Dagens Nyheter 150816
By: MATILDA GUSTAVSSON
As Kristina från Duvemåla Helen Sjöholm has made a lot of people live the part of emigrant Swedes’ lives. Today she performs at DN’s big opening concert in the green, in front of the Maritime Museum. In a conversation with Matilda Gustavsson she talks about the popularity, politics – and about reluctantly bowing to her voice.
[…]
– My expression was not a dream, not so much of a choice.
Like you bowed to your voice?
– One should never bow to the expectations of others, but partly for the art… Yes, now I say it: art for art’s sake. I have a strong and kind of storytelling expression, although I have often wished that I could be cooler.
[…]
She grew up in Sundsvall, in a working class neighborhood, and used to sing in her father’s sheet metal workshop in the evenings.
– The echo among the plates was powerful and the voice bounced around by itself, almost detached from me. I’ve always quite well enjoyed to be alone, not had best friends or been in the middle of a gang. And I’m sensitive: take in vibes and can have a difficulty defending myself against them – so I clear myself through music. Singing is my therapy and that was how I handled being fourteen, being fifteen years old.
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To find the musical’s [Kristina från Duvemåla] leads was a huge apparatus and auditions were conducted across the country with thousands of applicants. Helen Sjöholm proceeded – on and on.
– I got a cassette tape with some songs to take home and towards the end I got to see parts of the script, that until the last moment was not complete. I remember so clearly an empty space in the manuscript paper where it just said “Kristina doubts God”.
Which later became the song “Du måste finnas”?
– Yes, that song. For me, for my voice, Kristina was a heavenly timing, such a lucky star.
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Preparing for the role, when she tried to understand who Kristina was, she brought a lot of inspiration from her own grandmother Elsa.
– She was from a village in the north in the old peasant society, unlike my father’s mother who was a city girl. My maternal grandmother lived in the village until she died and her existence occurred in a small place. I used her motivations; the love of the earth where she was born, the natural confidence. For Kristina it was about God, my grandmother founded it in where she came from. But it was the same pride and it made her so strong, even if it also could express itself ugly. Stingy.
Just like with Kristina.
– Absolutely. In that strong identity is also the condemnation and fear against those who violate the norm. Like how Ulrika in Västergöl is seen as pariah. And in Kristina is the subservience of being poor. I remember how my proud grandmother could suddenly back away. She became apologetic and self-effacing when someone from the town appeared, someone “classier”.
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How did you feel when Kristina was over?
– Awful. A feeling that everything was over. How could I go on after this? At the same time I found my way back to my earlier position that it wasn’t the end of the world. I’m not an artist to my fingertips, only when I’m on stage. Otherwise I’m a mother – but I would not be a good mother if I didn’t work as well.
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The film [Så som i himmelen] was seen by over a million Swedes at the cinema and “Gabriellas sång” was on the Swedish charts for sixtyeight weeks.
– I love that song, I mean it every time. It’s carried by the collective being able to strengthen the individual person, that you can gain the strength to break patterns. “Gabriellas sång” means different things to different people. Some have said that it was important to get out of a depression, or made them dare to change jobs.
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Isn’t there something political beneath the surface of all of your major roles?
– Well, in a way. In Kristina, of course. And throughout the spring I have every night been singing the chorus “Alone is not strong, alone is so weak – so if not you, then not me”, she says about the musical “Livet är en schlager” which played to sold-out houses.
– That, if something, is political, and my deepest belief. That line is important, and I can recognize the feeling from when I sang Wiehe at the ABF-meetings as a fourteen year old. There is probably a connection there.
[…]
(Due to copyright reasons the entire interview cannot be reproduced)