Acting Career
After the war in 1946 Artmane moved to Riga, and began her studies at the Daile Theatre Second Studio, eventually staying there as member of the troupe for the next 50 years. At the very beginning of her acting career she made the inevitable sacrifices, such as abandoning her favorite countryside, her cows, and changing her first name to Vija, upon a hint from her teacher and for artistic reasons. From 1946 to 1949 Artmane studied acting under the tutelage of the Latvian theatre director Eduards Smiļģis, the original founder of the troupe. From 1949 - 1998 Artmane was the leading star of the troupe at the Daile Theatre in Riga. She played her best stage roles under the directorship of Smiļģis. Her most memorable stage works were such classic roles as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1953), and Ophelia in Hamlet among other Shakespeare plays. Artmane also created important roles in Latvian plays such as Indulis and Ārija and Fire and Night under the direction of the National Actor of Latvia Rainis. She was critically acclaimed for her stage works in Russian plays, such as her passionate performance as Tolstoy's heroine Anna Karenina; she also played in Tolstoy's War and Peace, in Gogol's Dead Souls, and other classic Russian plays. After the death of Smiļģis, in 1966, Artmane gradually switched to contemporary plays, but she also continued to perform some of her classic stage roles during the 1970s and 1980s.
From 1998 to 2000 she worked with the New Riga Theatre. There she appeared in the title role in a stage production of The Queen of Spades based on the eponymous short story by Alexander Pushkin.
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