State secretary Kjetil Skogrand

Address by State secretary Kjetil Skogrand about Ibsen around the World

Ibsen and the Diplomatic corps,
Oslo, 23 November 2005

Ladies and gentlemen,

In the not so distant past, I myself studied Nordic languages and literature at the University of Oslo. The subject of my oral examination was Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. I was allowed to choose which act we would discuss, and I chose the fourth act, in which Peer Gynt goes out into the wide world. So I am particularly delighted to be here today to present the international programme for the forthcoming Ibsen year. And it is a great privilege for me to announce the extensive plans to spread knowledge of Ibsen’s works to a broad public in all corners of the world.

This is very appropriate. Because while Ibsen’s dramas are rooted in Norwegian culture and history, the themes they deal with are of global and enduring relevance: individual freedom, personal and public morality, equality and freedom of expression, political power and corruption, and not least the interface between the local and the global, with an ironic look at our national self-righteousness.

Ibsen speaks to people throughout the world – if Peer Gynt had said that to Mother Åse, she would have replied as she does in the play: “Peer you’re lying!” But we can join Peer in his famous line: “It’s true – every single word!”

Ibsen worldwide is a portal that will present Ibsen to the whole world. It consists of 91 websites in a total of 18 languages. It has been developed by the National Committee for the Ibsen Year in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The content of these webpages is mainly from the National Committee’s website ibsen.net. The Foreign Ministry’s principle task has been to translate these texts into the 18 languages and to develop a new, specially adapted website with a design that reflects both ibsen.net and Norway– the official site.

Ibsen worldwide has the same concept as Norway– the official site, which includes the embassies’ own websites and Norway’s official websites targeted at other countries. Ibsen worldwide is a separate portal, but the connection to Norway– the official site will be reflected in the design, structure and not least direct links.

When you enter the address: www.ibsenworldwide.info, you will access a window that looks like this. This is an overview with links to each of the websites that are part of Ibsen worldwide. You can navigate to the Ibsen site for your country. It is also easy to access the websites for other countries and in other languages.

We can look more closely at the various country sites to see what is the same and what is different.

Here we see the website for the UK. The home page contains articles on general topics as well as on Ibsen events in the UK.

If we click on Plays in the menu here and on Peer Gynt, we access an article about the play. This is one of around 70 articles from ibsen.net that are included on all the websites. They deal with Ibsen’s plays and provide information on Ibsen as a poet and artist. There is also information on many of the people and institutions working with Ibsen, and links to their websites. News articles of general interest, also from other countries, will be published, as well as local news of interest to the country in question, as we see here.

If we select Russia or China, we will find the same Peer Gynt article. As we do on the other 90 websites.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Without the already great interest of the rest of the world in our great dramatist, there would have been no point in presenting Ibsen on this scale. During the preparations for the Ibsen Year, Norwegian foreign service missions have met with Ibsen societies in many different countries to make plans for putting on plays, ballets and operas, exhibitions, concerts and readings, lectures and conferences. The response from these Ibsen societies has been unreservedly positive. In fact it has been overwhelming.

The Ibsen Year is a unique opportunity to show the world the best of Norwegian culture. This forward-looking dramatist, writing more than a hundred years ago, raised socio-political issues that are equally relevant today. Issues that are now in fact on the UN agenda. Ibsen’s relevance is timeless; he is just as provocative in this century as he was in the century before and the century before that again.

You can get a glimpse of the wide range of events abroad from the brochure available here today. However, the calendar of events is far from exhaustive. And new events are continually being added. A fully up-to-date programme can be found on the Ibsen Year website: www.ibsen.net.

I would like to mention some examples of the many events planned in the countries you represent. There will be three Norwegian guest performances in New York during 2006. We are delighted that Americans are interested in sitting listening to Norwegian for three to four hours. We are also delighted that Peer Gynt is to be set up as an opera in Shanghai, that cities in Germany are arranging Ibsen weeks, that Ibsen will be the main writer at the Bernhard Shaw festival in Canada, that an Ibsen festival is being arranged in Romania, that The Lady from the Sea is to be performed in Naples, Rome and Milan, that theatres and libraries in Moscow will have a special focus on Ibsen for two whole months, that the Sorbonne will be opening its doors for a research conference, and that Nora will step out of her doll’s house and join other Ibsen women, lighting torches and marching right across the world, from Malawi, to China, from Canada to Budapest. In other words “Ibsen worldwide”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is involved, together with Norwegian partners, in a number of international projects, for example:

• An exhibition in nine original language versions on themes from Ibsen’s plays. We hope this will stimulate debate on the major issues that Ibsen raised: individual freedom, equality, freedom of expression, the neglected child, political power and its temptations, corruption, globalisation, courage and idealism.
• A collection of commentaries on 12 of Ibsen’s plays by contemporary Norwegian writers. The book will be translated into several languages.
• A European tour of the exhibition Ibsen’s women: Nina Sundbye’s sculptures meet Ibsen’s manuscripts in collaboration with the National Library of Norway. The exhibition’s final destination is the beautiful Alexandria Library, where it will be shown in connection with the provisional conclusion of the Ibsen Year in Cairo in October.
• The Short Text Challenge project, in which dramatists from 10 countries are asked to write a “mini-play” inspired by these words of Ibsen: “Freedom is to me the greatest and highest condition in life.”

On at least three occasions during the Ibsen Year, the wide world will be coming to Norway. The International Ibsen Stage Festival and the International Ibsen Conference will start in Oslo in August and September, and theatre performances and Ibsen researchers from many countries will be coming to our capital. Ibsen in Oslo will offer something for everyone. The Foreign Ministry has also invited a number of the foremost stars of stage and screen to the opening festivities in Oslo starting on 14 January. They all have a special affinity with Ibsen and have all played one or more of his characters during the course of their career. Our own Liv Ullmann is on this list, together with:

Ghita Nørby from Denmark,

Bibi Andersson from Sweden,

Isabelle Huppert from France,

Natalia M. Tenyakova from Russia,

Angela Winkler from Germany,

Saoli Mitra from India

Vanessa Redgrave from the UK

Glenda Jackson from the UK

As you can see: Ibsen and his works are to be celebrated worldwide. In the words of Peer Gynt: “It’s true – every single word!”