SOURCE: Näslund, Erik. “Miss Julie—The Ballet, 1950-1.” Theatre Research International 18, supplementary issue (1993): 16-23.

[In the following essay, Näslund presents a history of the ballet version of Miss Julie.]

If by a classic one means a work of art which has the ability to remain alive through various epochs and continue to engage people's attention, then the word is suitable to describe Birgit Cullberg's ballet Miss Julie. Perhaps one ought to adjust the notion slightly and describe the ballet as a ‘modern classic’, because we do not know how it will have endured in, let us say, fifty or a hundred years.

But as the ballet, since its première on 7 March 1950, has been staged in a further 35 productions all over the world (to 31 December 1992), so it can without doubt be said to bode well for the future. Taste changes from decade to decade and Cullberg's ballet has survived a series of changes in fashion within the area of dance: from the neoclassical wave following George Balanchine, via the breakthrough of the modern ballet with Glen Tetley and Hans van Manen, up to a renewed interest in dramatic ballet, which undeniably favoured Cullberg's work in general and especially Miss Julie. It can further be said that the fusion of classical and modern technique achieved by Tetley and van Manen was anticipated by Cullberg in Miss Julie, where the choreographer sets the classical and free techniques against each other to distinguish between two classes in society. Cullberg would after Miss Julie work with an alloy of both schools.

In 1949 Cullberg was to work with the Swedish touring theatre organization Riksteatern (Swedish National Theatre Centre), with which she had carried out several tours during the 1940s. The tour was to take place in 1950 with the young Swedish dancer Elsa Marianne von Rosen as ‘star’ and her husband Allan Fridericia as director. In the summer of 1949 the trio found themselves in Paris and managed to see Roland Petit's Carmen, which led to the idea of producing a ballet based on a Strindbergian theme. The choice fell to Miss Julie, because the drama offered an explicit female ‘star’ role for von Rosen, and because Cullberg was attracted by the erotic and social conflict. Petit's Carmen showed that it was possible even within the bounds of the classical school to depict a psychological process. The drama's class differences could also provide a worthwhile break in styles in purely choreographic terms. Behind Strindberg's dialogue, Cullberg also very soon found a relationship of purely physical tension which stimulated her choreographic imagination. But dance itself also fulfilled a theme in the drama. It is as a dancer in the barn scene that Jean is discovered by Julie. Fiddler music is heard all the time in the distance during the first half of the play and lies as a rhythmically stimulating foundation to the lively dialogue. The farmers' encroachment on the palace kitchen during the dance and song is even captioned by Strindberg as ‘Ballet’.

To translate the drama into a new medium, Cullberg was forced to violate content and form. Aristotle's principle of unity which Strindberg had followed was shattered in the ballet. Spatial units were broken up. Scenes which in the drama were described only through dialogue were depicted visually. New roles were created. The emphasis in the plot came to lie to a large degree on the erotic plane, while for example discussion of sexual roles was not able to be depicted in choreographic terms. On the other hand those events which build up the background to Julie's conflict—such as the broken engagement, the midsummer dance in the barn and something of the influence of the noble family—were able to be portrayed on the stage. The greatest problem involved the final scene. Strindberg allowed Julie to go behind scene and commit suicide. Cullberg leaves no opening as to what actually happens at the end. She was forced to write her own end to the drama. Cullberg's Julie dies on stage, her suicide aided by Jean. Cullberg wanted to show that Julie is a victim of the power of tradition. Honour and family demand a victim for those mistakes Julie had made. The ballet therefore emphasized the family tragedy in a different way than the drama.

The two leading roles were worked out in a way which made them sought-after parts by many eminent dancers. But the roles' inherent dramatic base has also the ability to draw out new sides of many artists and therefore Julie and Jean have come to mean the turning points in the careers of a long list of dancers. The Danish stardancer Erik Bruhn, for example, was already known as an excellent danseur noble when he was given the chance in 1938 to perform Jean at the American Ballet Theatre. Suddenly Bruhn showed himself to be a fully fledged character dancer and his already successful dance career took a new direction. Similar ‘revolutions’ have happened to other interpreters of the two roles and have naturally done much for the ballet's popularity even in dance circles. That the ballet has been staged successfully in so many parts of the world—even in Chile, Iran and Japan—could be a sign of its timelessness and that the drama between Julie and Jean in dance form has the power to move even in the most varying cultures.

