l. Reisenhofer as Hilda.
In London it was first performed at the Trafalgar Square Theatre (now
the Duke of York's) on February 20, 1893, under the direction of Mr.
Herbert Waring and Miss Elizabeth Robins, who played Solness and Hilda.
This was one of the most brilliant and successful of English Ibsen
productions. Miss Robins was almost an ideal Hilda, and Mr. Waring's
Solness was exceedingly able. Some thirty performances were give in all,
and the play was reproduced at the Opera Comique later in the season,
with Mr. Lewis Waller as Solness. In the following year Miss Robins
acted Hilda in Manchester. In Christiania and Copenhagen the play was
produced on the same evening, March 8, 1893; the Copenhagen Solness
and Hilda were Emil Poulsen and Fru Hennings. A Swedish production,
by Lindberg, soon followed, both in Stockholm and Gothenburg. In Paris
_Solness le constructeur_ was not seen until April 3, 1894, when it
was produced by "L'OEuvre" with M. Lugne-Poe as Solness. The company,
sometimes with Mme. Suzanne Despres and sometimes with Mme. Berthe
Bady as Hilda, in 1894 and 1895 presented the play in London, Brussels,
Amsterdam, Milan, and other cities. In October 1894 they visited
Christiania, where Ibsen was present at one of their performances, and
is reported by Herman Bang to have been so enraptured with it that he
exclaimed, "This is the resurrection of my play!" On this occasion Mme.
Bady was the Hilda. The first performance of the play in America took
place at the Carnegie Lyceum, New York, on January 16, 1900, with
Mr. William H. Pascoe as Solness and Miss Florence Kahn as Hilda.
The performance was repeated in the course of the same month, both at
Washington and Boston.

In England, and probably elsewhere as well, _The Master Builder_
produced a curious double effect. It alienated many of the poet's
staunchest admirers, and it powerfully attracted many people who had
hitherto been hostile to him. Looking back, it is easy to see why this
should have been so; for here was certainly a new thing in drama, which
could not but set up many novel reactions. A greater contrast could
scarcely be imagined than that between the hard, cold, precise outlines
of _Hedda Gabler_ and the vague mysterious atmosphere of _The Master
Builder_, in which, though the dialogue is sternly restrained within
the limits of prose, the art of drama seems for ever on the point of
floating away to blend with the art of music. Substantially, t