Peer Gynt

Klaus van den Berg argues that Peer Gynt

... is a stylistic minefield: Its origins are romantic, but the play also anticipates the fragmentations of emerging Modernism. Chronicling Peer's journey from the Norwegian mountains to the North African desert, the cinematic script blends poetry with social satire, and realistic scenes with surreal ones. The irony of isolated individuals in a mass society infuses Ibsen's tale of two seemingly incompatible lovers – the deeply committed Solveig and the superficial Peer, who is more a surface for projections than a coherent character.[2] The simplest conclusion one may draw from Peer Gynt, is expressed in the eloquent prose of the author: “If you lie; are you real?”

The literary critic Harold Bloom in his book The Western Canon has challenged the conventional reading of Peer Gynt, stating:

Far more than Goethe's Faust, Peer is the one nineteenth-century literary character who has the largeness of the grandest characters of Renaissance imaginings. Dickens, Tolstoy, Stendhal, Hugo, even Balzac have no single figure quite so exuberant, outrageous, vitalistic as Peer Gynt. He merely seems initially to be an unlikely candidate for such eminence: What is he, we say, except a kind of Norwegian roaring boy? – marvelously attractive to women, a kind of bogus poet, a narcissist, absurd self-idolator, a liar, seducer, bombastic self-deceiver. But this is paltry moralizing – all too much like the scholarly chorus that rants against Falstaff. True, Peer, unlike Falstaff, is not a great wit. But in the Yahwistic, biblical sense, Peer the scamp bears the blessing: More life.[17]

On 5 January 1867 Ibsen wrote to Frederik Hegel, his publisher, with his plan for the play: it would be "a long dramatic poem, having as its principal a part-legendary, part-fictional character from Norwegian folklore during recent times. It will bear no resemblance to Brand, and will contain no direct polemics or anything of that kind."[18]

He began to write Peer Gynt on 14 January, employing a far greater variety of metres in its rhymed verse than he had used in his previous verse plays Brand (written 1865) or Love's Comedy (written 1862).[19] The first two acts were completed in Rome and the third in Casamicciola on the north of the island of Ischia.[20]

During this time, Ibsen told Vilhelm Bergsøe that "I don't think the play's for acting" when they discussed the possibility of staging the play's image of a casting-ladle "big enough to re-cast human beings in."[21] Ibsen sent the three acts to his publisher on 8 August, with a letter that explains that "Peer Gynt was a real person who lived in Gudbrandsdal, probably around the end of the last century or the beginning of this. His name is still famous among the people up there, but not much more is known about his life than what is to be found in Asbjørnsen's Norwegian Folktales (in the section entitled 'Stories from the Mountain')."[22] In those stories, Peer Gynt rescues the three dairy-maids from the trolls and shoots the Bøyg, who was originally a gigantic worm-shaped troll-being. Peer was known to tell tall tales of his own achievements, a trait Peer in the play inherited. The "buck-ride" story, which Peer tells his mother in the play's first scene, is also from this source, but, as Åse points out, it was originally Gudbrand Glesne from Vågå who did the tour with the reindeer stag and finally shot it.

Following an earthquake on Ischia on 14 August, Ibsen left for Sorrento, where he completed the final two acts; he finished the play on 14 October.[23] It was published in a first edition of 1,250 copies a month later in Copenhagen.[9]

Ibsen's previous play, Brand, preached the philosophy of “All or nothing.” Relentless, cruel, resolute, overriding in will, Brand went through everything that stood in his way toward gaining an ideal. Peer Gynt is a compensating balance, a complementary color to Brand. In contrast to Brand, with his iron will, Peer is willless, insufficient, and irresolute. Peer "goes around" all issues facing him.[24]

Brand had a phenomenal literary success, and people became curious to know what Ibsen's next play would be. The dramatist, about this time, was relieved of financial worry by two money grants, one from the Norwegian government and the other from the Scientific Society of Trondhjem. This enabled him to give to his work an unfettered mind. He went with his family to Frascati, where, in the Palazzo rooms, he looked many feet down upon the Mediterranean, and pondered his new drama. He preserved a profound silence about the content of the play, and begged his publisher, Hegel, to create as much mystery about it as possible.[24]

Ibsen's mother, Marichen Altenburg, was the model for Peer Gynt's mother, Åse

The portrayal of the Gynt family is known to be based on Henrik Ibsen's own family and childhood memories; in a letter to Georg Brandes, Ibsen wrote that his own family and childhood had served "as some kind of model" for the Gynt family. In a letter to Peter Hansen, Ibsen confirmed that the character Åse, Peer Gynt's mother, was based on his own mother, Marichen Altenburg.[25][26] The character Jon Gynt is considered to be based on Ibsen's father Knud Ibsen, who was a rich merchant before he went bankrupt.[27] Even the name of the Gynt family's ancestor, the prosperous Rasmus Gynt, is borrowed from the Ibsen's family's earliest known ancestor. Thus, the character Peer Gynt could be interpreted as being an ironic representation of Henrik Ibsen himself. There are striking similarities to Ibsen's own life; Ibsen himself spent 27 years living abroad and was never able to face his hometown again.

