Theatre director and slave to debt, 1857-64

The very first costumes and stage sets for Hærmændene paa Helgeland were still being used in 1891, a point that is ridiculed in the comic publication "Krydseren". Drawing by Olaf Krohn (1891)

Henrik Ibsen was engaged to Suzannah Daae Thoresen and married her on 18 June 1858. The couple settled down in the capital city where there were better opportunities for him to succeed as a playwright and man of the theatre. Their only son, Sigurd, was born at Norway´s Birth Foundation in the National Hospital on the night before Christmas Eve 1859.

The ticket sales for Hærmændene på Helgeland provided a sizeable income. Ibsen was praised for the staging but he felt that the theatre work inhibited him as a playwright. He lost interest and operations went poorly. The theatre found itself in financial difficulties and rumours circulated about the director´s alcohol abuse. Prosecuted by the criminal justice system, and with claims for repayment of loans and for rent past due, the family moved from place to place while the problems accumulated.

On 05 July 1862 the Kristiania norske Theater went bankrupt and Ibsen was without a fixed income. The competing theatre refused to stage Kjærlighedens Komedie ("Love´s Comedy") and Ibsen was frequently made an object of ridicule in the comic press. His next play, the saga Kongs-Emnerne ("The Pretenders") was accepted for production and the writer was hired as an "aesthetic consultant". The premiere took place at Christiania Theater on 17 January 1864 and the reviews varied but the play became his greatest success thus far.

The year before Ibsen had received promise of a state travel stipend for 400 dollars. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and the Attorney General Bernhard Dunker started a fund-raising campaign, which provided him with another 600 dollars. On 01 April 1864 Ibsen left Kristiania. Two days later he stepped onto land in Copenhagen where Suzannah and Sigurd had spent the winter. Ibsen continued his journey further south alone, through Germany and Austria to Italy. The family was reunited in Rome, but suffered serious want while Ibsen struggled with the writing of Brand (1866). In book form the play became a Scandinavian sales success and around the same time he was granted an annual writers stipend from the state.

Ibsen´s friends - "The learned Holland" (Det lærde Holland)

In the course of his second stay in Kristiania, 1857 to 1864, Ibsen spent much of his free time with the group known as "Det lærde Holland". They met weekly at the home of Botten-Hansen who had one of the country´s largest and most exquisite private libraries. The entire intelligensia gathered in his parlours on Rådhusgaten to borrow books and discuss literature and science.

They had been given the nickname "hollenderne" (the Hollanders) because the historian Ludvig Daae at the sight of Botten-Hansen´s bursting bookshelves exclaimed Jacob von Tyboe´s words from Holberg´s comedy: "Damn that Hollander, he has his spies everywhere".

Botten-Hansen. Photo: Petersen, ca. 1862. (Segment.)

Among the friends Ibsen went by the name of "Geert Westphaler, the talkative barber", after another Holberg comedy figure. Ibsen came into his own in the company of this circle of friends, becoming both talkative and eloquent. In addition to the regular Dutchmen Ibsen and Daae, also Michael Birkeland and Jacob Løkke were part of the inner circle. Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Aasmund Olavsson Vinje stirred things up whenever they stopped by. Among the silent ones were the academics Munch and Welhaven, who preferred to stand with their backs to the company and search for literary pearls in the bookshelves.

Ever since the review of Catilina in the students´ handwritten newspaper Samfundsbladet, Botten-Hansen had taken on the role of a relentless defender of Ibsen´s literature and theatre work. He died of pneumonia in 1869.

Dwellings in Kristiania, 1857-1864

The first year of his marriage Henrik Ibsen lived in the Doktorgården on Christian Augusts gade 15. They lived here until the spring of 1859, when they moved to Nedre Bakkehuset near Pilestrædet, where they rented widow Colban´s whitewashed rooms. With increasing success at the theatre, Ibsen in the autumn of 1859 was able to acquire an apartment for them in the fashionable Malteby at Akersgaten 65. They were living here when their son Sigurd was born on 23 December. When the theatre fell into financial difficulties with failing revenues, in April 1860 the three moved into a draughty, unfinished private house on the master joiner Grosch´s property in Hegdehaugen. They were living here when Ibsen under the working-title "Svanhild" wrote the first draft of Kjærlighedens Komedie. He broke the contract and moved out from the place in the autumn of 1860, simultaneously refusing to pay the rent and was taken to court by the owner of the house. When the case became known to the public, it led to a landslide of claims from people whom Ibsen owed money.

