After six years as an actress and having played numerous small roles in plays, Ida received the lead role of Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House in 1880. The play had already become famous across Europe before its premiere in Finland, sparking sharp opinions both for and against it. Ibsen presented in it “annoyingly bold” ideas about the position and rights of women. In the role of Nora, Ida achieved her first major victory in her career, which was spoken of in Finland and also in other Nordic countries. Following Nora, she went on to play leading roles one after another, and almost invariably, all were successful.

We get ample information about Ida Aalberg’s travels, studies, performances, opinions, and personality traits from hundreds of letters written to her and by her, as well as from memoirs and newspaper articles, but the only reliable sources about her acting work are descriptions from contemporaries. Only those who saw her perform on stage can give us a vivid picture of her role interpretations. Based solely on their descriptions, we can imagine and foresee how Ida Aalberg interpreted Nora, Hedda Gabler, Mary Stuart, Regina von Emmeritz, Cleopatra, Homsantu, Faust’s Margarethe, Boris, Shakespeare’s Ophelia and Juliette, Luise Miller, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Princess Zilah, Jane Eyre, and Not for the Love of the Game Camille.

No one else has described Ida Aalberg’s role interpretations more impressively and vividly than Eino Leino, who had seen Ida in almost twenty roles and met her several times: “Her voice is very versatile. It can ring in our ears like a silver bell or thunder like a storm. Ida Aalberg’s Finnish is regarded as the highest level our language has reached as an intelligent spoken language to this day. Every word, every whisper is heard.”

Passion in its various forms is, in my opinion, the fundamental characteristic of Ida Aalberg’s multifaceted artistic personality. It is a trait of Cleopatra, Luise Miller, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Princess Zilah, Regina von Emmeritz, and Jane Eyre. However, when talking about Faust’s Margarethe, a picture of sweetness, softness, naivety, shyness, and innocence must be given. When Ida performed great tragic roles, according to Leino, there was another atmosphere on stage:

“When she spoke, the stage lit up. When she stepped, the walls expanded. When she looked at us, we looked directly into a true, great, burning human heart. It was as if one had looked into the bottom of a furnace, as if one suddenly had peeked into the mouth of a steaming volcano, where all metals are in a molten state, all elements are churning their own creative inspiration and joy of creation. Through Ida Aalberg, we learned to understand some of her deepest and most profound feminine natures. Her art, guided by its magical wand, allowed us to glimpse into some depths of the human heart and at the same time the abysses of all existence that would otherwise have remained forever unknown to us. She deepened and expanded us. Without her great art, we would be spiritually poorer and more superficial than we are now.”

Ida and Europe

Ida studied and performed in Europe as early as the late 19th century. At the end of May 1878, Ida embarked on her first study trip abroad to Dresden. Her teacher was actress Maria Niemann-Seebach. She made her second study trip to Dresden in 1880. In the autumn of the same year, Ida performed in Budapest, where she played the role of Boris in the play “The Village Outcast”.