Harald Scharff

Harald Scharff (20 February 1836 – 3 January 1912) was a danseur associated with the Royal Danish Theatre in the mid-19th century who succeeded August Bournonville as the Danish ballet's principal male dancer upon the latter's retirement from the stage. Scharff's physical handsomeness and his flamboyant dance style brought him great acclaim, and his performances in Bournonville's Flower Festival in Genzano and Napoli were triumphs.

Scharff was an intimate friend (possibly a lover in the early 1860s) of the poet Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen's "The Snowman" is believed to have been inspired by their relationship. Scharff first met Andersen when the latter was in his fifties. The two were, at the very least, close friends for a time and Andersen was clearly infatuated. It is hard to tell if their relationship was truly sexual, though Andersen's journals imply that it was so. Scharff had various dinners alone with Andersen and his gift of a silver toothbrush to the poet on his fifty-seventh birthday marked their relationship as incredibly close.

Their relationship eventually cooled and Scharff became engaged to Camilla Petersen, a fellow dancer, but married Elvida Møller in 1874. Scharff's career came to a sudden halt in 1871 when he chipped a kneecap during rehearsal. He turned to acting without extraordinary success and died in 1912.

In 1857, the 21-year-old Scharff was on holiday in Paris with his 28-year-old Copenhagen housemate, the actor Lauritz Eckardt when he first met fellow Dane Hans Christian Andersen. The poet was returning to Copenhagen via Paris following a visit to Charles Dickens in England. Scharff and Andersen toured Notre-Dame de Paris together. Scharff was a highly regarded artist in Denmark, having succeeded August Bournonville as principal male dancer at the Royal Ballet. Following his retirement, Bournonville described Scharff as “full of life and imagination... he is undoubtedly the finest lover we have had since I left!" Scharff and his housemate were members of a circle of young, unmarried men associated with the Royal Theatre—a circle which Jonas Collin, the grandson of Andersen's first benefactor in Copenhagen despised, expressing his loathing and disgust in letters to Andersen in the early 1860s.

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