Brand
In many ways the creative process leading to Brand started with an important political event: the war between Denmark and Germany over Slesvig-Holstein and the defeat of the Danish army at Dybbøl in 1864. Ibsen raged against Norway and Sweden for not helping the Danes. His rage and sorrow were not lessened when he was in Berlin on his way to Italy and "saw the howling mob wallowing in the trophies from Dybbøl, riding on the gun-carriages and spitting on the cannon'' (letter to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson dated January 28th 1865). It was during those days, Ibsen wrote some years later in a letter to Peter Hansen, "that «Brand» began to grow like an embryo within me".
The first version of Brand was in the form of an epic poem. The chief character was not called Brand, but Koll. Ibsen worked on this poem until the summer of 1865, but was not satisfied, and so put the subject aside. It would not let him go, however, and it turned into a drama. The political satire was toned down in favour of motives drawn from the religious sphere. Koll became the clergyman Brand.
In a letter sent to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson from Ariccia on September 12th 1865, Ibsen describes how the subject finally came to fruition:
"I went into St. Peter's one day – I had an errand in Rome – and there I suddenly had a strong and clear realization of the right form for what I had to say. – Now I have thrown overboard everything that has plagued me for a year without letting me make any progress, and in the middle of July I started on something that developed faster than anything ever has before. It is new in the sense that it was then I started to write, but the subject and the atmosphere have weighed on me like a nightmare ever since the many terrible events at home made me look into myself and our life there, and think about things that earlier had just passed me by without my taking them seriously, at any rate. It is a dramatic poem with a contemporary subject, serious content, 5 acts in rhyming verse (not exactly «Love's Comedy»). The fourth act will soon be finished, and I feel that I shall be able to write the fifth in eight days; I am working both morning and afternoon, which I have never been able to do before. It is blissfully peaceful out here, with no acquaintances and I am reading nothing but the Bible, – it is powerful and mighty!"
The play was written in less than three months. The last act was completed in the middle of October 1865. Ibsen sent the rest of the fair copy to his new publisher, Frederik Hegel in Copenhagen, in the middle of November.
First edition
Brand came out on March 15th 1866 in Copenhagen. It was the first of Ibsen's plays to be published by Frederik Hegel of Gyldendalske Boghandel.
The first edition consisted of 1275 copies, about half the number Hegel and Ibsen had originally agreed on, as Hegel doubted the sales potential of the book, but his doubts proved to be totally unfounded. By the end of the year the book had been re-printed no fewer than three times, and its publication was like a bombshell in the intellectual life of Denmark and Norway.
Brand was Ibsen's breakthrough, and henceforth he was to be recognized as one of the greatest writers in Scandinavia.
First performance
As was the case with Ibsen's next play, Peer Gynt, Brand was not written for staging. All the same, the fourth act of the play was performed by a group of actors from Christiania Theater led by Laura Gundersen at the Students' Union Theatre in Christiania on 14 May 1867, a year after the publication of the book. Laura Gundersen played Agnes, while Brand was played by her husband, Sigvard Gundersen. On June 26th 1867 the same production was to be seen at the Christiania Theater.
It was nineteen years, however, before the play was staged in its entirety. This was on March 24th 1885 at Nya Teatern in Stockholm. Ludvig Josephson directed the production, which lasted for six and a half hours. The first complete production in Norway had its first night on October 21st 1895 at the Eldorado Theatre, but again with a Swedish company, the Swedish theatre director August Lindberg's Company. Lindberg both directed and played the part of Brand himself.
By Jens-Morten Hanssen / ibsen.net