Ibsen asked Edvard Grieg to compose incidental music for the play. Grieg composed a score that plays approximately ninety minutes. Grieg extracted two suites of four pieces each from the incidental music (Opus 46 and Opus 55), which became very popular as concert music. One of the sung parts of the incidental music, "In the Hall of the Mountain King", was included in the first suite with the vocal parts omitted. Originally, the second suite had a fifth number, "The Dance of the Mountain King's Daughter", but Grieg withdrew it. Grieg himself declared that it was easier to make music "out of his own head" than strictly following suggestions made by Ibsen. For instance, Ibsen wanted music that would characterize the "international" friends in the fourth act, by melding the said national anthems (Norwegian, Swedish, German, French and English). Reportedly, Grieg was not in the right mood for this task.

The music of these suites, especially "Morning Mood" starting the first suite, "In the Hall of the Mountain King", and the string lament "Åse's Death" later reappeared in numerous arrangements, soundtracks, etc.

Other Norwegian composers who have written theatrical music for Peer Gynt include Harald Sæverud (1947), Arne Nordheim (1969), Ketil Hvoslef (1993) and Jon Mostad (1993–4). Gunnar Sønstevold (1966) wrote music for a ballet version of Peer Gynt.

In 1906 scenes from the play were given by the Progressive Stage Society of New York.[24] The first US production of Peer Gynt opened at the Chicago Grand Opera House on October 24, 1906, and starred the noted actor Richard Mansfield,[24] in one of his very last roles before his untimely death. In 1923, Joseph Schildkraut played the role on Broadway, in a Theatre Guild production, featuring Selena Royle, Helen Westley, Dudley Digges, and, before he entered films, Edward G. Robinson. In 1944, at the Old Vic, Ralph Richardson played the role, surrounded by some of the greatest British actors of the time in supporting or bit roles, among them Sybil Thorndike as Åse, and Laurence Olivier as the Button Molder. In 1951, John Garfield fulfilled his wish to star in a Broadway production, featuring Mildred Dunnock as Åse. This production was not a success, and is said by some to have contributed to Garfield's death at age 39.

On film, years before he became a superstar, the seventeen-year-old Charlton Heston starred as Peer in a silent, student-made, low-budget film version of the play produced in 1941. Peer Gynt, however, has never been given a full-blown treatment as a sound film in English on the motion picture screen, although there have been several television productions, and a sound film was produced in German in 1934.

In 1957, Ingmar Bergman produced a five-hour stage version[28] of Peer Gynt, at Sweden's Malmö City Theatre, with Max von Sydow as Peer Gynt. Bergman produced the play again, 34 years later,[29] in 1991, at Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre, this time with Börje Ahlstedt in the title role. Bergman chose not to use Grieg's music, nor the more modern Harald Sæverud composition, but rather traditional Norwegian folk music, and little of that either.

In 1993, Christopher Plummer starred in his own concert version of the play,[30] with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra in Hartford, Connecticut. This was a new performing version and a collaboration of Plummer and Hartford Symphony Orchestra Music Director Michael Lankester. Plummer had long dreamed of starring in a fully staged production of the play, but had been unable to. The 1993 production was not a fully staged version, but rather a drastically condensed concert version, narrated by Plummer, who also played the title role, and accompanied by Edvard Grieg's complete incidental music for the play. This version included a choir and vocal parts for soprano and mezzo-soprano. Plummer performed the concert version again in 1995 with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra with Lankester conducting. The 1995 production was broadcast on Canadian radio. It has never been presented on television nor released on compact disc. In the 1990s Plummer and Lankester also collaborated on and performed similarly staged concert versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (with music by Mendelssohn) and Ivan the Terrible (an arrangement of a Prokofiev film score with script for narrator). Among the three aforementioned Plummer/Lankester collaborations, all received live concert presentations and live radio broadcasts, but only Ivan the Terrible was released on CD.

Alex Jennings won the Olivier Award for Best Actor 1995/1996 for his performance in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Peer Gynt.

In 1999 Braham Murray directed a production at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester with David Threlfall as Peer Gynt, Josette Bushell-Mingo as Solveig and Espen Skjonberg as Button Moulder.

