Currently in the news, sensational accounts of the relationship between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. So he kept making her pregnant so he could "manipulate" her and further his own ambitions ? in the days before birth control, most people had huge families, even if they couldn't afford to keep them well, an accusation that cannot be lodged against the Queen and her husband, who came from the princely line of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The House of Hannover had lucked out in 1714, when George became King of England. Victoria and Albert weren't so far apart, socially. Being the only surviving issue of a family not known for statesmanlike virtue, she could have been in a vulnerable position. Albert made Victoria as much as she made him. Without his visionary ideals, the Victorian Age might not have become so associated with the cultural values so central to German intellectuals of the era. How much worse off we'd be had Victoria married a gammon ?
As for their sex life, they both enjoyed themselves without restraint. When told she shouldn't have more children, her response was heartfelt. "Am I no more to have fun in bed"? As for thre notion that post natal depression proves anything, that's nonsense. It can happen to anyone. In any case, it is an insult to Victoria to suggest that Victoria was too stupid to have her own mind. Lie our present Queen, she was no pushover : she read and understood what her governments presented her with. She refused, for example, to outlaw sex between women. It wasn't because she thought women were asexual but rather that she couldn't imagine getting it off without a man. So let's stuff these ideas of Victoria as victim. Millions of women are abused and mistreated. These are the women who need our support, in the real world beyond TV and media sensationalism. Insult Victoria, and you're insulting all women who have managed against the odds.
Apropos Victoria and Albert, I'm looking forward to Prom 40 on 16th August, marking the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth. Ádám Fischer conducts The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Mendelssohn, Piano Concerto no 1 in G minor (Stephen Hough) and Symphony no 3 "The Scottish", with Arthur Sullivan's suite on Victoria and Merrie England and a set of songs by Prince Albert himself (Alessandro Fisher, tenor). G&S for the crowds, but Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as an insight into the private world of Victoria and Albert. Incidentally, Victoria and Clara Schumann were both born the same year. Both of them had numerous children, and were reasonably happy (Robert and Cara kept sex diaries). And both of them were pioneers, created careers almost without precedent.
Morfydd Owen, the Welsh composer once a "Forgotten Icon", now justly respected, with recordings like Portrait of a Lost Icon (please read more here) and the premiere of Nocturne at the BBC Proms (please read more here).Now she's a media celebrity, with a made for TV biopic in her honour, available HERE from SC4 in Welsh with English subtitles if you watch on BBC i-player.
The biopic seems aimed at general audiences with a focus on Owen's marriage to Ernest Jones rather than on her music. The film is period romance, with a dark edge. Many marriages, especially at that time, were based on the abuse of power, and this was almost certainly not a match of equals. Morfydd is portayed as neurotic, on the verge of a breakdown, her last illness as much mental as physical. Given that Jones was a colleague of Sigmund Freud, he would have thought in terms of penis envy and hysteria, a"female problem" shifting blame onto the patient rather than the trauma. So why would he marry a woman who clearly had public status and a career ? The circumstances of Owen's death are mysterious, and would probably now be investigated by the police and General Medical Council. Why did Jones to operate on his wife on his own instead of driving her to hospital ? Perhaps it was something more scandalous than appendicitis. Jones was undoubtedly manipulative, but whether he was evil, we are in no position to know. The film accepts Freudian assumptions - Jones's point of view - while depicting him in a sinister light.
But what was Morfydd's side of the story ? She was not naive, nor a natural victim. She moved in avant garde circles, meeting D H Lawrence, Ezra Pound and Prince Yusupov, one of the conspirators who assassinated Rasputin, and was well aware of what being a "New Woman" meant. It's possible that she married Jones not just for security but becasuse she was curious about the newness of his profession. Her sultry "gypsy" looks were exotic. At 25, she wasn't marrying young like so many women did at the time. The biopic doesn't really develop Owen's personality and background. To have created the career in a male dominated hierarchy shows strength of chracater. To have been a staunch churchgoer - and a possibly what we'd now call a nationalist - among the fast set in London show that she wasn't afraid of being herself whatever others around her might do. Strong women do stay in abusive relationships but there's evidence that Owen realized early on that the marriage was a mistake. She was probably more unsure than she seemed on the surface, but again, we have no means of speculation what might have been had she lived.
Though the film includes clips of Owen's music, the focus is more on the costume drama aspects of the tragedy. But it would make a great difference if her music received more detailed attention. Owen's music "was" her life. Owen left some 200 surviving scores by the time of her death at the age of 26, a considerable output by any standards. She was prolific, producing a wide range of works, including large orchestral pieces, chamber music, songs and works for piano, and works for the stage. Even as a student, first in Cardiff and later in London, she was highly regarded. To this day, Owen's tally of prizes awarded by the Royal Academy of Music remains unrivalled. Though she was not part of the male English Establishment, Owen needs no special pleading. Her music stands on its own merits,highly individual and original. Her work was published in the Welsh Hymnal when she was 16.
Unlike far too many supposedly "lost" composers, Owen's substantial reputation doesn't rest on sentimentality or gender alone, but is based on substantial evidence. Owen's connections in London gave her an entrée to what was happening in the arts on an international level - she heard Stravinsky, and knew about Debussy, Ravel and other developments. Owen's Nocturne (mentioned here) is superb, as good as anything by other composers in Britain at the time, many of whom were much older and better placed than she was. Ralph Vaughan Williams found himself creatively after he went to Paris, aged 37. What might Owen have achieved, if she'd lived longer and had the right opportunities ? One day no doubt we'll get a more developed portrait of Morfydd Oween, but until then, this biopic will raise greater interest in this most remarkable of women.
Lili'oukalani, (1838-1917) not "forgotten" the last Queen of independent Hawaii, not "forgotten" at all, for she was and remains a symbol of Hawaiian identity, an issue still alive today. Lili'oukalani was well educated, accomplished and well travelled, who believed in enlightened "Victorian values" of serving her people. "From time immemorial",she wrote "the Hawaiian people have always been lovers of poetry and song"."To compose was as natural for me as to breathe".