Nedre Torggate 17 was still under construction when they began renting there. The street was heavily trafficked and in rainy weather virtually disintegrated into mud. In the beginning of the year 1861 they had come to the still existent Dronningens gate 22. After having found a safe haven in the storm, and possibly burdened by problems at the theatre, Ibsen fell ill and was bedridden for several weeks. Ibsen experienced his most difficult period in the city. The theatre went bankrupt on 05 July 1862, while Ibsen personally collected folk poetry along the entire distance from Sognefjorden to Romsdal.

From the spring of 1862 until autumn 1863 the three lived on the second floor in the home of a pilot in Gamlebyen. The house was located near the eastern bank of the river Akerselva and had the address Oslo Strandgate 32 (later Bispegaten). Here Ibsen completed the epic poem Terje Vigen, finished writing Kjærlighetens komedie and, possibly inspired by the residence, Kongs-Emnerne ("The Pretenders"), where part of the plot takes place in exactly this area. The last place where Ibsen lived before leaving for Italy was Hotell de Copenhague. He had lodgings there from the autumn of 1863 until 01 April 1864.

17 October 1863 Suzannah took Sigurd and travelled to stay with her stepmother Magdalena Thoresen in Copenhagen. Ibsen was obliged to attend to the rehearsals of Kongs-Emnerne at the Christiania Theater before he too could leave the country, and was greatly delayed due to the ice situation on Indre Kristianiafjord. After a period spent together in Copenhagen, Ibsen travelled on alone south to Italy, before they were reunited in Rome in the autumn of 1864.

About Suzannah Ibsen

Suzannah Ibsen at the age of 30.

Suzannah was born in Herøy on 26 June 1836. Her father, Hans Conrad Thoresen (1802-1859) was later dean of the diocese at the Church of the Cross (Korskirken) in Bergen. Her mother´s name was Sara. She died in childbirth in 1841, 35 years old. He remarried in 1844 to the 17 years younger Magdalena Kragh (1819-1903), who had been the children´s governess since 1842. The beautiful Magdalene had a stormy past and eventually gained recognition for her novels and short stories. The stepmother must have had a large influence on Suzannah´s development and her interest in literature and art. Magdalene Thoresen became an esteemed author and cultural personality in Copenhagen, but at times the relationship between Ibsen and his mother-in-law was somewhat strained.

Suzannah met Henrik Ibsen for the first time in the parsonage in Bergen in 1856. She was 19 years old, he 27. Ibsen had had success at the theatre with Gildet på Solhoug ("The Feast at Solhaug") and was invited home to Magdalene Thoresen´s "salon", where Bergen´s cultural elite gathered. The next time they met was at a ball arranged by the Philharmonic Society. They did not dance but talked for the entire evening. A short time later they were engaged. On 18 June 1858, they got married.

Suzannah must have been a special woman. Ibsen spoke of her as having "a poetic nature, illogical, but with a strong idealism". She brooked no petty considerations and had a strong will and stamina, which she applied to the promotion of Ibsen´s career. She was particular about the fact that he should concentrate on his writing and did not permit him to have any doings with oil painting and watercolours, a hobby he frequently cultivated up until 1860. Suzannah did the right thing. There is little point in having talent if one does not work. She therefore also became his watch guard, ensuring peace to work and discipline.

Suzannah was an enthusiastic reader and was the one who informed Ibsen of literature with which he should be familiar. She also went to exhibitions and Camilla Collett claimed that she by the force of her example gave Ibsen insight into the cause of women. She would however never bask in the reflection of his fame, although she was convinced that he probably would not have managed without her help. Even when the resistance was at its strongest Suzannah never doubted that her husband was a genius but believed that he did not have a strong personality. She had given him that!

Ibsen used Suzannah as a prototype for several female characters. One character whom he claimed that Suzannah directly had served as the role model for was Hjørdis in Hærmændene på Helgeland (1858). In the same manner as the Viking woman in the play, Suzannah also urged her husband into battle. In a dedication he wrote that she had "property rights" as "a spiritual descendant of the Østråt-lineage".

After having made it clear to those closest to her that she perceived it as a defeat to die in one´s bed and that she would rather die standing or sitting, Suzannah died in a chair in the reading room in the morning of 03 April 1914, after having sat there for the entire night. She lived to the age of 78.