The Master Builder | Page 6

devilry in
it." Then he related how he had met in the Tyrol a Viennese girl of very
remarkable character. She had at once made him her confidant. The gist
of her confessions was that she did not care a bit about one day
marrying a well brought-up young man--most likely she would never
marry. What tempted and charmed and delighted her was to lure other
women's husbands away from them. She was a little daemonic wrecker;
she often appeared to him like a little bird of prey, that would fain have
made him, too, her booty. He had studied her very, very closely. For

the rest, she had had no great success with him. "She did not get hold of
me, but I got hold of her--for my play. Then I fancy" (here he chuckled
again) "she consoled herself with some one else." Love seemed to
mean for her only a sort of morbid imagination. This, however, was
only one side of her nature. His little model had had a great deal of
heart and of womanly understanding; and thanks to the spontaneous
power she could gain over him, every woman might, if she wished it,
guide some man towards the good. "Thus Ibsen spoke," says Elias,
"calmly and coolly, gazing as it were into the far distance, like an artist
taking an objective view of some experience--like Lubek speaking of
his soul-thefts. He had stolen a soul, and put it to a double employment.
Thea Elvsted and Hilda Wangel are intimately related-- are, indeed
only different expressions of the same nature." If Ibsen actually
declared Thea and Hilda to be drawn from one model, we must of
course take his word for it; but the relationship is hard to discern.
There can be no reasonable doubt, then, that the Gossensass episode
gave the primary impulse to The Master Builder. But it seems pretty
well established, too, that another lady, whom he met in Christiania
after his return in 1891, also contributed largely to the character of
Hilda. This may have been the reason why he resented Fraulein
Bardach's appropriating to herself the title of "Princess of Orangia."
The play was published in the middle of December 1892. It was acted
both in Germany and England before it was seen in the Scandinavian
capitals. Its first performance took place at the Lessing Theatre, Berlin,
January 19, 1893, with Emanuel Reicher as Solness and Frl.
Reisenhofer as Hilda. In London it was first performed at the Trafalgar
Square Theatre (now the Duke of York's) on February 20, 1893, under
the direction of Mr. Herbert Waring and Miss Elizabeth Robins, who
played Solness and Hilda. This was one of the most brilliant and
successful of English Ibsen productions. Miss Robins was almost an
ideal Hilda, and Mr. Waring's Solness was exceedingly able. Some
thirty performances were give in all, and the play was reproduced at the
Opera Comique later in the season, with Mr. Lewis Waller as Solness.
In the following year Miss Robins acted Hilda in Manchester. In
Christiania and Copenhagen the play was produced on the same
evening, March 8, 1893; the Copenhagen Solness and Hilda were Emil
Poulsen and Fru Hennings. A Swedish production, by Lindberg, soon

followed, both in Stockholm and Gothenburg. In Paris Solness le
constructeur was not seen until April 3, 1894, when it was produced by
"L'OEuvre" with M. Lugne-Poe as Solness. The company, sometimes
with Mme. Suzanne Despres and sometimes with Mme. Berthe Bady as
Hilda, in 1894 and 1895 presented the play in London, Brussels,
Amsterdam, Milan, and other cities. In October 1894 they visited
Christiania, where Ibsen was present at one of their performances, and
is reported by Herman Bang to have been so enraptured with it that he
exclaimed, "This is the resurrection of my play!" On this occasion
Mme. Bady was the Hilda. The first performance of the play in
America took place at the Carnegie Lyceum, New York, on January 16,
1900, with Mr. William H. Pascoe as Solness and Miss Florence Kahn
as Hilda. The performance was repeated in the course of the same
month, both at Washington and Boston.
In England, and probably elsewhere as well, The Master Builder
produced a curious double effect. It alienated many of the poet's
staunchest admirers, and it powerfully attracted many people who had
hitherto been hostile to him. Looking back, it is easy to see why this
should have been so; for here was certainly a new thing in drama,
which could not but set up many novel reactions. A greater contrast
could scarcely be imagined than that between the hard, cold, precise
outlines of Hedda Gabler and the vague mysterious atmosphere of The
Master Builder, in which, though the dialogue is sternly restrained
within the limits of prose, the art