The following concerns the reception the ballet received in Sweden after the première of 1950 and the impression it made on Swedish dance.

From the moment Miss Julie (Elsa Marianne von Rosen) made her stage entrance in the Västerås Theatre right up to the moment when Julie falls down dead, a state of acute tension reigned in the auditorium.¹ The ballet made such a strong impression that there was complete silence after the curtain had fallen. At first the dancers did not know how they should interpret the silence, and it was not until the lights went on in the auditorium that the tension and emotion in the audience were released, and cheers and applause broke loose.

The première of Miss Julie was a success without precedent in the history of Swedish dance. The tour—the ballet was performed 30 times in 21 localities from Östersund in the north to Växjö in the south—played to full houses, enthusiastic audiences and attracted eye-catching headlines. The public success was so great that the ‘Julie’ programme became one of few Swedish National Theatre Centre performances to make a profit.²

Press criticism was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. At the first performance on 1 March in Västerås (a small town in the interior of Sweden), the ballet was hailed as an indisputable critical success.

Everybody felt, Stockholm reviewers as well as season ticket holders of the theatre in Västerås, that they had seen a ballet composition capable of shaking the audience just as intensely as a spoken drama. Cullberg's Miss Julie gave to many—and continued to give during the tour—an even stronger, more primitive direct experience of the innermost meaning of the drama than the other two versions just then on offer, the one at Dramaten and Alf Sjöberg's film with Anita Björk in the main role. Everybody agreed that any misgivings expressed before the première as to whether a ballet of Miss Julie implies a violation of Strindberg, ‘a plundering of the dead’, or a ‘crime against a respected writer’, had been groundless. Previously, insinuations of that kind had dominated everything written about Miss Julie. After the première they stopped abruptly.³

Most reviewers asked the question: How is it possible to transform a drama; based to such a large degree on ‘the winning effectiveness of the repartee’, into a ballet?⁴ When Julie had sunk to the floor with a dagger in her heart, ‘one was completely convinced of what excellent material had been treated with impressive choreographic ability, artistic temperament and personal insight. Let us say it at once: Miss Julie is the best Birgit Cullberg has accomplished as choreographer, the first time she has in earnest reached the level of the master Jooss.’⁵

The difficult and bold undertaking of converting Strindberg's drama to ballet was also, according to Anna Greta Ståhle in Dagens Nyheter one of the best Cullberg had achieved:

She has succeeded in expressing the essential psychological developments of the drama through choreography. The characters of the main roles are packed with meaning, and because she presents the whole drama, even that which is just narrated in the play, the ballet has a definite form.⁶

The ballet's explicit erotic expressiveness attracted much attention and some reviewers, like Bengt Häger, compared it to Roland Petit's Carmen. One of the most brilliant scenes in Cullberg's ballet was, according to Häger, just when ‘Julie seduces Jean, a sexual game of fearlessness and intensity, never seen before in ballet’.⁷ Even Cullberg's arch-enemy Robin Hood (Bengt Idestam-Almquist) was forced to admit that taking on Strindberg was a bold undertaking: ‘Miss Julie's art of seduction and sexual experience with the servant Jean is given an excellent interpretation in dance—just about the best we have seen in this manner here at home.’⁸

Other critics pointed to Cullberg's use of the classical traditions. ‘I know that I myself have seldom seen the classical school so exceptionally smoothly incorporated in a dramatic, entirely informal pattern of movements, only as a means of achieving the dramatic expression of feelings, never as a technical end in itself’, stated ‘Lill’ in Svenska Dagbladet, which also spoke of ‘entirely sensual but at the same time aesthetically refined steps—and patterns of movement’.⁹ Anna Greta Ståhle emphasized the way the ballet's two choreographic styles are dramatically utilized to emphasize the class differences between the aristocratic Julie and her servants.¹⁰