Although Hawaii had an elected government and its monarchs were popular, the sugar and pineapple barons from the United States wanted control. Capitalism prevailed. Hawaii was annexed. Lili'oukalani did not want violence, but was arrested and sentenced to death. She was reprieved but served five years in prison In prison,she continued to write. "Music", she wrote in her memoirs "remains the source of the greatest consolation". She never gave in, challenging the annexation through the courts until her death, one hundred years ago. Though she couldn't defeat colonialism, her defiant spirit lives on in her legacy of music and intelligence.
Lili'oukalani's song Aloha Oe, written in 1873, is so famous that everyone knows it, even if they know nothing else about Hawaii. With its ukulele accompaniment and swaying rhythms it fits tourist stereotypes though it reflects traditional Hawaiian music. The song was written in 1878, when her brothers were Kings, and after her marriage.Aloha Oe is so famous that it's ubiquitous, but she wrote a lot more. Her songs are published and performed in Hawaiian circles. Yet she shouldn't be seen merely as a niche composer. Her music shows the influence of 19th century art music,with which she was familiar, for she lived briefly in Europe and clearly had access to scores and the music of her time. The clip I've added below was made in 1904, so the "western" song aspects are probably affected by the taste of the time,ie."missionary"song.. There is a MUCH better version on YT with Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. Lili'oukalani was a fascinating personality,worth reading about. There's also a good documentary, if you search on YT.
Die Geier-Wally, or "Vulture Wally", the novel from 1875 by by Wilhelmine von Hillern (1836-1916). It's best known to many from the opera La Wally (1892) by Alfredo Catalani. I've been watching the film version, made in 1921, a smash hit in the post-1918 era. Perhaps it was popular because it portrays a woman who can't be tamed -- a free spirit whom the inhibitions of society cannot restrain. Wally represents the "New Woman" of the modern world. The photo at right comes from the frontispiece of the 1921 reprint of the novel.
Die Geier-Wally is not a true Bergfilm like Arnold Fanck's Die heilige Berg, made only 5 years later, technologically and artistically a far greater work of art, but it's interesting and apparently much closer to the novel than to the opera. Walburga Stromminger was a fearless teenager, a tomboy as tough as a mountain goat. The villagers on the alpine valley don't like a vulture, which might presumably attack their herds. Wally volunteers to go get it. She's lowered down a steep cliff by rope and beats off the giant bird (2 metre wing span) with a dagger. The vulture fights back because it's guarding its nest, so perhaps it wasn't an evil spirit. Anyway, from thence Walburga is known as Geier-Wally, or Das Geier-Mädchen, the Vulture Maiden. In the film, she's next seen making her First Communion in a pretty dress, with a fancy cake and flowers , conventional feminine conformity. But then she climbs a tree, most unladylike. She also falls hopelessly in love with Bären-Joseph, who's killed a big bear that was supposedly a danger to the community. Wally's father, the Höchstbauer, is the richest man in town and wants Wally to marry Vincenz Gellner. Wally, who can chop wood better than a man, accidentally knocks Gellner out, and is thrown out of the house by her father. She 's also mad at Joseph who seems attracted to an outsider, Afra, so she storms off to live alone in the mountains, like a Berggeisr or mountain spirit of legend. Only when she's driven by desperation does she seek the company of humans.
When Old Stromminger dies, Wally returns as lady of the Höchstbauer manor. She's dressed in fancy velvets but has no illusions about the people around her, who once were so happy to condemn her. A bull runs amok and Joseph is gored trying to tame it. A village celebration is held. In front of everyone Joseph dares Wally to resist a kiss. The pair stalk each other until Wally collapses. It's a cruel prank, for which Wally wants revenge. Gellner chases Joseph into the hills, where he falls into a ravine. Guilt-stricken Wally descends into the abyss and saves him. Afra, it turns out, is his sister. Wally and Josph embrace, lovers at last. Consider the psycho-sexual and violent undertones and the element of class war ! The Romantiker wasn't "romantic". Wilhelmine von Hillern must have been an interesting person, though she lived an ostensibly upper middle class existence.
What's also interesting about this film which was made by Gloria-Filme Catalani in Berlin, is that Henny Porten, who plays Wally, was also,part of the production team. Unlike the director Ewald André Dupont and designer Paul Leni, who both ended up in Hollywood, Porten remained in Germany, making movies for UFA to protect her Jewish husband. Both survived the Third Reich. Leni's designs add a lot to the film, for he chooses dizzyingly Expressionist angles to accentuate the steepness of the mountains, and the predicament Wally faces. Although the interior scenes are detailed to the point of claustrophobia, the mountain scenes look "modern" in that Leni sets up shots of white snow background with jagged trees and rocks - virtues of B&W, which colour can't quite emulate.
It's 1929. Chinese viIlagers carry vegetables to market, suspended on long poles, traditional style. They have to hurry to grab a good pitch. An old lady stumbles behind. Suddenly, she's hit by a fancy modern car, even though the road is empty. The owner, a smart young man in western clothes, coming home from an all-night bender, tells the driver to move on, regardless. A peasant helps the old lady up, commiserating: "The rich is always like that". With this little vignette, a remarkable movie begins. Don't Change Your Husband 情海重吻 aka Kisses Once was made by the Great Lilium Picture studio. It was one of several Shanghai studios making films for Chinese audiences, dealing with issues of social change and modernization in the Republican period, Republican as in Chinese Republic, post 1912. Chinese cinema reflected the aspirations of a nation struggling to progress from feudal stagnation towards a better world. Very much in the Weimar spirit, although the challenges, in China, were even more extreme. Even the studio name "Great Lilium" is nationalistic, since the lily is one of the symbolic flowers of China, and regrows after lying dormant in the earth.
This film deals with the lives of very wealthy people indeed, who own cars and live in huge, fancy mansions decorated in sophisticated art deco. Even the older generation lives well - look at the props! Proper antiques, elaborate blackwood funiture, scroll paintings and embroideries , the high style of the prosperous merchant class. There was so much of it around then that the studio didn't need to use replicas.
