Charles Langlois was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 who spent a large part of his career in Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, where he was to play an important part in Swedish theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 history as the originator of the first national theatre in Sweden, and its first director. He was also a composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Life and career

Charles Langlois was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and became an actor early in life with a travelling theatre troupe who toured the French countryside. He married his colleague, Jeanne Perrette le Chevalier, with whom he had a son, Alexandre, in 1718.

Moving to Sweden

In 1723, Langlois and his family arrived in Sweden as members of the troupe, which was hired to perform at the theatre of Bollhuset

Bollhuset

Bollhuset, also called ', ', and ' at various times, was the name of the first theater in Stockholm, Sweden; it was the first Swedish theater and the first real theater building in the whole of Scandinavia. The name "" means "The Ball House", and it was built in 1627 for ball sports and used in...

 in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

 under the leadership of
Jean-Baptiste Landé

Jean-Baptiste Landé

Jean-Baptiste Landé was a French ballet dancer, active in Sweden, Denmark and Russia. He is the founder of the Russian Ballet Mariinsky Ballet....

. His speciality was playing kings and peasants within French theatre, and Scaramouche

Scaramouche

Scaramouche is a historical novel by Rafael Sabatini, originally published in 1921.It was subsequently adapted into a play by Barbara Field and into feature films, first in 1923 starring Ramón Novarro, Scaramouche , and a remake in 1952 with Stewart Granger. A romantic adventure, Scaramouche tells...

 on the Italian stage, while his wife took the parts of queens and other characters. He wrote a libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 to celebrate the birthday of the Swedish queen

Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden

Ulrika Eleonora or Ulrica Eleanor , also known as Ulrika Eleonora the Younger, was Queen regnant of Sweden from 5 December 1718 to 29 February 1720, and then Queen consort until her death....

 in 1724, and performed in two such libretti for the queen as Pan

Pan (mythology)

Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...

, with his wife playing Premiére Bergére in 1726 and 1727. In 1727, he became involved in a conflict with Landé when he launched performances on Bollhuset whithout Landés approval.

When the French troupe left Sweden in 1727, the Langlois family stayed. In 1730, he was given permission to trade in luxury goods, although this would actually be run by his wife, who was quite successful as a businesswoman

Businessperson

A businessperson is someone involved in a particular undertaking of activities for the purpose of generating revenue from a combination of human, financial, or physical capital. An entrepreneur is an example of a business person...

. Langlois himself was a French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 teacher

Language education

Language education is the teaching and learning of a foreign or second language. Language education is a branch of applied linguistics.- Need for language education :...

. Both he and his wife were engaged on different occasions as agents to hire a new troupe from France, Germany or the Netherlands, and in 1731, a German troupe was hired instead, though it is not confirmed if this should be contributed to their efforts.

The first national theatre in Sweden

When the first Swedish national theatre was founded in Bollhuset

Bollhuset

Bollhuset, also called ', ', and ' at various times, was the name of the first theater in Stockholm, Sweden; it was the first Swedish theater and the first real theater building in the whole of Scandinavia. The name "" means "The Ball House", and it was built in 1627 for ball sports and used in...

 in 1737, there was a need for an experienced professional to organise the whole affair, and Langlois was hired as their director, a job for which he had great enthusiasm. The theatre was temporarily closed in the 1738-39 season, and Langlois became one of the most eager participants in the task of persuading the government to open it again. When it did, in 1739, he was replaced as director, but in 1740, when the government declared the theatre a private venture, the actors themselves formed a board of directors

Board of directors

A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

, with Langlois as the chairman

Chair (official)

The chairman is the highest officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office is typically elected or appointed by the members of the group. The chairman presides over meetings of the assembled group and conducts its business in an...

. He shared this position with Johan Palmberg and Peter Lindahl

Peter Lindahl

Peter Lindahl , was a Swedish stage actor and theatre director. He belonged to the most known of the pioneer generation of actors at the first Swedish theatre....

 as assistant director

Assistant director

The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...

s, as he himself was considered too emotional to be diplomatic

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...

.

He was only used as an actor when the theatre offered performances in the French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, as he did not speak Swedish very well; the Langlois couple played the main parts in La Médée et le Jason in 1740, and in La scene de reconnaissance in 1748. Langlois and his wife were also active as French language teachers; him for the page

Page (servant)

A page or page boy is a traditionally young male servant, a messenger at the service of a nobleman or royal.-The medieval page:In medieval times, a page was an attendant to a knight; an apprentice squire...

s of the royal court, his wife for girls from the nobility.

When the Swedish troupe was fired by the royal house after the 1753-54 season and replaced with a new French troupe, Langlois sold his share

Share (finance)

A joint stock company divides its capital into units of equal denomination. Each unit is called a share. These units are offered for sale to raise capital. This is termed as issuing shares. A person who buys share/shares of the company is called a shareholder, and by acquiring share or shares in...

s in the theatre. He was active in the French troupe, where he played some modest parts, until 1755, when he retired. He believed that the closure of the first national theatre was temporary, and in 1757, he made an attempt to get royal permission to open it again, but he did not succeed.

Langlois was not the only French immigrant of the 1720s who was to contribute to the first national theatre; Jean Delpergat was to be its decorator, Jean Marquard its dancing-master and the dancer Gabriel Senac had been a member of the French troupe of the 1720s, and the last was to be a part of the new French troupe until the 1757-1758 season. The situation was to be the same when the second (and lasting) Swedish opera, theatre and ballet was founded by Gustav III of Sweden, and French tradition was to be very strong in Swedish theatre culture until the 19th century.