Ariana Nozeman
Encyclopedia
Ariana Nozeman: born Ariana van den Bergh (1626/1628 in Middelburg
Middelburg
Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...

 – December 7, 1661 in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

), was the first actress in The Netherlands. She made her debut on stage in 1655 at the Amsterdam Schouwburg (Amsterdam Theater) in a play which accidentally bore her name ‘Onvergelijkelijke Ariana’ (‘Uncomparable Ariana’).

Early life

The daughter of actor and playwright Adriaan van den Bergh, Ariana was born in Middelburg probably between 1626 and 1628. Her father had a travelling theatre company and translated and adapted several English dramas for the Dutch stage. Among them Thomas Kyd's “the Spanish Tragedy”-renamed Don Jeronimo (1621) in Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

. Ariana could possibly not write.

She may have learnt the craft at a very early age. It was quite common for women and children in travelling theatre companies to appear on stage as these groups often consisted of actors’ families. Later on, she possibly joined the troupe of Jan Baptist van Fornenbergh. This company took the tradition of Dutch theatre to distant corners of Europe touring the north of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

, performing at fairs as well as royal courts such as the one of Swedish Queen Christina
Christina of Sweden
Christina , later adopted the name Christina Alexandra, was Queen regnant of Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Princess of Finland, and Duchess of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, from 1633 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora...

 (1653). While in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, the actress married her colleague, the actor Gillis Nozeman in the Reformed Church of nearby Altona
Altona, Hamburg
Altona is the westernmost urban borough of the German city state of Hamburg, on the right bank of the Elbe river. From 1640 to 1864 Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent city until 1937...

, a free haven for dissenters and marginalized. Ariana and Gillis became known as the first actors’couple in Dutch theatre history.

Professional life

On June 30, 1655, the name of Ariana Nozeman was recorded for the first time in the Amsterdam theatre archives. The actress was paid 76,50 Dutch florins for 17 performances, which was higher than most of her male counterparts.. Ariana was even paid more than her husband because she brought her own opulent costumes to the scene. Unlike Italy and France where women had already made their appearances on the public stage, women’s parts in the Dutch Republic were still generally being played by men in the first half of the 17th century. The resignation of six actors at the Amsterdam Schouwburg (Theatre) may have led to Ariana Nozeman’s debut.

Ariana Nozeman mostly played serious roles. She was the first actress who ever performed Badeloch in the historical play Gijsbrecht van Aemstel
Gijsbrecht van Aemstel (play)
Gijsbrecht van Aemstel was a 17th century history play by Joost van den Vondel, written to inaugurate Amsterdam's first city theatre. The first production was planned to take place on 26 December 1637, but was postponed until 3 January 1638...

by Joost van den Vondel
Joost van den Vondel
Joost van den Vondel was a Dutch writer and playwright. He is considered the most prominent Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century. His plays are the ones from that period that are still most frequently performed, and his epic Joannes de Boetgezant , on the life of John the Baptist, has...

, one of Holland’s most famous poets of the 17th century. Ariana was rarely seen in farces or comical acts and she also sang. She is credited as the first ballet dancer in The Netherlands. She was often seen on stage together with her husband Gillis Nozeman either as a couple or as antagonists. Their daughter Maria Nozeman (born 1652) followed in her mother’s footsteps; she entered the stage at the age of six years. The Nozemans supplemented their theatre incomes by running an inn called The Camel on one of the Amsterdam canals.

Calvinist opposition

By putting herself on public show, Ariana Nozeman would surely not have had the approval of the stern Dutch Reformed Church
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...

. Simon Schama in The Embarrassment of Riches says: “In 1655 the first actress appeared in the Amsterdam theater, strengthening the clergy’s view that it was the sink of the vilest iniquity. But Adriana Nozeman went on to make an illustrious career there nonetheless”. Holland, in spite of its Calvinist character, was a secular society and Amsterdam, the capital of the mighty Dutch Republic
Dutch Republic
The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...

, known for its free and tolerant climate. Banned philosophers such as Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...

 and Descartes got their works published here. Pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...

was printed here as well.

The stage curtain dropped for Ariana Nozeman when she was not even 35 years old. She died on December 7, 1661. Three months earlier, she had lost her only 7-year old son Mathijs. Maybe she died of heartbreak or maybe she fell victim to the plague. She was buried in the Oude Kerk (Old Church), now in the heart of Amsterdam’s famous red light district. Her death meant a great loss for the Amsterdam Schouwburg. They contracted immediately four new actresses to replace her.

Three hundred years after her stage debut, in 1955, the first woman on the Dutch stage was commemorated. The city council of Amsterdam honoured her memory with a street named Ariana Nozemanstraat in the western part of the city.
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