The camera shifts to Shanghai, where workers flock like ants into western-style office buildings. Almost immediately, we see Wong Chi Ping, (Lynton Wong 王乃東) get fired for being late (a significant detail). That's no big deal to him because he's reasonably well off. .Look at his home with its Directoire and French tapestries! However, the maid finds a letter which implicates his wife in an extra-marital affair. Next, we're in the home of Chen Mong Tien, "a dissipated youth", (actor Tang Xinyiu 湯天綉), who often played a womanizer and sophisticate.
This time he's snared Mrs Wong, played by Lee Ya Ching (李霞卿 1912-98) who came from a prominent Cantonese family who supported Sun Yat-sen. They'd have personally known some of the 72 Martyrs killed by the Qing. From the age of 14, she was making movies, part of the Cantonese clique who helped set up the Shanghai film industry. Her film name was Lee dan-dan (which means "little bomb") a reference to her infant role in the Revolution of 1912). She played the maid to the heroine of The Romance of the West Chamber, the seminal blockbuster based on the famous Chinese classic, made in 1927 by the Father of Chinese Cinema, Lee Man-wai (read more here).
Lee was a horsewoman and one of the first women aviators in China, though not the only one (look up Hilda Yen) a stunt flier, who fell into San Francisco Bay and survived, and who raised funds for China during the Japanese War. A meme of amazons runs through Chinese film and culture - women who shoot guns, ride horses, use whips and cross dress, often the spoiled daughters of warlords. Don't Change Your Husband was somewhat risqué in that Lee played an adulteress who gets divorced. Shortly after the film was made, Lee married a Chinese diplomat, educated at the Sorbonne, and lived with him in Geneva (League of Nations) but divorced him not long after.
In Don't Change Your Husband , the wife demands a divorce so she can be with wastrel lover Chen. The two mothers face each other off, beautifully acted. The papers get signed in a lawyer's office, but the wife breaks down in tears. Then, as now, the lawyer grins, having made a handsome profit. Wastrel Chen wants ex Mrs Wong to smoke, drink and party around. There's a shockingly daring scene when she takes off her qi pao in front of him (and the camera) to put on a tarty new dress. But she isn't happy: she doesn't quite trust Chen. Meanwhile the ex is miserable, and looks lovingly at her wedding photo (where incidentally she's wearing a white veil, which is not traditional Chinese dress but a fashion adopted after Sun Yat Sen married Song Ching-ling in a western wedding gown). This is a silent movie, so the actors don't articulate in words. There's a long sequence in which Chi Ping smokes a pipe and looks morose. We guess his thoughts.
Now for some really spectacular scenes in the opulent mansion that is ex-Mrs Wong's family home. It's her father Mr Xie's birthday, and a huge party is being held - look at the lanterns, the feast, the acrobats, and the musicians, one of whom is a male singer, dressed as a woman, which was the norm then when women didn't go on stage. These are amazing sequences from an ethnographic point of view, utterly authentic because it was just as easy to use real musicians as to hire actors to play musicians. Mrs Xie, knowing that her daughter is still pining for her ex, concocts a ruse to bring Wong to the party. Ex-Mrs Wong asks boyfriend to go, and he storms out of his home in a rage. Overwhelmed with grief she takes an overdose.
Amazingly Mr Xie doesn't know about the divorce because he's been away at his lumber mills way out in the interior. He blames his own wife for the mess. Mr Xie goes to Mr Wong to ask him to see the daughter "I'll never have that Chen for a son in law". Older Mrs Wong stands up for her rights, a character as pugnacious as Lee Ya -ching in real life. The families return to Wong's relatively humble villa. The two mother sit resolutely back to back. Mr Xie says sagely: "We. must forget the past, but hope they (the young couple) will come to an understanding with a bright future." When ex Mrs awakes, she's so upset that she runs to the river and tries to drown herself. We can tell by the shape of the sails on the junks that the river is somewhere near Shanghai. Mr Wong chases after her and holds her in his arms. "I know you are repentant. It makes me love you all the more."
Is this a simple melodrama? Clearly mother-in-law Wong doesn't forgive, and Mr Xie's forbearance suggests he's a saint. But this is a very well acted (and designed) movie which tells us as much about modern China and its changing values. Enjoy the film below. You might also like The Orphan, HERE with different cast but also about the clash of modern and feudal values (also with fantastic visuals). Both with bilingual subtitles.
Alphonse Mucha : In Quest of Beauty, a major retrospective, comes to Britain. It will explore Mucha’s idea of beauty – the core principle underlying his
artistic philosophy. "Featuring works mainly from Mucha’s Paris period,
the exhibition will examine how Mucha’s distinctive style, popularly
known as 'le style Mucha' in Paris, evolved and became synonymous with
the international Art Nouveau style. The exhibition will also look at
how his artistic philosophy is reflected in the development of his work
beyond the ‘Art Nouveau’ period, with examples of works produced after
his return to the Czech lands in 1910."
"The exhibition will make
links between Mucha's work and philosophy and the Art Nouveau
environment and Aesthetic collection of the Russell-Cotes Museum. Sir
Merton Russell-Cotes's Bournemouth residence, built in the 'Art Nouveau'
style as a home for his Japanese and High Victorian art collections, is
an expression of the 'cult of beauty' - a notion celebrated by
followers of the Aesthetic Movement in Britain. It will provide a
fascinating spiritual backdrop to Mucha’s art."READ MORE HERE.
Mucha worked at a time when the lines between commercial art and fine art weren't quite so separate: think Toulouse Lautrec, Aubrey Beardsley. Mucha's art blends strong formal structure with elaborate inventive elements. Often his symbols come from Nature - the fertility of plants, the concept of constant growth and multiplication. The women are provocatively sensual, but unattainable fantasy. It's elaborate in a 19th century way, but with the freshness of 20th century sensibility. This, I think, creates an edgy tension which lifts it above the merely pictoral.
Mucha's son married Vitezslava Kapralova, the composer, about whom there's a lot on this site (follow the labels below) . Please read my article "Vitezslava Kapralova : Remarkable Woman, Remarkable Times", on the cultural renaissance in Czech culture between 1918 and 1938.
