Volume 19 Issue 2 The Kapralova Society Journal Summer 2021 A Journal of Women in Music Bokken Lasson: Norwegian Feminist, Artist and Entrepreneur Erin Hackel and Karin Hauger The most important appearance is undoubtedly that of BOKKEN LASSON. She has only to throw one of her mischievous glances at her audience and immediately all hearts are won. She has only to sing in her own, simple, truthful style, her folk songs of all lands, and everyone is led captive. Whether she sings in French, Spanish, Italian or German, one falls under the spell of the folk song of which she seems the very embodiment. 1 Bokken Lasson (1871–1970) is best known as the Workers’ Movements, technological and the founder of Norway’s literary cabaret, Chat scientific discoveries, revolutionary philoso- Noir, established in Kristiania (Oslo) in 1912. phical and social thoughts, the Women’s She was also a singer, both in the formal Movement, explosive creativity and changes European classical song tradition, and in folk in art and music abounded. Paris, the creative and cabaret styles. The fact that a woman born center of this period, housed artists from all in the late 19th century founded, ran and per- over the world. Nationalism had not yet en- formed in her own successful cabaret is as- tered the European landscape on a political Special points of interest: tounding, especially considering women did level, and people of means, artists of all kinds, not even have the right to vote in Norway traveled and lived where they wished – no until 1913. In trying to understand her accom- visas or passports were required. All European Bokken Lasson (1871–1970) plishments, two main themes emerge. social classes were involved in the aura of the First, Lasson fought conventional views of time, but particularly Europe’s upper crust, the women and their assigned roles, including the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, intellectuals, traditions of the institution of marriage. And writers, musicians, and artists in general. secondly, like her international peers Yvette However, beneath the surface lived a sense of Guilbert and Dame Vera Lynn, she struggled unease and impending disaster as nationalism her entire life with reconciling the concept of and WWI loomed. the classical tradition as opposed to popular Lasson was born into an elite social class in music. She wondered if ordinary people’s Norway. Her grandfather was a chief justice, lives could even be considered cultural. Was her father a prominent lawyer and her mother Inside this issue: music created and performed in a folk tradi- came from Russian nobility. The Lasson fam- tion actually art? Could she, as a performer of ily belonged comfortably in the social circle Bokken Lasson: Norwegian Feminist, 1–6 Artist, Entrepreneur / Erin Hackel folk music, be considered a true artist? These surrounding the then Swedish/Norwegian and Karin Hauger questions loomed large for Lasson, who king, Oscar I. Their economic reality, how- Listening to Ladies: An interview with 7–8 would build her own artistic life on her own ever, was tight, in line with others in their elite Elisabeth Blair terms. 2 social positions. 3 Lasson’s autobiography Slik New releases and publications 9, 16 var det dengang That’s How It Was Then Childhood and Youth ( ), In Review 10–15 gives a picture of a woman who was driven to Bokken Lasson was born in 1871 and lived make her own way in the world and, above all, her formative years in a rare peaceful and to support herself economically. “To be inde- creative time in European history. La Belle pendent, earn my own money, that was my Epoque, the time period between the end of goal and my most ardent wish.” 4 And: “I the Franco/Prussian war and the beginning of don’t want to be dependent on anyone. So, WWI (1870–1914) was unique in Europe’s work! Become something!” she admonished war-torn history. The Industrial Revolution, herself. 5 The Kapralova Society Journal Page 2 Bokken Lasson There were 10 children in the Lasson family – 8 girls and 2 boys. Searching for Financial Independence All of Lasson’s sisters were feminists, despite their father’s conser- In her constant search to make something of herself, to work vatism. The visitors to the Lasson home (and the girls’ marriage and to support herself economically, Bokken had tried differ- prospects) belonged to the artistic, literary and political Norwegian ent paths. Teaching did not appeal to her. She tried a job elite, people who, by and large, embraced the new, bohemian anti- sewing ties, but she had no talent for sewing. Being a phar- establishment conventions of the time. Bokken herself felt buffeted macist was one of the few professions available to women by the times and contrasting opinions she was presented with. She around the turn of the 20th century. Bokken took the neces- describes herself at that time: sary exams in Latin and math, and in 1890, at the age of 19, I was born a cotton ball and had mostly adhered to she was employed at Løve Apoteket (The Lion Pharmacy). other peoples’ tastes and opinions, in part not to The discipline was very strict, and Lasson eventually anger them (to please them) and in part because I “concluded that marriage was more attractive than a career as didn’t have any meanings and convictions of my a pharmacist.” 