg in 1972. Being the first abstract sculpted monument ever planned in Finland it caused a huge uproar by winning the competition in 1961. The city of

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

has named a street in memory of Ida Aalberg in

Pohjois-Haaga Pohjois-Haaga (Finnish), Norra Haga (Swedish, translates as Northern Haaga) is a neighborhood of Helsinki, Finland. On east it borders with Hämeenlinna's highway. Etelä-Haaga (Southern Haaga) is in its southern side, separated by park areas an ...

, and she has also been featured on a Finnish

Postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

. The birth home of Ida Aalberg is located in Leppäkoski in the municipality of

and serves as the Ida Aalberg museum. The library of Janakkala is also named after her and is sited on Ida Aalberg Plaza. Finnish actress

Kyllikki Forssell Kyllikki Forssell (2 May 1925 — 7 October 2019) was a leading Finnish stage and film actress, with a career spanning over 60 years from the mid-20th to the early 21st century and film director. She was one of the first four Finnish women film ...

played a small part as Ida Aalberg in the movie ''

Poet and Muse ''Poet and Muse'' ( fi, Runoilija ja muusa) is a 1978 Finnish drama film directed by Jaakko Pakkasvirta. The film is about the Finnish poet Eino Leino and the women of his life: a conflict-filled marriage with Freya Schultz and a love affair wi ...

'' by Jaakko Pakkasvirta (1978). The movie tells the story of another famous Finn, the poet

Eino Leino Eino Leino (born Armas Einar Leopold Lönnbohm; 6 July 1878 – 10 January 1926) was a Finnish poet and journalist who is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry and a national poet of Finland. His poems combine modern and Finnish fol ...

Ida Aalberg Foundation and Ida Aalberg Society

The memory of Ida Aalberg is kept alive by the Ida Aalberg Foundation in Helsinki (1957) and the Ida Aalberg Society in Janakkala (1985). Ida Aalberg Foundation awards a biannual Ida Aalberg Acting Prize, which is the largest single prize in the theatre in Finland (15000 euros in 2007). In 1959 the Foundation announced an open competition for a monument and after various phases, including a follow-up competition, commissioned from sculptor Raimo Utriainen his winning work, The Curtain. It took 15 years from the initial idea in 1957 - centennial of Ida Aalberg's birth - until the monument was finally put up.

Gallery

References

External links

Ida Aalberg, A short biography, Kansallisbiografia – The National Biography of Finland, edited by the Finnish Historical SocietyStories of important historical figures from HämeIda Aalberg Foundation (in Finnish)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aalberg, Ida 1857 births 1915 deaths People from Janakkala People from Häme Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Finnish stage actresses 19th-century Finnish actresses 19th-century Finnish people Burials at Hietaniemi Cemetery