Remembering Cléoma Breaux Falcon (1905-41), and the music tradition she stood for, and the era in which she lived. Cléoma was a tiny little woman, barely five feet tall but what a personality! The Breaux family were the first Cajun musicians to be recorded, as soon as technology made it possible. The whole family was talented but Cléoma stood out, with her bright, clear voice and her assertive delivery. She toured in Cajun country and also appeared as far as California. Her career was cut short when she was run over by a car: for the last years of her life she was in excruciating pain, though she continued to sing and play when she could. In the photo, she's seen with her husband Joe Falcon, also a musician, and their adopted daughter, who used to dance at their gigs. Here's the classic Hip et taiau, (aka Hippy Tai o) still performed in various new forms, The video is a compilation, not of the lady herself. Please see my other posts on Women feisty by following the label below
Rare - Bessie Smith's only movie, in its entirety. It's a short from 1929 based around her hit St Louis Blues and features Louis Armstrong and a full orchestral arrangement, with chorus, created by W C Handy and Rosamond Johnson. Equally striking is the way it's made. The director, Dudley Murphy, doesn't sentimentalize.
Bessie Smith and Jimmy Mordecai are playing themselves, in the context of the song. Jimmy was a famous tap dancer who worked with the Cotton Club but later fell on hard times and fell off the radar. In the film, he's wearing an expensive sharp suit and hat - way classier than anyone else. A star! other men are pretty ordinary, one's a janitor, another a semi midget. A "yellow girl" (often a vamp in Blues mythology) steals money from some gamblers and passes it to Johnny. The moment Bessie walks in (at 4.22) the whole mood darkens. She's one powerful lady! But for Jimmy. she's abject . "I give you suits, I give you clothes", she says, imploringly. "Ah, women get out of my face" Hre says as he knocks her to the floor. He steps on her, he kicks her as he walks out the door. It's brutal and very physical.
Then the song starts (7.23) "Feeling tomorrow, like I do today, got to pack my bags, make my getaway". At first she's seated at a bar, getting drunk, singing without accompaniment. Then the band materializes, and the other customers in the bar sing the chorus, and the smart customers go about their business. Bessie's oblivious, though.
"St Louis woman wears a diamond ring, she leads that man around by her apron strings. If it weren't for powder and store-bought hair, that man I love he wouldn't go nowhere". Her voice takes on the harsh timbre of a saxophone - extremely expressive. Listen to the staccatpo in the chorus, beating her like a whip. The band plays on, the people dance, waiters twirl empty trays like showmen. In walks Johnny, strutting his stuff, doing a dance sequence – Mordecai was good!) He spots Bessie alone at the bar. They embrace. The band plays the tune, this time like a smootchy dance number. Jimmy puts his hands up Bessie's dress, feeling up her thigh. But he's stealing the cash strapped under her suspenders. He walks out: Bessie hardly notices. Perhaps she's dreaming ? She's not too drunk to sing.
Band and chorus dissolve into distortions, as if conflicting music is happening at once, textures going awry. "My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea, or he wouldn't have gone so far from me".
Beyoncé speaks more sense than Marin Alsop! "Gender Equality is a myth!" writes Beyoncé, in an article in The Shriver Report, a media initiative led by Maria Shriver (JFK's neice) that seeks to modernize America’s relationship to women. "It isn’t a
reality yet", says Beyoncé .... Equality will be achieved when men and women are granted equal pay and equal respect. Humanity requires both men and women, and we are equally
important and need one another. So why are we viewed as less than equal?
These old attitudes are drilled into us from the very beginning. We
have to teach our boys the rules of equality and respect, so that as
they grow up, gender equality becomes a natural way of life. And we have
to teach our girls that they can reach as high as humanly possible." (read the full report here)
When Marin Alsop became the first woman to conduct the BBC Last Night of the Proms, she said " I have to say I’m
still quite shocked that it can be 2013 and there can still be firsts for
women.” Millions of women the world over would not have been shocked in the least. They have to live with the day-to-day reality that glitzy events like the Last Night of the Proms mean very little if you earn a quarter of what men earn, if you get hired or get an education in the first place.
The media went wild in a frenzy of self-satisfaction because it was easy copy, and popular. Some reports were so fawning that they confirmed the idea that women get praise simply for being women. Gender equality won't come about until people genuinely don't care who is conducting, but how they conduct. And like it or not, classical music is middle-class art for middle-class people. Perhaps some of the world's poor and oppressed were watching but the victory would have seemed hollow in the light of real life experience. Even women who have worldly success, eg in the banking sector, know only too well how entrenched misogynistic attitudes are. So all the more respect to Beyoncé, who struggled hard to get where she is. She's rich, talented and famous but she still hasn't forgotten what life is like for millions of ordinary women. photo Sergio Savarese, Sao Paolo
Anyone who's ever entertained or been entertained ins small town America has come across the thriving native art form - Jell-o creativity! A packet of gelatine can unleash the creative demon in the most unliberated suburban Mom. Pink, green, blue, purple, orange and sulphur yellow. Objects formed in strange moulds, sometime with even stranger moulds embedded within. The wackier the flavour combination, the better - Heston Blumenthal has noithing on this uncelebrity sisterhood. HERE is an article about these unsung glories of the American kitchen. Europeans have no idea what they're missing !
Mainstrean creativity favours male dominated public genres, while women are relegated to the background. Literally, the kitchen. Obviously real equality would be better, but women made do with what they could. Far from being entirely cowed women created their own sphere. Rozsika Parker's seminal book The Subversive Stitch : Embroidery and the Making of The Feminine first published in the early 1980's has now been reissued in a new edition. Needlework gave women an outlet when they had few others. When Ellen Orford sings "Embroidery in Childhood" in Peter Grimes, you realize how much her dreams, too, have been thwarted by society.
So celebrate the fine art of American jell-o salads and desserts - the ephemeral creations of decades of anonymous women doing what they could to brighten their lives and please those around them. Someone should document their wit and humour - families all round must have photos of some forgotten feast or clippings from magazines that taught "home craft".