In 2000, the Royal National Theatre staged a version based on the 1990 translation of the play by Frank McGuinness.[31] The production featured three actors playing Peer, including Chiwetel Ejiofor as the young Peer, Patrick O'Kane as Peer in his adventures in Africa, and Joseph Marcell as the old Peer. Not only was the use of three actors playing one character unusual in itself, but the actors were part of a "color-blind" cast: Ejiofor and Marcell are black, and O'Kane is white.[32]

In 2001 at the BBC Proms, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, conducted by Manfred Honeck, performed the complete incidental music in Norwegian with an English narration read by Simon Callow.[33]

In 2005 Chicago's storefront theater The Artistic Home mounted an acclaimed production (directed by Kathy Scambiatterra and written by Norman Ginsbury) that received two Jeff Nominations for its dynamic staging in a 28-seat house.[34][35] The role of Peer was played by a single actor, John Mossman.[36]

In 2006, Robert Wilson staged a co-production revival with both the National Theater of Bergen and the Norwegian Theatre of Oslo, Norway. Ann-Christin Rommen directed the actors in Norwegian (with English subtitles). This production mixed both Wilson's minimalist (yet constantly moving) stage designs with technological effects to bring out the play's expansive potential. Furthermore, they utilized state-of-the-art microphones, sound systems, and recorded acoustic and electronic music to bring clarity to the complex and shifting action and dialogue. From April 11 through the 16th, they performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House.

In 2006, as part of the Norwegian Ibsen anniversary festival, Peer Gynt was set at the foot of the Great Sphinx of Giza near Cairo, Egypt (an important location in the original play). The director was Bentein Baardson. The performance was the centre of some controversy, with some critics seeing it as a display of colonialist attitudes.

In January 2008 the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis debuted a new translation of Peer Gynt by the poet Robert Bly. Bly learned Norwegian from his grandparents while growing up in rural Minnesota, and later during several years of travel in Norway. This production stages Ibsen's text rather abstractly, tying it loosely into a modern birthday party for a 50-year-old man. It also significantly cuts the length of the play. (An earlier production of the full-length play at the Guthrie required the audience to return a second night to see the second half of the play.)

In 2009, Dundee Rep with the National Theatre of Scotland toured a production. This interpretation, with much of the dialogue in modern Scots, received mixed reviews.[37][38] The cast included Gerry Mulgrew as the older Peer. Directed by Dominic Hill.

In November 2010 Southampton Philharmonic Choir and the New London Sinfonia performed the complete incidental music using a new English translation commissioned from Beryl Foster. In the performance, the musical elements were linked by an English narrative read by actor Samuel West.[39]

From June 28 through July 24, 2011, La Jolla Playhouse ran a production of Peer Gynt as a co-production with the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, adapted and directed by David Schweizer.

The 2011 Dublin Theatre Festival presented a new version of Peer Gynt by Arthur Riordan, directed by Lynne Parker with music by Tarab.

At Vinstra in Gudbrandsdalen (the Gudbrand valley), Henrik Ibsen and Peer Gynt have been celebrated with an annual festival since 1967. The festival is one of Norway's largest cultural festivals, and is recognized by the Norwegian Government as a leading institution of presenting culture in nature. The festival has a broad festival program with theatre, concerts, an art exhibition and several debates and literature seminars.

The main event in the festival is the outdoor theatre production of Peer Gynt at Gålå. The play is staged in Peer Gynt's birthplace, where Ibsen claims he found inspiration for the character Peer Gynt, and is regarded by many as the most authentic version. The play is performed by professional actors from the national theater institutions, and nearly 80 local amateur actors. The music to the play is inspired by the original theatre music by Edvard Grieg – the "Peer Gynt suite". The play is one of the most popular theater productions in Norway, attracting more than 12,000 people every summer.

The festival also holds the Peer Gynt Prize, which is a national Norwegian honor prize given to a person or institution that has achieved distinction in society and contributed to improving Norway's international reputation.

Peer Gynt Sculpture Park (Peer Gynt-parken) is a sculpture park located in Oslo, Norway. Created in honour of Henrik Ibsen, it is a monumental presentation of Peer Gynt, scene by scene. It was established in 2006 by Selvaag, the company behind the housing development in the area. Most of the sculptures in this park are the result of an international sculpture competition.