While on the whole reviews were quite brief regarding the ballet's content and form, all reviewers lavished space and praise on Elsa Marianne von Rosen, for whom the Julie-role was her great breakthrough. Her ability to convey dramatic insight and frenzy presumably took most by surprise, although it must be remembered that von Rosen had been seen almost exclusively in the years before ‘Julie’ in operettas at the Oscar Theatre. She was known for her sure, strong technique but ‘she shows here a dramatic talent, which has not been seen previously. Her Miss Julie is a temperamental study in the contention between aristocratic pride and erotic constriction, which is first expressed in her disposition to torment and dominate and then explodes in primitive lust’ (Robin Hood).¹¹ Margareta Sjögren also emphasized how von Rosen succeeded in gaining instant contact with the audience. Her surprisingly young, precocious and half-perverted upper-class girl gave a completely different impression of shameless but conscious eroticism and candidness than had been conveyed in the conventional understanding and interpretation of the role: ‘there Julie is usually a mature, already disappointed woman right from the start’.¹²

Von Rosen's strong identification with her role was the reason for the deep impression she made on audiences and critics. Allan Fridericia mentions that the dancer's breasts carried obvious bloody signs of that mixture of symbolism and realism ‘which was in fact the whole ballet, every time the cadet dagger had buried itself too deeply in the flesh in the suicide scene’. It had proved impossible to procure a theatrical dagger and the dancer had instead borrowed an authentic dagger from the von Rosen weapon collection. In the climactic moment the dancer had difficulty calculating the distance between breast and the tip of the dagger and she stabbed herself repeatedly. But, writes Friderica, ‘later versions did not achieve the same effect as when the trembling dagger remained stuck in the stage floor after Julie's suicide, while the curtain slowly fell.’¹³ Just as congenial was the relationship of role/interpretation in the question of Julius Mengarelli's Jean. He was a dancer of virile, almost primitive ower, characteristics which fitted the role perfectly. The animal energy mingled with underlying terror all shrouded in a cloud of vulgarity (Bengt Häger).¹⁴ Margereta Sjögren found that Mengarelli's valet ‘had the tom-cattish smoothness present in a son of the people who could bow deeply, but not so low that he could not look his lover in the eyes and desire her.’¹⁵

Reviewers were aware of the historical fervor surrounding this première and Bengt Häger was of the opinion that the ballet qualified Cullberg for the Stockholm Royal Opera House, Operan, ‘which has lacked a Swedish choreographer so long. Now she has shown herself capable of the classical style there is no reason not to engage her as guest choreographer.’¹⁶

When the ballet was performed in Eskilstuna on 21-22 March, the press was informed that an impressive collection of Stockholm theatre experts were present: the director of the Royal Opera House, Joel Berglund, the Royal Opera House ballet master, Julian Algo, Agne Beijer, professor of theatre history, as well as the directors Anders Sandrew and Nils Perne.¹⁷ Berglund went back stage after the performance. The conversation between him and von Rosen was short. The director of the Royal Opera House introduced himself as ‘Berglund’. The dancer not knowing what to say, replied: ‘von Rosen’. With that the conversation was over.¹⁸ By 26 March it was announced that the Royal Opera House had decided to include the ballet in its repertoire, choreographed by Cullberg and with Elsa Marianne von Rosen in the title role.¹⁹ Thus two of Sweden's foremost dance artists working outside the royal institution entered the stronghold of classical ballet together.

Birgit Cullberg had achieved her goal: to show that she could ‘make use of the classical technique’ because ‘otherwise I can never have any firm job as ballet master’.²⁰

Miss Julie had its première in September 1950, in a design due to Sven Erixon (1899-1970), known as ‘The X’, whom Cullberg knew from Alf Sjöberg's production of Lorca's Blood Wedding at Dramaten in 1944, for which The X did the stage design and Cullberg the choreography. With Blood Wedding The X had become a celebrated scene-painter and it is not surprising that the choice fell to him, his art had the reputation of being deeply-rooted in ‘the Swedish’.

