Jeanette Wässelius

Marie Jeanette Wässelius (23 August 1784 – 5 December 1853), commonly known as Wässelia or Mamsell Wässelia, was a Swedish opera singer, court singer, and actress, the leading prima donna of the Swedish Opera during the Napoleonic age in the first decades of the 19th century and sister of the international opera star Justina Casagli. She was an associé of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Jeanette Wässelius was born in Stockholm; her father worked as a tapestry manufacturer. She was accepted as a student at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1794 at the age of ten, and from this date active as a child actor in the plays directed by Anne Marie Milan Desguillons in Dramatens elevskola and in smaller roles at the main productions.

She was given a contract and appointed premier actress in 1800, after which she came to be considered one of the most promising within her field and as the successor of the prima donna Caroline Frederikke Müller. During the closure of the Opera in 1806, she was employed at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, which was no problem for her, as she was fully capable also as a dramatic actor in talking parts; she was said to unite a good singing voice with an equally good talent as an actor at the dramatic stage, and when the Opera was opened again in 1809, she took the place as the leading lady at the operatic stage, just as Carolina Kuhlman was the leading lady of the dramatic stage. She was appointed court singer in 1815 and elected as an associé to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1817.

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