10 own. 6 Several people around her felt she should go into theatre and drama, perhaps opera or operetta. In Bokken’s opinion, The dilemma for the Lasson girls was that they still lived in a she was not at all sure that operetta was a genre worthy of world where women had few social rights. Lasson writes with a being called art. 11 This is one of the first indications we get tender fondness about the old-fashioned standards of her own of her conflicting feelings between popular and classical mu- mother, and she writes with sarcasm about the many famous mod- sic. An operetta was ‘light’ opera, no heavy drama or con- ern radical men and their traditional wives and families. 7 She also flicts, just pure entertainment. Bokken wondered if the func- expressed an understanding of expectations for sons and daughters tion of the music was to entertain, to amuse, not necessarily during her childhood and youth: to engage deeper emotions and higher thoughts, could it pos- [E]everything was of course different and more sibly be art? Lasson’s feelings about music having to fit into complex and worrisome concerning daughters than an established mold of what is considered art is still a current sons. Young girls were generally just meant to be topic of discussion amongst artists and musicians. married and be good housewives and mothers to as The only path for a respectable upper-class woman who many children as our father in heaven would send wanted to pursue music was Western art music. Opera could them. If they got as much as one spot on their repu- be considered, but, for most women of the 19th and 20th tation . then their future was quite unsure. Not to centuries, musical choices were limited to small, appropri- mention if they should encounter such an unthink- ately female genres such as piano compositions and art able shame as to have a child before they were mar- songs. Perhaps a chamber work for piano and strings would ried! Then they simply had no future – just a past.8 be acceptable for female composers. Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Agathe Backer, and Nina Grieg have all com- Sons should, according to all tradition, get an education as good posed in this tradition. Operatic arias or art songs performed as the family could manage to pay for. But the daughters of good at home for the family or in front of an ‘appropriate’ audi- families, who were too ‘elevated’ to work in a shop or too weak to ence were also socially acceptable for female singers from dig in the earth, had very few options. Bokken wrote: the upper social strata. Our father knew no other solution than to protect But, as Lasson claimed, singing was the only profession his daughters from danger by forbidding them eve- she could imagine for herself. Father Lasson was adamantly rything. No ice skating, no country excursions, and against any of his children becoming artists or musicians. not the unfeminine skiing. Everything was forbid- Public stage performances for one of his daughters were den, but could everything really be wrong? We [the completely unacceptable: “My father could not imagine al- sisters] pondered the question. And the solution was lowing me to pursue an education that would lead to public that we took both the choice and the responsibility performances.” 12 However blustery father Lasson appeared, ourselves. 9 he always supported his children and eventually he consented to voice lessons for Bokken, but only in the Western art mu- This level of keen speculation and determination was going to be- sic tradition. come a hallmark of Lasson’s life. However much of a ‘cotton ball’ Women’s role in society is a striking topic here. A proper Bokken Lasson may have felt herself to be as a child, her personal female in Western Europe at the beginning of the 20th cen- life became far from traditional, and her musical life was about to tury did not venture out of the framework of küchen, kinder be the catalyst for the emergence of a budding entrepreneur. and kirche (kitchen, children, church). There was an enter- The Kapralova Society Journal Page 3 Norwegian Feminist, Artist and Entrepreneur tainment path open for women that was modeled after the Ger- Not that I thought I knew anything really, but I had man singing ideal: a proper, beautiful, modestly dressed woman always sung, singing was in a way a part of my with exquisite manners and mannerisms.