The X gave the ballet an unmistakable Swedish local colour, especially successful in the barn scene. When it came to costumes he followed Fridericia's design almost exactly. Miss Julie was The X's stage designer début at the Royal Opera House, followed up by among others, Carmen, Wozzeck and Aniara.

Now, that the ballet was to be performed at the Royal Opera House, Ture Rangström's music which during the tour had been performed on piano, required orchestrating. This task was carried out by Hans Grossman.²¹ When the music was magnified and performed by the Royal Opera House Orchestra (under Bertil Bokstedt's direction) it attracted more attention, ‘so superbly apt that it gives the impression of being specially composed for the ballet’.²² The pseudonymous ‘Lill’ in Svenska Dagbladet, was the only one who mentioned the connection between Strindberg and Rangström and said that this fully motivated the choice of this composer but that Cullberg however had not made it easy for herself: ‘Rangström's music, with its Swedish tone and passionate mood, decidedly does not belong to the easily-danced. It is metrical and quite compact in tone range, but only in exceptional cases is it rhythmic. This gives even greater honour to the choreographer in that she has succeeded so well …’²³

Birgit Cullberg also made minor adjustments to the choreography, due to the larger stage and a larger ensemble. The original company consisted of eight dancers. Because Cullberg now had several more dancers at her disposal, the barn scene dances were more strict and the steps more complicated and expressive. The foundation of the farmers' dance was in purely classical steps and hops but a little distorted with feet pointing upwards and crooked knees: ‘primitive bodies’ in a classical spirit.²⁴ Three gossipy old women were added and the ancestors' dance in the final scene made more elaborate.

The Royal Opera Houses première on 7 September 1950 was an historical occasion. The most modern ballet style which had developed on the continent was introduced to the Royal Opera; the Royal Ballet's repertoire received the addition of a ballet which was exceptionally strong and harmonious and which could hold its own on an international level. Miss Julie's success was not confined to Sweden but became international. The seduction scene's daring expressiveness which had created something of a scandal in the spring tour of 1950 was further heightened in the opera première. For the audience, used to seeing glittering Hollywood spectacles or harmless fairy idylls on the ballet stage, the strong suffering and sensual passion on the stage came as something absolutely new and daring. Many spectators were either shocked or profoundly moved. Cullberg had, as Anna Greta Ståhle pointed out, broken the ballet's bounds of propriety. ‘Eroticism had never been seen so openly portrayed and this gave a certain pornographic shimmer to the ballet, which seemed to act as a public drawcard.’²⁵ This taste of pornography was naturally given an extra push in the press and the large illustrated feature in the weekly magazine Se, where Julius is seen to rip von Rosen's skirt, became celebrated that autumn. The magazine announced on the cover that, ‘A new love passion shook the venerable Royal Opera …’ Many magazine covers were devoted to the beautiful ‘authentic’ count's daughter and the ballet received the attention of the press to an extent unparalleled in Swedish ballet history.

Miss Julie gave new life to Swedish ballet in general and to the Royal Opera ballet in particular. The renaissance of the Royal Opera Ballet since the fifties dates from Miss Julie. The 1950-1 season opened with the première of Miss Julie along with Giselle. Miss Julie was performed thirty-seven times in its first season to extremely large audiences: sixteen performances reached almost maximum capacity, with more than a thousand tickets sold, for a total of 1177 seats. At most other performances attendance figures hovered between 800 and 1000, but when ‘Miss Julie’ was not dancing, the attendance figures sank markedly. Therefore the opera management requested further appearance from von Rosen although, originally, she was offered a contract for only ten performances. Another dancer, Gun Skoogberg, was also given the chance to try the role, without great success. It was von Rosen the public came to see.