Courtesy of a friend, a tribute to the Art of Jell-o by William Bolcom
Today is Clara Schumann's 200th birthday. She may not be getting the publicity birthday boys like Wagner and Verdi are getting, or even the coverage given to mere striplings like Benjamin Britten (aged 99 and 10/12ths). But with all the fuss about the "first woman conductor at the BBC Proms", it is Clara whom we should honour.
Clara is a genuine icon in many ways. We will never know what she sounded like as pianist but she was one of the first mega-celebrity pianists, who filled houses all over Europe. Audiences who had heard Chopin and Lizst live loved her playing, which suggests that she was good, whatever her gender. And Brahms, who played well and had a good ear, loved her dearly. We may never know what she sounded like but if she'd had the support of recording companies, etc. she might be better known than she is. (In those days performers had to manage themselves without any system to back them up.)
She grew up in a strange, strained atmosphere. Her father denied her any contact with her mother or indeed with anyone he could not control. To marry Robert Schumann, she had to take her father to court in a case which shocked those who knew of it. That alone would make her someone to admire. Breaking out of an abusive situation is tough if that's all you've ever known, even now, but she had to face a patriarchal society much more rigid than we know And, she was nice to her Dad when he was old.
Clara lived to perform. She loved Robert dearly, but would rush back on tour as soon as her pregnancies ended. She wasn't the first female celebrity pianist even if we exclude Fanny Mendelssohn whose position placed her "above" society. But she was an artist with an independent career. People listened because she was good, not because she was a novelty. Robert wanted her to write music. She obliged him, but her real passion was playing. Every few years, there are attempts to promote her piano songs. Her greatest champion is Wolfgang Holzmair, whose 2002 recording of Clara's songswith Imogen Cooper is the best in the field. No comparison, although the songs are heard quite often. Holzmair's soft-grained voice suits them well, and he sings with sincerity, so the songs work, just about. The problem is that her heart wasn't in writing, but in performance. So when we honour Clara Schumann, we should honour her as a true pioneer, who achieved what she did without tokenism and media hype. Strange how those who make a fuss about "the first woman conductor" don't seem to have noticed Clara Schumann.So much for true feminism, which still has a long way to go.
It was good that Welsh National Opera brought Alban Berg's Lulu to Milton Keynes on a snowy evening. The colours in this staging were so lurid that the London scene came as a relief. That would be an interesting idea to develop, since in some ways Lulu has been seeking death all along. A much more obvious reason for the bright colours was that David Pountney and his design team (Johan Engels and Jeanne-Marie Lecca) were being faithful to the circus theme which sets the tone for the opera. "Hereinspaziert in die Menagerie". Actors with realistic looking animal masks filled the stage among uprights that looked like reels of film. This was a good reference to the theme of cinema, for film, even more so than circus, deals with illusion. And Lulu is an opera about illusion, where nothing is quite what it seems.
"There's so much to look at" exclaimed a lady behind me. "Good " said her husband, "we don't have to listen to that music" Again that's a valid point, for this Lulu was a good way of bringing modern music to audiences who think modern music is dangerous. They loved the show, which proves it was a success. Seduced by the colours, the animals, corpses hanging from meat hooks, girl on girl action and two scenes of in your face full frontal nudity, West End audiences would have loved this too. There's something to be said for that.
Because this Lulu is touring together with Janáček The Cunning Little Vixen and Puccini Madama Butterfly, it's not unreasonable to seek a common thread between the three operas. In his introduction, Pountney makes his concept clear. Berg and Janáček were writing in the same period, when proto-feminist ideas were gaining ground, and sexual freedom provoked challenge. Certainly this is the case with The Cunning Little Vixen, where Janáček explicitly equates the Vixen's personality with natural urges, justifying his own longing for Camila Stosslova who in real life held him at arm's length. I've written extensively on Janáček 's Dangerous Women and their subversive challenges. I like my Vixens with fangs! Yet Janáček's heroines are ultimately projections of the composer's own fantasies.
Lulu definitely has a liberation context, for women's rights were very much a part of the Munich Secessionist zeitgeist which was much more radical than the softer focus Viennese Secession. Read about Franziska zu Reventlow and follow the labels below for "Munich" and "women, feisty". This was the world that inspired Wedekind, Franz von Stuck, and later Straussand Brecht. Without Munich, we would not have Weimar Berlin. Lots on this site about Weimar, too, and the connections between Brecht and Berg. Plenty on Weimar film, too, which is relevant in any consideration of Lulu. See Mädchen in Uniform here. So I'm more than sympathetic with Pountney's basic approach.
Lulu does say she found herself while she was in prison without men, and Countess Geschwitz talks of studying law and helping women. Berg, whose own sister was a lesbian and a rebel, could have been tongue in cheek quoting quite a few women in that period.But is Lulu a real person or a projection of other people's fantasies? Is she even a sexual being ? She's had a traumatic life on the streets since she was 12. She is like an abused child who has learned that sex is a means of survival, not a pleasure. Her seductions are a form of aggression, not lust. She doesn't trust enough to love.What is her relationship to the decrepit Schilgoch, who like Berg is asthmatic? Not for nothing did the composer double Schilgoch with the Animal Tamer, and write in many references to composing and music.
Given Berg's obsessive compulsive fascination with patterns and secret clues, we can't take anything too literally. Lulu can be interpreted as a cryptic drama arising from musical abstraction. Krzysztof Warlikowski's recent Lulu with Barbara Hannigan and Christof Loy's much misunderstood ROH production access levels in this amazingly complex opera beyond anything in this WNO production.
