The origin of Johanna Löfblad does not seem to be known. Her original named was Embeck or Enbäck.
Bollhuset Johanna Embeck made her debut at the Swedish national Opera Theatre in
Bollhuset in
Stockholm in the 1747–48 season as the
nymph Chlorix in the
opera comique Syrinx by
Peter Lindahl or
Lars Lalin with music by
Johan Ohl, opposite
Elisabeth Lillström (Syrinx),
Peter Lindahl (
Harlequin),
Petter Stenborg (Philemon), Trundman (Sylvanus) and
Elisabeth Olin (Astrild). She was one of the stars of the actors of the theater, which was the first and only Swedish language theater, founded only ten years prior to her debut. She was a member of the board of twelve directors which was formed by the actors themselves to manage the theater, and one of four women directors alongside Elisabeth Lillström, Maria Margareta Fabritz and Sophia Catharina Murman. From the 1760 contract, they were also allowed to occasionally make their own tours, in a smaller scale, with their own acting company and a puppet theater on the Stenborg theater privilege, and in 1768, Petter Stenborg sued Jean Löfblad for having broken the terms of his contract by not sharing the profit made by the tours of him and his spouse in the Stenborg privilege. The 1768 case provides an unusual insight into the inner life of the Stenborg Company. Petter Stenborg claimed that Jean Löfblad hid the profit "with all kinds of cunning" even though Stenborg "allowed his [Löfblad's] wife to lift her salary even during her childbirths, in accordance with the contract and in acknowledgement to her talents, but still she is just as difficult to deal with as her husband, who is even so powerful as to influence his wife..." Stenborg won the case but the Löfblad couple still remained in his troupe, being the stars among his actors. In 1774 Johanna Löfblad was widowed when her spouse died unexpectedly while getting ready for a performance, and a performance was given to her benefit "as a support for her in her poor condition." She continued to be active in the Stenborg Company when they performed in the
Humlegårdsteatern in Stockholm between 1773 and 1780.
Later career By the time the Stenborg Company finally found a permanent theater building in the
Eriksbergsteatern in Stockholm in 1780, she was no longer given main parts in the plays, but was still a popular actress, now used mostly in the numerous supporting roles of old women. She continued with this when the Stenborg Company moved in to the
Stenborg Theatre in 1784. When the
Det besynnerliga spektaklet ('Odd Spectacle') was arranged by the dramatic
Didrik Björn in the season of 1790-91, in which the actors of the theater expressed their appreciation of the audience in the shape of their most popular roles, Johanna Löfblad did so in the character of Gertrud from
Njugg spar, a role she had first made in the 1784–85 season. Johanna Löfblad retired after the 1795-96 season, after having had the longest career of all the actors of the original national theater of Bollhuset, as well as any other 18th-century Swedish actor, male or female. She had her own apartment in the building of the Stenborg Theater and was apparently supported by
Carl Stenborg. In 1799, however, the Stenborg Theater was closed and Carl Stenborg himself countered economic troubles, and she lived her last years in a poor house in Stockholm, where she died. == References ==