Thanks to the success of Miss Julie Cullberg was offered to choreograph the Oscar Ball based on Gustaf Fröding's poem The Ball. This premièred on 3 December 1950 with Les Sylphides and the ‘Grand pas de deux classique’ from the Nutcracker, rehearsed by Maurice Béjart. This was the first time the Opera inserted a free-standing brilliant ‘pas de deux’ in a programme. Bengt Häger summed up the general atmosphere of success which now surrounded the theatre: ‘With this pace of development the Royal Opera Ballet will soon be able to export guest ballet perfomances.’²⁶

After Miss Julie had danced its first season at the Royal Theatre, the ballet went on tour in the summer of 1951 in folk parks with Mascagni's, opera In Sicily. The folk park tour began on 27 June in Södertälje, 40 kilometres south of Stockholm, and finished on 27 July in Kramfors, further to the north. Miss Julie created a public record in the parks in the summer of 1951.

At the very beginning of the tour Miss Julie celebrated its hundredth performance: a record in Swedish dance history. Previously only two Swedish dance works had been performed so many times in such a short time, namely Jean Börlin's Midsummer Vigil and The Foolish Virgins which were danced during the Swedish Ballet's first season in Paris in 1920-21, respectively 134 and 140 times, but outside Sweden.

The performance in Malmö of Miss Julie was seen by two young dancers with the Stadsteater there, engaged at the Stora Teatern in Gothenburg: Holger Reenberg and Marianne Fröijdh. They were both shaken by Cullberg's creation and resolved that they ought to try to bring Cullberg and the ballet to Gothenburg.²⁷

And so it happened that Miss Julie premièred in Gothenburg in April 1952. The ballet was given a completely new stage design by the Gothenburg artist Nils Wedel (1897-1967), making his debut as a stage designer. Wedel had developed, inspired by Léger's cubism, a half-abstract style with a touch of surrealism, a surprising choice considering the subject's ‘Swedishness’: ‘The touch of abstract austerity in the style of the scenery, where the horizon was strongly emphasized, and the lively southern colours in the costumes lent an international touch, which was not expected in a drama which centres on the Swedish midsummer. But this underlined the universal nature of the drama's conflict.’²⁸

When Cullberg went to Gothenburg for rehearsals, she visited the ballet's morning school to audition dancers. She was captivated by a young blond dancer whom she thought was just the type for the title role, Marianne Fröijdh. Holger Reenberg informed Cullgerg that this was not possible because Fröijdh was not a première soloist. ‘You must take Nina Gabay’, Reenberg said. Gabay, who came to Stora Teatern in 1937 from the Monte Carlo ballet, was the theatre's ballerina, but Cullberg did not find her right for Julie. In the meantime both dancers rehearsed the role, with the conflict coming to a head before the première. The ballet did not make the same strong impression in Gothenburg as elswhere. Criticism was directed not only at Nina Gabay but also at the ballet itself. The production had not previously encountered such harsh judgements as these in Gothenberg. The critics objected to ‘the cheek’ of transforming Strinsberg's drama into a ballet accusing Cullberg of ‘sacrilege’ or of ‘plundering of the dead’. ‘Strindberg's drama has been stripped right down to the bones’, wrote ‘E.P.’ in Gothenberg's daily newspaper. ‘Only a naked plot remains; nothing is left of the work's spirit or the writer's pupose. But the choreographer is doing very well, living nicely off a sensational and popular title.’²⁹

But some reviewers who were critical of making ballet from drama, conceded that Cullberg's choreography was ‘in itself very captivating and gifted’.³⁰ Some of the most critical partly changed their minds when a few days later Marianne Fröijdh danced Julie, making the audience go wild with enthusiasm. ‘Her dance … was performed with a frenzy which shattered every doubt in her ability to deal with this difficult role in terms of theatre and dance’ stated Olle Halling, and the otherwise critical ‘E.P.’ wrote that here ‘a human tragedy was brought to life, honestly, unadorned and consistently. Swedish dance art has gained a new star. It is always heartening to witness how a young star, who in earlier roles has made fine efforts, ultimately succeeds completely in making a breakthrough.’³¹

The role of Julie became a significant step in the career and development of the young Marianne Fröijdh. Cullberg and Julie ‘opened many doors for me. During rehearsals Birgit gave fantastic guidance not only for the role, but also in introducing me to literature in general and especially to Strindberg, and so on. In short, Birgit and Julie gave me a lift, so that I could fly.’³² Many dancers all over the world could say the same for the two leading roles of Julie and Jean. The Miss Julie programme (which consisted further of Benjamin Britten's cantata Saint Nicholas under Cullberg's direction) became a great success in Gothenburg and was played ten times during the spring of 1952 and the winter of 1952-3.