Helene Berg may have guessed at the real danger in Berg's Third Act, which to my mind marks an almost revolutionary new phase in Berg's writing.The Paris scene, for example, starts with the "circus" imagery, but now extends to a wider political sphere. It doesn't depict prostitution per se, but the way society prostitutes itself in pursuit of illusion. The stock market scenario is central to meaning. Everyone trades, no-one escapes. Lulu is not a free spirit at all. Some dislike the Paris scene because it's so diverse, but the real meaning is in the music, which spirals in concentric circles. Is Berg entering new territory where the idea of narrative becomes supplanted by musical drama? When Berg brings the men back in new guises, he's extending the idea of illusion still further. Jack the Ripper, for example, bears little resemblance to the "real" Jack the Ripper. The London scene brings Dr Schõn back, which is good symmetry. When I first heard the Third Act soon after its its completion, I couldn't make head or tail of it. One of the insights of Loy's production is that it takes away the obvious markers in terms of costume, and makes you think about the rarified inner logic. The two act version ends with Lulu's escape from prison and her seduction of Alwa on the same sofa on which his father bled to death. This would have felt right until the full extent of Berg's work was revealed. According to Douglas Jarman, "Of the 1326 bars
only 87 were not fully notated in Berg's short score and with one
exception, all these "problematic passages" could be completed with
Berg's intentions either by following the indications provided in the
score or by doubling the instrumental parts". The exception he mentions
is the barrel organ music in scene two, but Jarman says "an indication
...is to be found at the end of the Variation movement of the Symphonic
Variations where the first four bars appear...in Berg's own
orchestration". So the Paris scene is true Berg almost in entirety and the barrel organ music is Cerha. Would we reject Mozart's Requiem or Deryck Cooke's performing version of Mahler 10 because they aren't 100% ? Earlier this year Daniel Barenboim conducted a "new" version of Lulu with major cuts, eliminating the Paris scene and the Animal Tamer, and adding spoken texts from Kierkegaard. The WNO production apparently uses a new edition prepared by Eberhard Kloke which changes the Paris Act which was original Berg. The emphasis seems to be to spotlight the prostitution dialogue between Lulu and pimp. Perhaps the WNO Lulu would have worked better in the two act version.
The name "Butterfly" suggests fragile beauty but Butterfly Wu was a survivor, whose life reads like a lurid novel. Butterfly Wu (Wu Dip, Hu Die 胡蝶) made her first movies in Shanghai as a young girl and became a megastar. She was the real "Lady from Shanghai" before Marlene Dietrich. Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe. Her name was a byword for beauty, but she was admired because she was strong and resourceful. Her life is like a chronicle of moderrn China.
Because Butterfly Wiu was so prominent, she was courted by warlords, and adored by film goers, to whom she was an inspiration of ideal Chinese Womanhood. Then the Japanese attacked China. Millions were killed, even more millions forced to move round the country as refugees. Yet in the midst of war, Butterfly Wu found love. In her native Hong Kong, she married a businessman, but the Japanese conquered Hong Kong, too. Because of her high profile, Wu Dip had to be smuggled out into Free China, pursued by Japanese agents. She wasn't safe there, either. General Dai Li (戴笠), head of the terrifying Chinese secret police, became infatuated with her and threatened to kill her husband unless she became his mistress. Dai Li, who made the Gestapo and NKVD look like amateurs, died in a plane crash in 1946, possibly assassinated. Wu Dip and her hiusband were reunited, but he suffered ill heath, possibly a result of being tortured and imprisoned.. Wu Dip continued to make movies until 1967, so her career spanned several golden ages of Chinese cinema. Because she's so closely associated with pre-war Shanghai, her contribution to Cantonese cinema is undervalued. I've been watching "A Gratitude as Weighty as the Mountain" 恩重如山 (a quote from poetry) made in 1962. In this film, she stars with Lam Ka Sing, who plays her son. He was an extremely famous opera singer and actor.
A young woman's lover is moving with his school into the interior of China. She's left behind and is bombed out and homeless. She falls into the hands of a man who rapes her and sells her into prostitution. Meanwhile, she's given birth to a son, named Tak Ming. Eventually, she escapes the crook and starts a new life in
Hong Kong where she works as a bone massager, not
quite prostitution but shameful. She had earlier given up her son to a kindly neighbour, who brought him up in South East Asia, so he would have a chance for a better life.
When the boy grows up, he returns to find his mother, but she pretends that his real mother is dead. The son goes to university and gets a job with a wonderful boss, who treats him as his successor.. Everything seems perfect, but he discovers that the woman who is looking after him a masseuse. He renounces her violently. How can she shame him so? The film contrasts the arrogant son with his self-sacrificing mother. He has a fancy western education but she has proper values. She is the one to whom he owes "gratitude as great as mountains". Throughout this film, it's strong female characters who help others and do virtue.
Then boss and rejected masseuse meet. "She is your natural mother", says the boss. "And I'm your natural father". The complication is that Tak Ming has made the boss's daughter pregnant. Scandal is averted when father reveals the daughter was a foundling, so the young couple can marry. This might sound like a crazy plot device but it was a genuine concern in those days, when so many families were disrupted by war. No doubt there were real life stories like this. No wonder people turned to movies, which reflected their own pasts and anxieties. When Wu Dip retired and moved to Canada, there was a retrospective of her films on TV. I watched with my grandmother who was herself a Shanghai belle.
Kitty Wells is dead, aged 92. "Feminist Country Godmother to Britney Spears" runs an artiile in the Atlantic but that doesn't tell half the story, and the Britney Spears bit is demeaning. Another article here in theTelegraph.
More than ten years before Betty Friedan and women's Lib, Kitty Wells was a pioneer when there weren't many roles for women in Country music, or indeed the whole social milieu of Country music, dominated as it was by Bible Belt patriarchy, which even men didn't know how to question. Alcoholism was the angst of the misfit in the Country scene. Kitty wasn't the first female Country or Cajun singer, but she was different from nice girls like the Carter family who knew their place. Kitty was happily married for 74 years, almost certainly not leftist. You bet she never burned her bra or flag. But she stood up to things. "Will your lawyer talk to God and plead your case on high?" "Making believe, you're somebody's love, never mine".. "Have I lost you to a woman half my age?" Without Kitty Wells, perhaps no Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette or Dolly Parton. And thousands of nice girls in white cardigans and aprons started to think, why should we take things lying down? Real change happens when the non-urban, non-intellectual proletariat are roused. Kitty Wells, with her Southern belle gentility, deserves a place in the Valhalla of modern womanhood.
