Jenny Lind is the name of an iconic 19th century Swedish opera singer, as well as the name given to a number of literary and theatrical works about her.

Jenny Lind the personality

Plays about Jenny Lind

In 1847 Lind paid her first visit to London, and besides a huge amount of publicity, two burlesque performances were put on in various theatres in her honour days before her arrival in April.

Jenny Lind at Last, or The Swedish Nightingale, "An Apropos Operatic Bagatelle" in one act by Angus Bethune Reach ()[] at the Lyceum Theatre on 14 April and Jenny Lind, or The North Star a burlesque by H.R. Addington ()[] at the Adelphi Theatre on 17 April.

A third burlesque, More Ethiopians, or Jenny Lind in New York by A.L.V Campbell ()[] opened at the Grecian Theatre on 13 May.

South African performances of plays about Lind

1876: A piece called Jenny Lind was performed by the Disney Roebuck company, under the management of Charles Wilstone in the Athenaeum Hall, Cape Town, on 20 Ocotber, with Oliver Twist (in an unidentified adaptation), as benefit for Mr W. Foulis and Mrs Foulis.

Sources

George Biddlecombe. 2003 (reprinted 2019). "The Construction of an Icon. The Case of Jenny Lind" in Nineteenth-Century British Music Studies: Volume 3 (edited by Peter Horton and Bennett Zon): Routledge.[1]

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.203-205

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