In Malmö, at the Stadsteatern, Miss Julie entered the repertoire in February 1955. Ingmar Bergman had perhaps a hand in this, as artistic advisor to the theatre director, Lars-Levi Læstadius.³³ These performances were the last in Sweden for a decade. After 1956 Cullberg was active above all internationally. But the ballet has since been staged anew in Gothenburg (1966 and 1992), in Malmö (1977) and for the Cullberg ballet (1968). But in the 1950s the work was performed by the Royal Opera Ballet once again in the folk parks on a month-long tour in the summer of 1955. Having been performed some 200 times in Sweden to an average of 500 spectators 100,000 Swedes saw Miss Julie in its ballet version in five years.

By means of summary it can be said that Miss Julie certainly did not inspire any direct followers in the psychological/realistic genre, but that the ballet marked a turning point in the development of Swedish dance: it opened the door to a domestic ballet creation, above all at the Royal Theatre, it generated a markedly increased interest for ballet in general and in particular at the Stockholm Royal Opera House and for many Swedes it initiated their first contact with ballet as a form of art.

Notes

1. Allan Fridericia, Elsa Marianne von Rosen. En svensk ballerina (A Swedish ballerina), Stockholm 1953, p. 118.

2. Riksteatern: Management protocol 1 July 1947.

3. Margareta Sjögren, Biljett till balett (Ticket to the ballet), Stockholm 1957, p. 165.

4. Signed Lill., Svenska Dagbladet, 2 March 1950.

5. Ibid.

6. Dagens Nyheter, 2 March 1950.

7. Morgon-Tidningen, 2 March 1950.

8. Stockholms-Tidningen, 2 March 1950.

9. Svenska Dagbladet, 2 March 1950.

10. Dagens Nyheter, 2 March 1950.

11. Stockholms-Tidningen, 2 March 1950.

12. Sjögren, op. cit.

13. Fridericia, op. cit., p. 122-3.

14. Stockholms-Tidningen, 2 March 1950.

15. Sjögren, op. cit., p. 166.

16. Svenska Dagbladet and Stockholms-Tidningen, 2 March 1950.

17. Aftonbladet, 26 March 1950.

18. Fridericia, op. cit., p. 121-2.

19. Kungliga Teaterns Arkiv (Royal Theatre's Archives): K. Teatern's Protocol for the years 1946-52.

20. The Swedish Press Council Appendix 14, letter from Cullberg to Fridericia, 11 December 1949.

21. Bengt Häger in Morgon-Tidningen, 2 March 1950.

22. Ibid., 8 April 1950.

23. Svenska Dagbladet, 8 September 1950.

24. Interview with Birgit Cullberg, 29 August 1991.

25. Anna Greta Ståhle ‘Birgit Cullberg's Miss Julie’ in Perspektiv på Fröken Julie (Perspectives on Miss Julie), Stockholm 1972, p. 192.

26. Morgon-Tidningen, op. cit.

27. Interview with Marianne Fröijdh, 18 December 1991.

28. Carl Cramér in Ny Tid, 17 April 1952.

29. Göteborgs-Tidningen, 17 April 1952.

30. Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfarts-tidning, 17 April 1952.

31. Afton-Tidningen resp. Göteborgs-Tidningen, 18 April 1952.

32. Interview with Fröijdh.

33. Henrik Sjögren, Ingmar Bergman på teater (Ingmar Bergman at the theatre), Stockholm 1968, p. 124.