Facts

Peer Gynt

In a letter to his publisher, Frederik Hegel, from Rome, dated January 5th 1867, Ibsen writes:

"At last I am able to tell you that my new piece of work is in full swing, and all being well will be finished early next summer. It will be a large-scale dramatic poem whose main character is one of the Norwegian country-people`s half-mythical and fairy-tale figures of recent times. It will bear no resemblance to "Brand", having no directly polemical content etc.
- I have been thinking about this subject for a long time, and now I have worked out the whole plan, written it down and started the first act.

Peer Gynt was written partly in Rome, partly on Ischia and partly in Sorrento. The manuscript contains a number of dates, which are as follows:

Ibsen sent the fair copy version of the play to Hegel in three parts, the fifth (and last) act being posted from Sorrento on October 18th 1867.

First edition
Peer Gynt came out on November 14th 1867 at Gyldendalske Boghandel (F. Hegel) in Copenhagen. The first edition comprised 1 250 copies and was followed by a re-print of 2 000 copies after only 14 days. The large sales were due to the success of the previous play, Brand.

First performance
Peer Gynt was not written for the stage. Vilhelm Bergsøe, the Danish writer who became Ibsen`s regular companion for walks on Ischia, repeats the following conversation with Ibsen in the book Henrik Ibsen paa Ischia og "Fra Piazza del Popolo": Erindringer fra Aarene 1863-69 (Copenhagen 1907):

"Is it possible to have a man running about on the stage with a casting mould?"
"Yes, why not?" I answered.
"Yes, but it would have to be a mould that was big enough to re-cast people."
"That would look rather comic," I remarked.
"Yes, I think so too; but I don`t think it`s going to be staged, either."

A few years later, however, Ibsen had changed his mind. On January 23rd 1874 he wrote to Edvard Grieg from Dresden, saying he was intending to adapt Peer Gynt for the stage, and asking whether Grieg was willing to "compose the necessary music". On February 6th the same year he wrote to Ludvig Josephson - the Swedish director of Christiania Theater who in 1873 successfully staged both The Pretenders and Love`s Comedy. Ibsen writes that he has done an adaptation of the play and shortened it, and would like it to be arranged as a "musical drama". Josephson was enthusiastic about the idea, but it was two years before the plan was carried out. The first performance took place on February 24th 1876 at Christiania Theater, and the production was an enormous success, judged both artistically and by the response of audiences.

Ten years after Christiania Theater´s success the play was staged for the second time by Dagmarteatret in Copenhagen with the same winning team: Henrik Klausen - who had played Peer Gynt at Christiania Theater - in the title role and Grieg´s stage music.

By Jens-Morten Hanssen / ibsen.net