Elvira Madigan

Elvira Madigan

Elvira Madigan (born December 4, 1867 in Flensburg , † July 19, 1889 in Nørreskov, Tåsinge ) was the stage name of the Danish tightrope walker Hedvig Antoinette Isabella Eleonore Jensen. She and her lover, the Swedish lieutenant Bengt Edvard Sixten Sparre (born September 27, 1854 in Malmö , † July 19, 1889 in Nørreskov, Tåsinge), are famous tragic lovers in Scandinavia.

Life

The later "Elvira Madigan", Hedvig Antoinette Isabella Eleonore Jensen, was the daughter of the Copenhagen stable master Frederik Jensen and the circus artist Eleonora Cecilia Christina Maria, born in Finland. Olsen. Since around 1870 the mother lived with the parforc rider John Madigan from Indiana , USA , whom she did not marry until 1892. Both traveled through Scandinavia with a circus.

Hedvig Jensen alias Elvira Madigan made her debut as a rider at Tivoli in Copenhagen in 1876 ​​at the age of eight . As a tightrope walker, she performed for the first time on April 24, 1879 in Saint Petersburg . Later she performed together with Gisela Brož , a foster daughter of John Madigan from Vienna , as "Sisters Elvira and Gisella Madigan" or "Daughters of the Air". The two young tightrope walkers were a great public attraction and were born in Copenhagen in 1886 by the Danish King Christian IX. awarded with his cross in gold. During these years they had great success and gave performances in u. a. Paris , London , Berlin , Brussels , Amsterdam and Odessa .

Sixten rafter

When Madigan's circus performed in Kristianstad in Skåne in 1888 , Sixten Sparre, a Swedish dragoons lieutenant from the old nobility, fell in love with the young circus artist. Both began an exchange of letters, but apart from the difference in class, their relationship was socially impossible at the time: Sparre was already married (albeit unhappily) and the father of two children. In addition, the Madigan Circus did not want to see the tightrope walker Elvira as its "main attraction" involved in scandals or "lose" through marriage, so that the two lovers could only exchange their letters in secret.

In May 1889, when the Madigan Circus was just making a guest appearance in Sundsvall , Sweden, Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre implemented their flight, which they had previously planned by letter. On Sparre's part, this was tantamount to desertion . Both traveled via Stockholm to Svendborg in Denmark, where they rented a hotel and spent as a couple on their honeymoon. After a while, however, it was noticed that only the man was wearing a wedding ring, and the resemblance of the woman to a well-known circus performer, whose sudden disappearance the newspapers reported, was also noticed. Therefore, on July 15, 1889, the couple traveled on to the small Danish island of Tåsinge south of Funen , where they rented a room from a fishing family in Troense.

On July 18, 1889, Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre left their holiday apartment at ten o'clock in the morning with a picnic basket in an apparently happy mood. They then went to the Nørreskov (Danish "northern forest") on Tåsinge. There Sparre shot first his lover and then himself with his service weapon the following morning.

The gravesite of Elvira Madigan (left, on the gravestone with real name Hedvig Jensen ) and Sixten Sparre (right) in the cemetery of Landet

On July 27, 1889, the couple was buried in the cemetery of Landet (Danish "Landet kirkegård") with great public sympathy. The event also caused a sensation in the press, especially since only six months earlier, in January 1889, the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne Rudolf and his lover Mary Vetsera had committed suicide in Schloss Mayerling. The grave of Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre in Landet's cemetery still exists today and was redesigned in 1943, 1964, 1999 and 2013. The grave site has been popular with tourists and lovers from all over the world since the Swedish film from 1967 (see below). There is also a custom that brides who have married in Landet Church then place their bridal bouquet on Madigan's grave.

Literary processing

The Swedish poet Johan Lindström Saxon (1859–1935) wrote the ballad or morality “Visan om den sköna konstberiderskan Elvira Madigans kärlek och grymma död” ( Sage of love and the terrible death of the beautiful horse rider Elvira Madigan ) with the initial words “Sorgeliga saker hända “( Sad things happen ). A German version of this song was recorded by Freddy Quinn as the “Bänkellied von der Seilänzerin” (on the album “Please rather sad”, 2000). The musician and composer Alex Behning released a song on the album "Trickster und Propheten" in 2016 about the tragedy surrounding Elvira Madigan, entitled Elvira Madigan .

Film adaptations

The Elvira Madigan fabric was filmed three times:

• Elvira Madigan (English title: The end of a great love ), a Swedish film from 1943, director Åke Ohberg, in the lead role Eva Henning, with Åke Ohberg as "Count Christian". The lover's real name was not used in this film at the request of the Sparre family.
• Elvira Madigan , a Danish film from 1967, director Poul Erik Møller Pedersen, with Anne Mette Michaelsen as Elvira Madigan and Søren Svejstrup as Sixten Sparre.
• Elvira Madigan (German title: The end of a great love ), a Swedish film from 1967, director Bo Widerberg , with Pia Degermark as Elvira Madigan and Thommy Berggren as Sixten Sparre. This film adaptation is considered to be the best by far. This is thanks to both the sensitive camera work by Jörgen Persson and the acting skills of Pia Degermark, who was named “ best actress ” in Cannes for this film . As a soundtrack, the film uses the theme of the second movement, the Andante, of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, Köchel Directory 467. This is why it is still often referred to as the “Elvira Madigan Piano Concerto”, especially in Scandinavia.

Trivia

• "Elvira Madigan" is also the name of a Swedish dark metal band that was founded in 1995 and is produced by Marcus H. Madigan alias Marcus Hammarström.
• Circus Madigan has been a traditional circus in Sjöbo (Sweden) since 1989, focusing on school projects since 2002.

literature

• Arne Ejbye-Ernst: Det danske Mayerlingdrama . Copenhagen 1954.
• Not so Enevig: Facts about Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre . Odder 2005, ISBN 87-89191-67-6 (Historically correct biography based on contemporary sources, Danish).
• Klas Grönqvist: En droppe föll… En bok om Elvira Madigan . Recito förlag, Borås 2013. ISBN 978-91-7517-506-5 (Historically correct biography, Swedish. Also available in Danish translation: “En dråbe faldt”, Kle-art, Odense 2017, ISBN 978-87-92750-23 -5 ).
• Henrik M. Jansen: Elvira Madigan & Sixten Sparre: som samtiden opfattede dem - og 100 år senere . Skrifter from Svendborg og omengs Museum 21, Svendborg 1989.
• Poul Erik Møller-Pedersen: Elvira Madigan . Copenhagen 1978, ISBN 87-7215-404-7 .

Web links

• Exhibition in the local history Taasinge Museum (Danish)
• The Swedish Elvira Madigan film of 1967 in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The bench song by the tightrope walker musikguru.de