cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

VII. “Donna Clara, en Natscene.”
This play is an experiment by an apprentice dramatist. Even though it may seem sentimental
and artificial to modern tastes, Andreas Munch was no hack writer. He was the third most
important poet in Norway in the 1840s, after Henrik Wergeland and Johan Sebastian Welhaven.
Munch was one of Ibsen's models as he was learning to write lyric poetry. According to the
editor of his works, the scholar and critic M.J. Monrad, he was the most purely lyrical of the
three leading Norwegian poets of the time.
"Donna Clara" was performed not only in Skien, but also in Bergen, where it
entered the repertoire in 1855-56, the same season in which Gildet paa Solhoug
premiered. Clara may be a model for Margit in that play.
This translation is based on the text in the collected edition of Munch's works
(Andreas Munch. Samlede Skrifter. M. J. Monrad og Hartvig Lassen, eds. 5 vols.
København, 1887-90; vol. II, 287-325). The first edition of the play (1840) ended with
Clara clawing at the wall behind which her former lover had been immured. It is the first
version which was performed in Skien, according to the reviewer from Skiensposten (see
file # IX). All the same, it has seemed appropriate to translate the final version of the
play, since no doubt it represents Munch's mature intention for it.
“DONNA CLARA. A Night-Play.”
Characters.
Count del Fuente.
Clara, his wife.
Don Fernando.
Maja, Clara's chambermaid.
A journeyman mason.
A servant.
A gothic room, with rich, heavy furnishings. In the background two deep arched
windows, and midway between these a door into an alcove hollowed out in the thick wall.
On the right side a door. In the foreground a table, on which is a light in a candelabrum.
It is late afternoon. Clara is seen in the alcove, on her knees praying in front of a picture
of the Virgin Mary. Maja sleeps in an armchair. After a lapse of some moments Clara
stands up, and walks slowly forward into the room.
Forgive me, Madonna!
CLARA.
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