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THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN REVIEW 
pfn ° AND TH ^ NEW ? 0YAL Theatre Side by Side. The Old with the 
I ACADE BY THE GREAT ARCHITECT HaRSDORFF Was Torn Down IN 1874 
WHEN THE New, Built by Daillerup, Was Completed 
waids lie went on a tour through Denmark and Norway, collecting a 
• i i sum of money for the benefit of disabled soldiers and 
widows and children of fallen heroes. 
The national heroes in the works of the great poet, Adam Oehlen- 
schlager, in their gigantic interpretation by Ryge, lifted the imag¬ 
ination of the audience above the simple German plays by Kotzebue 
and na\ ed the way for an understanding of Shakespeare’s tragedies. 
Thus, during the years of suffering and humiliation (the time of the 
peace at Kiel in 1814), the theatre was the place where life was pic¬ 
tured on big, inspiring lines. The proscenium also formed the frame 
of Denmark s musical development, from the music of Italian and 
Geirnan directors to that which is now understood as “the Danish 
tune, the soft melodies, dreamy, often passionless rhythms which are 
an expi ession of something typical in Danish folk character, and which 
in the compositions of Weyse, and in the airs of I. P. E. Hartmann 
and A. \ . Gade assumed a beautiful as well as an intelligible form. 
A new era in the history of the stage was inaugurated when J. L. 
Heiberg wrote his vaudevilles; Hertz, Overskou, and Hostrup their 
comedies, and Hauch his rich lyric poetry. August Bournonville’s 
ballets, which have been described in a previous number of the Review, 
aiose out of a combination between French dancing and Northern 
1 ea lty, and the theatre became a temple of beauty and humor when 
about 1850 Fru Heiberg had her romantic, intellectual encounter with 
icliael V\ ielie, while Ludwig Phister excelled in his power of trans- 
oimation. From this summit the Danish theatre gradually declined 
