Hedda Hjortsberg was a Swedish ballerina who starred for the Royal Swedish Ballet.
Background
Hjortsberg"s father Laurentius (Lars) was employed at the Swedish court and her mother, Maria Lovisa Schützer, was an opera singer. Of their six children, two sons and two daughters were employed at the theatre or the opera, and two became famous: Hedda as a dancer, and Lars as an actor.
Career
She was the sister of the Swedish actor Lars Hjortsberg. In 1786, at age nine, Hedda became a student of French balletmaster Louis Gallodier. Upon graduation in the season of 1790–1791, she was considered one of the great native artists who starred with the Royal Swedish Ballet, which was long dominated by foreign dancers.
Between 1791 and 1806 she was a premier-dancer of the Royal Swedish Ballet at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm.
The writer Marianne Ehrenström called her the delightful darling of the audience, and describes her as gracious as a nymph: "une taille de nymphe, pétrie de graces, Terpsicore soulovée par les Zephirs". When the Royal Swedish Opera reopened in 1809 after it had been closed since 1806, she performed with her five-year-old daughter in the ballet Dansvurmen, and in 1810 she performed the part of Honor in Gustavs dröm at the Opera.
In 1804 Hjortsberg married the businessman Erik Samuel Koersner, who died shortly afterward.