Kitty became famous almost by accident, after recording a riposte to Hank Thompson's The Wild Side of Life which blamed womern and alcohol for leading him astray. No, sang Kitty, using the same tune. "It wasn't God who made Honky Tonk Angels,.... Many a time married men think they're still single, that has caused many a good girl to go wrong. It's a shame that all the blame is on us woman, ....from the start most every heart that's ever broken was because there always was a man to blame". It's overstatement of course, but understandable given the heirachical situation at the time. Women (and men) aren't born bad, they're made bad. So even if Kitty Wells, the Fricka of Country Music, upholds marriage and good behaviour, she's not judging those who fall.
Ultimately, feminism liberates men as well as women because it shows that there are other ways to be. Again and again, in Country music people are destroyed by this either/or dilemma between perfection and dissolution. Britney Spears went off the rails because she couldn't cope. Many times I hoped she'd learn not to blame herself but the crazy world around her. Singing, she doesn't need to learn from Kitty Wells, but how to stand up for herself.
Lots on this site about Country and Cajun music, feminsism, fesity women and Lieder. Please read here how the Lieder and Country Music traditions ironically connect.
Bruce Lee is a huge cultural icon but do we really appreciate just how radical he was? He brought kung fu to the west but he also transformed Cantonese values. Nowadays we don't remember just how prevalent colonial values were, and how everyone acquiesced in the status quo for many reasons, as if brainwashed. There's no need to get defensive or deny this. It was just the way things were. It's hard to explain just how radical his impact was without relating to the context of the times Then along comes Bruce Lee. He kicked ass in every way! He beat up white guys! It wasn't just his moves (wilder than traditional kung fu) but his ATTITUDE. Kung fu isn't fighting but mental discipline. Bruce Lee did what many felt but could not express, and he did it to better the world around him. But what influenced him to become what he was? The secret lies partly in his early Cantonese movies.
Bruce Lee (李小龍 Lee Siu Lung, "Little Dragon") came from a movie family, so he absorbed the socio-political values of the industry. In Chinese culture, art and education go together, so right from the start, film in China was linked to modernization and social change. Of course Chinese movies can be totally airhead, but many obliquely address moral values. Chinese films are entertainment with a subtext.
The Guiding Light (苦海明燈) (1953) was Bruce Lee's eighth film, so even at the age of 13 he had long experience. All the stars were big names in Cantonese film, and he almost certainly knew them all socially. The film begins when a pretty young woman (Ah Ngo, played by Yung Siu Yee 容小意) gives birth. She was conned into getting pregnant by Mr Chan who has no children and promises to marry her if she bears a son. In fact he just wants the kid, not her, so she runs away, heartbroken. She has no family and is so poor that she gives the child (Tien Sang) to the kindly Dr Lam who delivered him. The doctor adores the kid but when he remarries, his wife wants to start afresh with her own child, Incensed, the wet nurse takes the child to live with her in poverty. He's happy, though, and makes friends with a little blind girl who gers bullied. Eventually wet nurse dies, and her lowlife husband lets his friend sell the child to a wealthy couple. The boy gets to wear a western suit and bow tie but it's a horribly tense, unhappy home. Then he overhears the new parents scrapping about money and owning children. Shocked, the boy runs away, stealing food to survive, sleeping on streets. Bruce Lee played wild, feral children in several other movies, so maybe this is when he became an independent, self-sufficent personality who wasn't going to accept anything at face value.
Then Mrs Lee, Pak Yin (白燕 ) comes into his life. She and her huband, a doctor, run a school for blind girls and offer to let him stay. Pak Yin was a great beauty and mega star but here she's dressed frumpy and wears glasses and a grey wig, to show how serious the role is. In real life, Pak Yin was a powerful personality who made many movies with a progressive and even feminist agenda. Even in this film, all the women are dominant characters, even the minor roles. They are agents for change, positive and negative. Pak Yin was also a partner in the film studios she worked in, and nurtured other creative people. (Read more about her here) Clearly, she was an influence on what Bruce Lee was to become.
But because the boy has has been rejected so many times, he trusts no-one. Then he sees the litttle blind girl he knew before, and settles in. When the boy grows up he morphs into Cheung Wood-yau (張活游) another mega star who nearly always played good natured liberals. Grown-up Tien Sang becomes a doctor like his adopted Dad and makes a medical breakthrough to cure blindness. He's feted at a big party, and makes a speech to say that all that he has become is thanks to Mrs Lee who took him in and taught him to better himself and to serve the community. "I had no parents but you were a mother to me".
Then Pak Yin makes her big speech. "It's not so simple", she says. "Every person is a result of three influences: birth, nurture, teaching. I taught you but I can't be your parent". Old Dr Lam comes in. "Do you remember me? I tried to nurture you, but couldn't, but I've brought your birth mother.".But first, the nasty Chans run in. They read the newspapers and want to share the success. "I spent a lot of money to bring you into my family", says Mr Chan, "Now you owe me, and I'll sue you if you don't pay up". So natural birth mother, who is now poor and haggard, confronts her former lover. "He is my son. If you're going to sue him, you're going to have to answer for what you did to me". She addresses the gathering. "This man doen't deserve to be a parent". Tien Sang is shocked, as he's suddenly discovered his genes. Ah Ngo says, "I bore you but I couldn't raise you, it's Mrs Lee who made you what you are". "I'm happy just to see you." (ie she's selfless, unlike his father)
Then Pak Yin (the real star of the movie) makes her big statement. "Every child is born with potential but if they're not treated right it's wasted. We have a responsibility, because children are the foundation of good society". Pan to a shot of a lighthouse on a rock. So perhaps we understand better what made Bruce Lee the man he was.
Lots more on this site about Chinese film and culture, including full downloads. Follow the labels below.
Normally I run miles from stuff like Women in the World, so pious and earnest! Real women are busy getting on with things. But this year Anna Netrebko got invited to do the "women in the arts" slot and she wowed them dead. Remember this was for people who don't listen to classical music usually, so the idea is to blast them off their feet. Which Trebs knows how to do. She's pretty down to earth, I think, and has often been spotted incognito at the Royal Opera House. Last time, she was there, for Don Giovanni, to watch Erwin Schrott undress (which she can do at home), she was sitting two seats from me. Nobody noticed, since many of the audience were first timers, which must have miffed her. At first I looked at her friend, who had a family resemblance, and was stunningly attired. They rushed off after the first act but returned early for the second. I was meditating, as I do in spare moments, and felt a presence beside me. Looking up, straight at La Trebs, not two feet away. Beatific smile from her, genuinely friendly, though she didn't have a clue who I was. I smiled back, she smiled again. Lovely! So watch her as she shows a non-music audience what her job involves.
