Performing Arts in Iceland

Music
 Icelands best known contemporary music artist is Björk Guðmundsdóttir. The Conservatory of Music was founded in 1930 and in 1950, the National Symphony Orchestra.

In Reykjavík there are a Chamber Orchestra and a Chamber Music Club, each giving its own series of concerts every year. Flourishing musical life is found in several places outside Reykjavík, based on co-operation between professionals and amateurs, and most often affiliated with the local music schools. Notable examples include the towns of Ísafjörður in the West Fjords, Akureyri in the north and Egilsstadir in the east. Summer concerts at the old and rebuilt episcopal seat at Skálholt have become an annual festival of music, now in its twentieth year, devoted on the one hand to baroque and on the other to new Icelandic music.

The Reykjavík Arts Festival, first held in 1970, is a biennial event sponsored jointly by the State and the City of Reykjavík and by several cultural and artistic institutions and societies. The festival programmes have been musically ambitious, with regard both to occasional first performances of important Icelandic works, and to the standard of foreign artists taking part.

Musical life in Iceland, and in Reykjavík in particular, is as comprehensive, varied and international in scope as in any city of similar size. Reykjavík is one of the smallest capitals in the world, but it is the musical centre of a nation which is culturally ambitious despite its few inhabitants. The entire population benefits from the way Reykjavík has risen to meet the challenge of its leading position. And it should not be forgotten that the increased material well-being after the Second World War, together with the encouragement and support given by the State and City to different kinds of musical activity, have played an important part in the musical "explosion" that has taken place in Iceland during the past seventy years.

Historical Note. The history of music in Iceland has no parallel in other European countries, or, probably, anywhere else in the world. In Iceland the music of the "Middle Ages" predominated well into the nineteenth century. It was monophonic, consisting on the one hand of folk songs with distinctive national characteristics, and on the other hand of old church music which through long usage by the peasant population had deviated more and more from its continental originals and gradually acquired features similar to those of the folk songs. A special trait was the common use of the Lydian church mode, rarely found in its "pure" form in continental music. Closely connected with this unconventional tonality was a species of two-part singing, known as tvísöngur, reminiscent of the continental organum of the ninth century. This extremely primitive kind of polyphony was practised in certain remote parts of Iceland until the end of the nineteenth century.

On the whole this was "a remarkable tradition... which probably reaches farther back than any of the other folk-traditions of Europe" (Willi Apel in the Harvard Dictionary of Music, 1966). Due to Iceland's isolation, centuries of musical development on the European continent had gone by unnoticed. Ordinary four-part choral singing was first heard in the fifth decade of the 19th century. The only commonly known musical instruments were the primitive langspil and the Icelandic fiðla (fiddle, but with no relation to the modern violin), used exclusively to reinforce the singing. Instrumental music, in the usual sense of that term, was non-existent.

When the "new" music finally found its way to Iceland, the population, with certain exceptions, especially as regards church music, proved to be more receptive than might have been expected. Latent creative talent soon emerged, and musical development has been exceedingly rapid in the twentieth century. Musical tradition has mainly been preserved in the form of song, as there were few musical instruments in the country in former centuries. Fimmundasöngur (quint) and rímur (metrical ballads) are uniquely Icelandic forms of music and literature. Many Icelandic composers have used traditional Icelandic musical forms in their compositions. Jón Leifs, who lived in Germany for many years and composed powerful symphonic works, is a good example of this.

Opera
The Icelandic Opera (Íslenska óperan) operates in Reykjavík. Many ambitious opera productions have been presented during the last decade and a half. It produces two operas a year on average. It is partly subsidized by the State.

Theatre
The Reykjavík City Theatre has been performing repertory since 1897. It stages 6-10 plays per year on two stages. The state-run National Theatre has operated since 1950 and stages 10-15 productions a year on three stages. Public interest is phenomenally high, with figures from a recent survey indicating that three out of every four Icelanders visit the theatre regularly. There is also a professional theatre company in the North of Iceland, the Akureyri Theatre Company. Numerous smaller professional groups and theatres provide strong competition.

One special feature of the Icelandic theatre scene deserves mention. Amateur theatre is popular and plays a bigger role, if not artistically, then at least socially, than in most other countries. There are about eighty amateur groups linked together by a professional central organization which provides them with trained leaders, scripts, designers, costumes, makeup, etc. The fact that there has never been a hostile gap between professionals and amateurs is commonly believed to be one of the reasons for the popularity of theatre in Iceland.

All the professional companies tour extensively in Iceland. In recent years these companies - especially the National Theatre - have also been frequent guests at festivals in Europe and America and participants at the Theatre of the Nations. If Icelandic drama is now becoming far better known internationally, this is also partly due to the success Icelandic playwrights have achieved in making their voices heard abroad. In the past 30-40 years the Icelandic stage has been dominated by outstanding new plays by Icelandic authors, whose successes are often seen as the result of a persistent policy of encouragement on the part of the theatres. Theatre activity is thriving and during the high season one can often choose between 30 different productions during one week in Reykjavik.

A scene from one adaptation of Laxness' The Bell of Iceland.
The National Theatre 1950. Source: The Culture House

One of the directors of Reykjavík City Theatre, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, was later to become renowned world wide after she was elected the first woman as head of state.

Dance
Summary. The Icelandic Dance Theatre (Íslenski dansflokkurinn) is an independent group. It originated at the National Theatre, and appeared in many of its productions, as well as in special ballet programmes. Some original ballet music has been written for the group by Icelandic composers.

The National Theatre started its own ballet school in the early fifties. Ballet has made steady progress since 1973, when the Icelandic Ballet was founded. This company worked for years under the auspices of the National Theatre, with classics like Coppelia, Giselle, The Nutcracker and Cullberg's Miss Julie on its repertory list, as well as new works by choreographers such as Alan Carter, Marjo Kuusela, Ed Wubbe and Jochen Ulrich (Blind Man's Buff, to Jón Ásgeirsson's music). Young Icelandic choreographers have also created new works for the small company, e.g. Nanna Ólafsdóttir (Daphnis and Chloe, the first Icelandic full-scale work of its kind), Ingibjörg Björnsdóttir, Hlíf Svavarsdóttir and Auður Bjarnadóttir. An outstanding dancer was Ásdís Magnúsdóttir, and Helgi Tómasson, then a leading dancer with the New York City Ballet and now artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet, has been a frequent guest. After a period of stagnation, the dance company was reorganized in 1992 as a totally independent institution, and under its new artistic management (former ballerina María Gísladóttir) has already presented several works including Eva Evdokimova's staging of Coppelia at the City Theatre.

Adapted from "Iceland - The Republic", Handbook published by the Central Bank of Iceland, ed. by Mr. Jóhannes Nordal and Mr. Valdimar Kristinsson, Reykjavik 1996. The Ministry is responsible for the adapted texts.