Theatre posters for Peer Gynt and an adaptation entitled Peer Gynt-innen? in Ibsen Museum, Oslo

In 1912 German writer Dietrich Eckart adapted the play. In Eckart's version, the play became "a powerful dramatisation of nationalist and anti-semitic ideas", in which Gynt represents the superior Germanic hero, struggling against implicitly Jewish "trolls".[40] In this racial allegory the trolls and Great Bøyg represented what philosopher Otto Weininger – Eckart's hero – conceived as the Jewish spirit. Eckart's version was one of the best attended productions of the age with more than 600 performances in Berlin alone. Eckart later helped to found the Nazi Party and served as a mentor to Adolf Hitler; he was also the first editor of the party's newspaper, the Völkische Beobachter. He never had another theatrical success after Peer Gynt.[41]

In 1938 German composer Werner Egk finished an opera based on the story.

In 1948, the composer Harald Sæverud made a new score for the nynorsk-production at "the Norwegian Theatre" (Det Norske Teatret) in Oslo. Sæverud incorporated the national music of each of the friends in the fourth act, as per Ibsen's request, who died in 1906.

In 1951, North Carolinian playwright Paul Green published an American version of the Norwegian play. This is the version in which actor John Garfield starred on Broadway. This version is also the American Version, and features subtle plot differences from Ibsen's original work, including the omittance of the shipwreck scene near the end, and the Buttonmolder character playing a moderately larger role.[42]

In 1961, Hugh Leonard's version, The Passion of Peter Ginty, transferred the play to an Irish Civil War setting. It was staged at Dublin's Gate Theatre.[43]

In 1969, Broadway impresario Jacques Levy (who had previously directed the first version of Oh! Calcutta!) commissioned The Byrds' Roger McGuinn to write the music for a pop (or country-rock) version of Peer Gynt, to be titled Gene Tryp. The play was apparently never completed, although, as of 2006, McGuinn was preparing a version for release. Several songs from the abortive show appeared on the Byrds' albums of 1970 and 1971.

In March 1972 Jerry Heymann's adaptation,[44] called Mr. Gynt, Inc., was performed at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.[45]

In 1981, Houston Ballet presented Peer Gynt as adapted by Artistic Director Ben Stevenson, OBE.

In 1989, John Neumeier created a ballet "freely based on Ibsen's play", for which Alfred Schnittke composed the score.

In 1998, the Trinity Repertory Company of Providence, Rhode Island commissioned David Henry Hwang and Swiss director Stephan Muller to do an adaptation of Peer Gynt.

In 1998, playwright Romulus Linney directed his adaptation of the play, entitled Gint, at the Theatre for the New City in New York. This adaptation moved the play's action to 20th-century Appalachia and California.

In 2001, Rogaland Theatre produced an adaptation entitled Peer Gynt-innen?, loosely translated as Peer the Gyntess? This was a one-act monologue performed by Marika Enstad.[46]

In 2007, St. John's Prep of Danvers, Massachusetts won the MHSDG Festival with their production starring Bo Burnham.

In 2008, Theater in the Open in Newburyport, Massachusetts, produced a production of Peer Gynt adapted and directed by Paul Wann and the company. Scott Smith, whose great, great grandfather (Ole Bull) was one of the inspirations for the character, was cast as Gynt.

In 2009, a DVD was released of Heinz Spoerli's ballet, which he had created in 2007. This ballet uses mostly the Grieg music, but adds selections by other composers. Spoken excerpts from the play, in Norwegian, are also included.[47]

In Israel, poet Dafna Eilat (he:דפנה אילת) composed a poem in Hebrew called "Solveig", which she also set to music, its theme derived from the play and emphasizing the named character's boundless faithful love. It was performed by Hava Alberstein (see [48]).

In 2011, Polarity Ensemble Theatre in Chicago presented another version of Robert Bly's translation of the play, in which Peer's mythic journey was envisioned as that of America itself, "a 150-year whirlwind tour of the American psyche."[49]

On an episode of "Inside the Actors Studio", Elton John spontaneously composed a song based on a passage from Peer Gynt.

The German a cappella metal band Van Canto also made a theatrical a cappella metal adaption of the story, naming it "Peer Returns". The first episode that has been released up until now, called "A Storm to Come", appears on the band's album Break the Silence.

American composer Mary McCarty Snow (1928-2012) composed music for a Texas Tech University production of Peer Gynt.[50]

Will Eno's adaptation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt titled Gnit had its world premiere at the 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays in March 2013.[51]

In 2020, a new audio drama adaptation of Peer Gynt by Colin Macnee, written in verse form with original music, was released[52] in podcast form.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Peer Gynt

• Free Scores of piano arrangements of the two suites.
• Peer Gynt (in Norwegian), freely available at Project Runeberg (in Norwegian)
• Peer Gynt public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• Peer Gynt: a dramatic poem, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1936. Color illustrations by Arthur Rackham via Internet Archive.
• The Peer Gynt Festival,