How did a North Oxford housewife, cycling in a longyi to Park Town, win a Nobel Prize and this week be feted by Hillary Clinton? Do good this Xmas season and read the new book Aung San Suu Kyi : The Lady and the Peacock ( 2011 398pp).
Peter Popham has interviewed Aung San Suu Ki, been to Burma, and has met many people who knew her when she was young. The nbookim includes first-person accounts not available before, and a good description of events after Suu Kyi returned to Burma. The stand-off at Danubyu in 1989 is vividly described, Suu Kyi was on a progress through rural Burma and forbidden to enter a town under martial law. So she calmly walked down the middle of the road. The military drew their guns but didn't shoot. That tells us a lot about Suu Kyi but also about Burma. In many countries she'd have been disappeared, not held in long-term detention.
Suu Kuyi's father was Aung San, the father of Burmese Independence, who was assassinated with his cabinet in 1947. Because he was such a figurehead, Suu Kyi had moral force, even after the military downplayed the personality cult. But Suu Kyi's achievements are her own, and those of the National League for Democracy, and the thousands of unknown, ordinary Burmese who stood up to the regime. Many died, or still languish in prison. It's still not certain what might happen if Suu Kyi wins the next election. The regime nullified the 1990 election win, and used the ludicrous troll trespass incident of 2009 to extend the term of her house arrest. And government is different to dissent. So no complacency. You need to read this book for background.
Suu Kyi was typical of the educated, idealistic Asian and African elite who studied abroad and went on to challenge traditional parameters. Think Sun Yat Sen, the Nehrus, even Barack Obama's father. Suu Kyi was international, living from the age of 15 for long periods in India, England, Japan, Bhutan and in New York during the Warhol years. Many of her friends, even her brother, did well at university and had glittering careers but Suu Kyi found her niche only in her 40's. Yet the fact that she spent her youth raising a family makes her dedication even more admirable. Mandela and Solzhenitsyn didn't sacrifice in the same way. One of the principles of non-violence is that even the humblest individual can change things.
This book is best where the author has access to good sources, like Bertil Lintner's account of the 1988 revolt and the diary Ma Thanegi kept for Michael Aris. Eventually perhaps, there'll be a more analytical study with more detail on underlying issues. The Burmese regime became "The Albania of South East Asia" for reasons that need to be understood. Suu Kyi's maternal uncle was a leader of the Burmese Communist Party. Similarly, more assessment of relations with Thailand and Japan, the only rwo nations in Asia that escaped colonialism. Suu Kyi's mother's dismay at her marriage reflects fears of cultural dilution in a post-colonial situation. Indeed, the whole idea of colonialism needs to be confronted. It's by no means an issue of the past. It lives on unconsciously in any west-centric account of non-western subjects. The many different varieties of Buddhism, for example, don't need unification any more than the many forms of Judeo-Christian belief.
This is primarliy a book by a journalist, well written in an accessible, direct way. That's important because this book needs to reach general readers everywhere. Later, a more scholarly analysis will be possible, but not yet as the drama still unfolds. Yet Suu Kyi's story resonates with most of us. Inspirational reading for Xmas! Gift this book and make a difference yourself in a small way. Buy it direct from the Burma Campaign UK so profits go towards the cause. As Lord David Steel says it's "a reminder that we, in the comfortable outside, must not let her down.”
Lots more on Aung San Suu Kyi, Asia and non-violence on this site. Please explore.
Full download of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) directed by Carl Th. Dreyer. Click here to run. This one is SILENT and over 70 years old, out of copyright in Europe. It's being shown tonight at the Barbican, while Marin Alsop is conducting the LSO in a performance of Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light written in 1999 to accompany the film. If you buy the DVD release you get the movie plus Einhorn. Personally, I'm inclined towards the silent version. Firstly, silent makes you concentrate on the intensity of the images, almost a spiritual experience, which is what Jeanne is going through in the movie. Secondly, from other Dreyer films, like Vampyr (full download HERE) and Vredens Dag (description HERE) it would seem that Dreyer conceived his movies with minimal sound. Although the Einhorn soundtrack is interesting, it's an add-on and isn't that overwhelming as music.
Joan is played by Renée Jeanne Falconetti, billed as "Mlle. Falconetti" for reasons unknown. She was a stage artiste, so making this film must have been a kind of ordeal, holding a pose for an eternity for the camera, then slowly changing expression so every muscle twitch is recorded. Look at the intense lighting too. At the end of a day's shoot, her eyes might have stopped working and her brain given her migraines. So maybe Falconetti was a hero, like St Jeanne. For posterity she'll be remembered without makeup, stressed out and her head shorn.
Look at the rest of the cast list. One of the prosecutors is played by Antonin Artaud, theorist of the Theatre of Cruelty. That doesn't mean S&M but the idea that pushing boundaries makes us challenge assumptions. So the connection between Dreyer's intellectual austerity and Artaud's theories goes pretty deep, All the more reason for a silent Passion of Joan of Arc. Sound distracts. Brian Ferneyhough explains his music in terms of Artaud theories. Now, there's a thought - a Brian Ferneyhough soundtrack to The Passion of Joan of Arc. He's good with complex "medieval" polyphony too. You can bet his version wouldn't be anything like Einhorn. I'll be writing more soon on Ingrid Bergman's Joans of Arc, especially her version of the Arthur Honegger Jeanne d'Arc au bucher (Giovanna d'Arco al rogo) directed by her then husband Roberto Rossellini in 1954. When I wrote about the Barbican Jeanne d'Arc, (see HERE) I hadn't seen this film, which is much overshadowed by the famous Bergman Joan of Arc movie made in 1948 by Victor Fleming. The Fleming movie is staightforward Hollywood. The Rosselini film is art. Read about it HERE and come back for more!
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