Peer Gynt birthplace, where Ibsen claims he found inspiration for the character "Peer Gynt", and is regarded by many as the most authentic version. The play is performed by professional actors from the national theater institutions, and nearly 80 local amateur actors. The music to the play is inspired by the original theatre music by Edvard Grieg - the "Peer Gynt suite". The play is one of the most popular theater productions in Norway, attracting more than 12,000 people every summer. The festival also holds the Peer Gynt Prize, which is a national Norwegian honor prize given to a person or institution
Peer Gynt (Grieg) ""Peer Gynt" progresses slowly," he wrote to a friend in August 1874, “and there is no possibility of having it finished by autumn. It is a terribly unmanageable subject.” "The more he saturated his mind with the powerful poem, the more clearly he saw that he was the right man for a work of such witchery and so permeated with the Norwegian spirit," his wife wrote of him and his music. Even though the première was a "triumphant success", it prompted Grieg to complain bitterly that the Swedish management of the theatre had given him specifications as to the duration