Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 2).djvu/18

 autocrat in the æsthetic world; and his report on ''The Vikings'' is now a curiosity of literature. He declared that nothing was so "monotonous, tiresome and devoid of all poetry" as the Icelandic family-sagas; he could not endure their "wildness and rawness" on the stage; the saga style, as reproduced by Ibsen, seemed to him "mannered and affected"; and he concluded his judgment in these terms: "A Norwegian theatre will scarcely take its rise from such experiments, and the Danish theatre has fortunately no need for them."

The play was published in April 1858 as a supplement to a Christiania illustrated paper, the author receiving an "honorarium" of something less than £7. On November 24, 1858, it was produced at the little "Norwegian Theatre" in Christiania, of which the poet was then director. At the Bergen Theatre it was produced in 1859, at the Christiania Theatre (by that time pretty well Norwegianised) in 1861. It did not make its way to Copenhagen and Stockholm until 1875. In 1876 it was acted at the Court Theatres of Munich and Dresden, and at the Vienna Burgtheater. Thenceforward it was pretty frequently seen on the German stage; but it does not seem to have reached Berlin (Deutsches Theater) until 1890. In 1892 it was produced in Moscow. The only production in the English language of which any account has reached me took place in 1903 at the Imperial Theatre, London, when Miss Ellen Terry appeared as Hiördis and Mr. Oscar Asche as Sigurd. The scenery and dresses were designed by Miss Terry's son, Mr. Gordon Craig.

It would need not merely an essay, but a volume, to discuss the relation of The Vikings to its mythic material, and to other modern treatments of that material