Betty Deland
Encyclopedia
Betty Deland, as married Almlöf, (14 November 1831 in Örebro
Örebro
-Sites of interest:Örebro's old town Wadköping is located on the banks of Svartån . It contains many 18th and 19th century wooden houses, along with museums and exhibitions....

 – 1 April 1882 in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

), was a Swedish child actor
Child actor
The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...

, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 and principal at Dramatens elevskola
Dramatens elevskola
Dramatens elevskola, i.e. Kungliga Dramatiska Teaterns Elevskola, or in Eng: The Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school, was the acting school of Sweden's national stage, The Royal Dramatic Theatre, and for many years seen as the foremost theatre school and drama education for Swedish stage actors...

. She is often mentioned as one of the most notable actors of her country's history in the Victorian age.

Early career

Betty was born into one of Sweden's most well known theatre families. Her parents were both actors; her father Pierre Deland
Pierre Deland
Pierre Joseph Deland, , was a Swedish actor and theatre director. As director of the Deland travelling theatre, he was one of the most famous artists in both Sweden and Finland during the mid 19th century. His troupe inaugurated several of the first theatres founded in the Swedish and Finnish towns...

 was the leader of the famous Deland theatre company, her mother Hedvig Charlotta de Broen was the daughter of Isaac de Broen, director of Djurgårdsteatern and actor of the Royal Dramatic Theatre
Royal Dramatic Theatre
The Royal Dramatic Theatre is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's eight running stages....

, and she was also the niece of Louis Deland
Louis Deland
Louis Joseph Marie Deland was a Swedish ballet dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and ballet master in the Royal Swedish Ballet...

.

Betty Deland debuted as a child actor in the Royal Dramatic Theatre in a boy's breeches role
Breeches role
A breeches role is a role in which an actress appears in male clothing .In opera it also refers to any male character that is sung and acted by a female singer...

 at the age of five in 1836, and made success in child parts. After studies in dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

 and acting she debuted in an adult part in Uppsala
Uppsala
- Economy :Today Uppsala is well established in medical research and recognized for its leading position in biotechnology.*Abbott Medical Optics *GE Healthcare*Pfizer *Phadia, an offshoot of Pharmacia*Fresenius*Q-Med...

 in 1847, which started a new part of her career.

Country side actor

As a member of her father's troupe, she was to tour all over both Sweden and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 during the 1850s. The Deland troupe (active 1833–1861) was one of the most prestigious in both of these countries, performed in the theatres of the smaller cities, which did not have a steady staff, and often performed the opening performances in new theatres.

They regularly performed in Åbo Svenska Teater
Åbo Svenska Teater
Åbo Svenska Teater is a Finland-Swedish theatre in the city of Turku in Finland and the oldest theatre in the country, founded in 1839. The building itself is also the oldest still functioning theatre house in Finland...

 and, and they were the first actors performing on the national stage of Finland, Swedish Theatre
Swedish Theatre
The Swedish Theatre is a Swedish-speaking theatre in Helsinki, Finland and is located at the Erottaja square, at the end of Esplanadi . It was the first national stage of Finland.- History :...

 in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

 during the 1860–1861 season. In Stockholm, they often performed in Djurgårdsteatern. Of the five hundred well-known parts she did, she made three hundred of them in her father's troupe. In 1857, she married the actor Knut Almlöf
Knut Almlöf
Knut Almlöf, , was a Swedish actor, considered to one of the most notable actors on the Swedish stage in the second half of the 19th century....

, who was also from a theatre family, son of the actors Nils Almlöf
Nils Almlöf
Nils Vilhelm Almlöf, was a Swedish actor, considered as one of the most famous in the 19th century, called "The Swedish Talma".Child of a court servant, Nils Almlöf, he interrupted his medical studies to study singing under Craelius of the Royal Swedish Opera, where he was successful as Leicester...

 and Brita Catharina Cederberg and stepson of Charlotta Almlöf
Charlotta Almlöf
Anna Maria Franziska Charlotta Almlöf, née Ficker, , was a Swedish stage actress.Daughter of Christian Fredrik Ficker, a musician at Kungliga Hovkapellet, and sister of the opera singer Mathilda Gelhaar, she was enrolled in Dramatens elevskola in 1830...

, who were both well-known actors at the stage of the Royal Dramatic Theatre.

City actor

In 1861, Betty Deland was employed with her husband in first Mindre teatern
Mindre teatern
Mindre teatern , Nya teatern , Lindeberska teatern , was a Swedish theatre at Kungsgatan in Stockholm, active 1842-1863...

 in Stockholm and in 1863 by the Royal Dramatic Theatre, from 1866 as a premier-actor. Both she and her husband were to became regarded as two of their country's most notable actors.
She was recommended for her expressive mimic, her nuances of voice, her character interpretations and natural way of acting, though among her most popular parts were often girls' parts and comedies.

Between 1874 and 1877 she was an instructor and a principal at Dramatens elevskola jointly with her husband. She kept her position as actor at the theatre until her death in 1882.

Roles

Among her parts were Madame de Maintenon in Ludvig den fjortonde och markisinnan Maintenon (Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon), Mrs Serpentier in Den gifta mannen i staden och på landet (The married man in the city and in the country), Emilia in Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...

, the queen dowager Hedwig Eleonora
Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp
Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp was the queen consort of King Charles X of Sweden and queen mother of King Charles XI...

 in Carl den elfte (Charles XI) by Teodor Hagberg, Belise in Lärdt folk i stubb (The precieuses) by Molière, Mrs Dupuis in Ett hem (A home) by Feuillet, Fadette in Syrsan (Le petite Fadette) by George Sand, Dorine in Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...

, the Duchess of Marlborough in Ett glas vatten (A glass of water), Frosine in Den girige (The greedy one) by Molière, Madam Rundholmen in De ungas förbund (The union of the young) by Ibsen and the Duchess in Sällskap där man har tråkigt (Company where one is bored) by Pailleron.
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