Background
She was born on 4th of December 1857 in Janakkala, Finland, Russian Empire, into a poor family of track foreman.
She was born on 4th of December 1857 in Janakkala, Finland, Russian Empire, into a poor family of track foreman.
One year she went to school for girls, and took private lessons.
Ida Aalberg's home background was indeed a modest one, she had, with the help of friends of the family, received an education not much different from that of upper-class girls of the time. Her knowledge of Swedish and German was later of great importance for her career. In 1878 and 1880, Aalberg studied drama in Dresden, where her teacher was the well-known German actress Marie Niemann-Seebach. Besides becoming thoroughly familiar with role analysis, speech skills and acting technique, she studied German. The grand, declamatory style learned by Aalberg in Germany never disappeared entirely from her acting, though she did later develop her style more in the direction of Ibsen-style realism and al so absorbed stylistic influences from Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonore Duse.
At the age of 17 Aalberg went to Helsinki, where she met director Kaarlo Bergbom, who saw the potential of the future actress in the girl and took her to work in the Finnish theater. Ida Aalberg appeared on the srage for the first time in 1874, during an evening entertainment held at the Sipila estate at Janakkala. During her first years at the Finnish Theatre in 1874 - 77, Ida Aalberg played a number of minor roles in various plays and worked as an assistant at opera performances. It was not until her success as Boriska in the Hungarian play The Village Scoundrel in 1877 that public interest was attracted to her acting in particular. In 1879, Aalberg was seen in two promising interpretations in Helsinki when she played the main role in a stage version of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Schiller's Luise Miller. International success came to Aalberg in the summer of 1880 during a tour of the theater in Munich, Vienna and Budapest. In the same year Aalberg made a complete breakthrough in the Finnish theater, playing the role of Nora in "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen, which has become one of the best in her career. Since this time, the actress gradually strengthened the status of national heritage. Aalberg left the service of the Finnish Theatre as early as 1883, having attained an established status as an actress. Although she made guest appearances in Helsinki almost every year, she also achieved considerable success elsewhere and directed much of her energy and interest towards the development of her career abroad. A long study trip to Paris in 1883/84 was followed by numerous foreign engagements, and Aalberg appeared mainly abroad from 1885 to 1887. In 1885, at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm, she played Ophelia in Finnish ш Shakespeare's Hamlet, her leading man being Ernesto Rossi. In Kristiania (Oslo) in Norway, her Swedish-language interpretation of Nora achieved considerable success , she received a contract from the Casino theatre 1885 ; but from 1886 she appeared at the Dagmar theatre playing a number of important roles, first in Swedish and later in Danish. For the public at home her appearances at the Finnish theater were demonstrations of the constant development in Aalberg's professional skills. The guest seasons usually lasted for a few weeks , and the repertoire comprised several plays. From 1887 to 1889, the Finnish Theatre presented a numher of new interpretations by Aalberg; these included Schiller's The Maid of Orleans, Victorien Sardous Cypritnnt. Shakespeare's Desdemona and new Ibsen interpretations. However, contracts for appearances still kept the actress abroad for Long periods. In Berlin, Ida Aalberg succeeded in making the acquaintance of Josef Kainz, a well-known actor who had been in the theatre company of the Dukeof Meiningen. Playing opposite Kainz, she performed the roles both of Shakespeare's Juliet and of Luise Miller in 1890. The reaction of the public and critics was fairly good, though Aalbergs German was regarded as inadequate for the stage. The trip to Berlin was also clouded by many problems associared with her health and domestic life. The early 1890s were a difficult time for Ida Aalberg in many ways. As a resulr of her trips abroad, she began to become estranged from the Finnish Theatre and its nationalistic intellectual atmosphere, while nor achieving a breakthrough in a foreign language. She did have a number of successes at the Finnish Theatre, especially in the main role of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and as Kirsti in Gustaf von Numers' Elinan surma in 1891. Critics' views on acting were, however, gradually changing. And Bergboms theatre had developed in a direction of its own, moving increasingly towards ensemble acting and realism. Ida Aalberg nevertheless retained her special position as the great star of Finnish theatre until her death, despite increasing instances of criticism. In March 1893 her husband died . In the autumn of 1893, Ida Aalberg gathered around her a group of actors and began a Finnish-language tour under her own name; the repertoire included Minna Canth's new play Sylvi. At the end of the decade, illness led to a break of almost three years in Aalbergs stage career. She undertook her last long tours in the early 1900s. The German-language Toumie Ida Aalberg of 1904/05 was favourably received in Riga, St Petersburg and Moscow; and in 1907 Aalberg appeared once again as a guest performer in Hungary. However, after the death ofKaarlo Bergbom in 1904, her interests became increasingly focused on her homeland and its theatrical Life, In this, she had the support of her husband, who was thoroughly familiar with the theatre and new trends in dramatic performance. Together with him, she occasionally even considered the establishment of a theatre company of their own Baron Alexander Uexkull-Gyllenband was above all a philosopher; but he-supported his wife in her work in many ways, in the process himself developing as a director and an influential figure in Finnish theatre. A new theatre house that opened in 1902 led to the renaming of the Theatre of Finland as The Finnish National Theatre. A few years later Aalberg began to show an interest in directing and administration which lead to her appointment as director-actor (assistant manager) in 1909.
She was not a success as a director. When her contract was terminated in 1911 it caused a cultural scandal and she was never to perform regularly in the National Theatre again. She celebrated her 40 year anniversary as an actress there in 1914 and a visiting performance was being planned but her sudden death in January 1915 in Saint Petersburg came before the plans could be carried out.