- Signe Hebbe
Signe Amanda Georgina Hebbe, (
30 July 1837 – 1925), was a Swedish singer (soprano ), actress, and theatre pedagogue.Signe Hebbe was born in
Värnamo to the journalistVendela Hebbe . In 1848, at the age of eleven, she studied music at the Lindblad pianoschool, at the school of theRoyal Swedish Opera and forKarolina Bock . In 1852-1854, she studied at the conservatory inBerlin . She debuted in a dramatic part in theRoyal Dramatic Theatre in 1855, but did not succeed in spoken drama and continued to study singing.She was accepted at the
Paris conservatory in 1856, where she became the first singer from Scandinavia to receive a medal. She instructed in plastic at the conservatory and was the teacher ofSarah Bernhardt when she was the replacement of Élie during his absence in 1860.Francesco Lamperti developed her singing inMilan and studiedAdelaide Ristori andErnesto Rossi for her dramatic talent.She sang in Lyon 1861-1862, debuted in
Frankfurt and was employed at the court theatre ofMannheim ,Nationaltheater Mannheim . Between 1864 and 1879 she toured Europe and sang in Stockholm,Karlsruhe ,Köpenhamn ,Théâtre Lyrique inParis ,Warszawa ,Geneva ,Milano ,Palermo ,Helsingfors andOslo . As an actor, she was criticized for her way of acting, as she did not like to interpret the female parts as weak, but wanted to give them a more independent interpetation than the Victorian age wanted to view women.In 1871, her contract at the Royal Swedish Opera stipulated that she should teach, and she was from this point very active as an instructor until her death in 1925. She opened her own school in 1877, and was from 1883 active at
Dramatens elevskola and the Opera school, in 1886-1888 in theRoyal Swedish Academy of Music , and in the years around 1900 on the Royal Dramatic Theatre. She preferred her own school, which paid better, and where she taught technique in speech, singing, plasticue and role analysis. She had been instructed in deep breathing by Delsartes and took this technique with her to Sweden. She had students from all Scandinavia, Europe and the USA.References
* Georg Nordensvan, "Svensk teater och svenska skådespelare."
* Österberg, Carin et al., "Svenska kvinnor: föregångare, nyskapare". Lund: Signum 1990. (ISBN 91-87896-03-6)
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