Comment on Thorvaldsen's Hair
The Royal Danish Theatre held a memorial service for Thorvaldsen on 9.4.1844. Here Johanne Luise Heiberg recited her husband’s Prologue, J.L. Heiberg: Thorvaldsen. Prolog ved det kongelige Theaters Sørgefest, den 9de April 1844 [Thorvaldsen: Prologue at the Royal Theater’s Memorial Service], Copenhagen 1844.
Corsaren’s ironic reference to the rhymes in Heiberg’s “declamatory poem” probably refers to the fact that it had no rhymes at all: it was written in unrhymed hexameters.
Johanne Luise Heiberg described her own performance as follows: “I did not recite the beautiful prologue as I had wished. I was too numb and still too close to my grief to be able to express with artistic tranquillity the grief felt so deeply by all.” See Johanne Luise Heiberg, Et Liv, gjenoplevet i Erindringen [A Life, Reexperienced in Memory], Copenhagen 1944, vol. II, p. 33.
Last updated 09.03.2015