Life as Opera

Ruritanian romances

This minor literary genre has a lengthy Wikipedia description! When I was young, I enjoyed Anthony Hope’s seminal The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), but these stories seem like nostalgic nonsense these days. They are usually set in the Balkans or Eastern Europe in fictional countries like “Ruritania” and they

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From Lola Montez to Mata Hari

Life as Opera

The Strange Case of Anna O.

As the 19th century drew to a close, if dancing naked was symbolic of the New Woman, then its reversal also was possible - the adding of more layers. Repressed hysterics (or so they were "diagnosed") chose to push back this way. The most famous case study was

Life as Opera

Aubrey Beardsley and 'Salomé'

Aubrey Beardsley illustrated Oscar Wilde's play Salomé: a tragedy in one act in 1894, although Wilde hated his illustrations as "too Japanese," whatever that means. They included the one above and the two below. Beardsley's excelled in erotic illustrations, however, like the hilarious ones

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Céleste Mogador

Céleste Mogador, real name Élisabeth-Céleste Vénard, was born in 1824 in Paris. The biographies say that at the age of 16, in order to escape an intolerable family situation, she registered as a courtesan and immediately regretted it, but couldn't get it reversed. The photo above is from

Life as Opera

Dalí's 'Tristan and Isolde'

Leave it to a Spanish painter (or Catalan) to return the favor and spell out what he really thought of the gloomy Tristan and Isolde myth - Salvador Dalí's satirical Tristan and Isolde. This painting began life as a small oil painting back in 1936-38, but it was

Life as Opera

Folies Bergère in postcards

Life as opera! The Folies-Bergère is still around, but it was at the height of its fame and popularity from the 1890's through the 1920's. Visit today and you might see shows like Fantasma Circus Erotica, but most shows these days aren't erotica -

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Georges Bizet

Bizet married Geneviève Halévy in 1869 but the marriage was cut short when he died in 1875 from a heart attack at age 36, only three months after Carmen's opening. Halévy is shown in the lower image. This painting below of Halévy is by Jules-Élie Delaunay from 1876

Life as Opera

Gustav Klimt's 'Judith'

Wild women? Below is Klimt's famous Judith and Holofernes (1901). Below that is a later version Judith (1909). Or is it also Salome? Is that Holofernes' head or John the Baptist's head that she's holding on to? The first painting actually has a

Life as Opera

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker looking her best in Paris in 1927 Josephine Baker's story is an entire website to itself (celebrity entertainer, war hero, bisexual, etc). She was born in 1906, moving from the U.S. to Paris in 1925, when she was 19. There she quickly became known as

Life as Opera

Life as Opera - Timeline

* 1813 Richard Wagner born in Leipzig * 1821 Lola Montez born Eliza Rosanna Gilbert in Ireland * 1824 La Mogador born as Céleste Vénard in Paris * 1825 Prosper Mérimée’s Clara Gazul published * 1830 Mérimée hears Carmen story * 1833 George Sand/Mérimée fiasco * 1838 Georges Bizet born in Paris * 1842 Rienzi launches

Life as Opera

Lola Montez in 1847

There appear to be two versions of this painting around - presumably both by Joseph Stieler and commissioned by King Ludwig I. The one above (which I have cropped) is in the Schönheitengalerie (Gallery of Beauties), a collection of portraits in Schloss Nymphenburg in Munich. The one below, however, apparently

Life as Opera

Lola Montez the Pomegranate

As one ardent fan wrote, “Lola Montez was an enchantress. There was about her something provoking and voluptuous which drew you. Her skin was white, her wavy hair like tendrils of the woodbine, her eyes tameless and wild, her mouth like a budding pomegranate. Add to that a dashing figure,

Life as Opera

Mata Hari as Manon Lascaut?

The composers Massenet and Puccini saw Mata perform in Massenet’s opera Le Roi de Lahore in Monte Carlo in 1906 and they were immediately taken with her. Was she their Manon Lescaut of earlier times? She was certainly an effective Salomé, capitalizing on the scandal and success of Richard

Life as Opera

Mata Hari's Execution at Vincennes

This was once thought of as a photo of the execution, but it is more likely a film reconstruction in 1920. They seem to have captured the horror of the moment. She was executed by firing squad on 15 October 1917 at the age of 41. The location as described

Life as Opera

Max Ophuls

Lola Montès was Max Ophuls' last film (in 1955) and though some critics love it, I don't think it compares well with his earlier masterpieces, Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) and La Ronde (1950). The biggest problem is that there is no sense of the erotic

Life as Opera

'Mazeppa'

Wild and wonderful women... Mazeppa began its career as an epic poem by Byron in 1819, based on existing legends, the story of a page caught in an affair with a married woman from a higher class. When the affair is discovered, the outraged husband has him tied to the

Life as Opera

Mérimée's 'Carmen'

Bizet's Carmen is based on Prosper Mérimée's novella of 1845. So what is the novella based on, other than Cervantes' influential and wonderful La Gitanilla (1613), which breaks down cross-cultural stereotypes and actually has a happy ending! Mérimée chose to go the other path. He

Life as Opera

Music of Decline

Hermann Hesse is covered more fully here but his ideas about the futility of art and literature after the catastrophe of World War I can be found in Klingsor’s Last Summer (1919) and again later in The Glass Bead Game (Das Glasperlenspiel, 1943). Here he could have been talking

Life as Opera

Natalie Barney

Above is one of the best known early photos of Natalie Barney. It is not clear when it was taken, but my guess is before 1900. Barney is one of the most interesting characters I have encountered and she deserves her own chapter! Below is the inside courtyard at 20,

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Neuschwanstein Castle and Wagner

Ludwig II's grandest creation was Neuschwanstein Castle (Schloss Neuschwanstein), literally "New Swan on the Rock palace." The postcard below is from around 1900; Ludwig had died in 1886. Within its walls are many paintings depicting scenes from Wagner's operas. The postcards below, from the

Life as Opera

Parsifal

Wagner and Orientalism During the 1850’s, Wagner became very interested in Orientalism – Brahmanism and Buddhism – primarily, it seems, for their notions of samsara and nirvana. They provided the philosophical underpinnings for operas like Parsifal, which he first began writing in 1857, unfinished operas like Die Sieger (The Victors) and,

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Wahnfried

Richard and Cosima Wagner made their home at Wahnfried in Bayreuth, shown above, which was largely funded by Ludwig II, and they are both buried there. There is a statue of Ludwig too (below). The name literally means "where my delusions, madness (wahn) have found peace, freedom (fried)."

Life as Opera

Salome in modern paintings

This is Salome, as painted by Bavarian painter Franz von Stuck in 1906 when she was very much in vogue because of Mahler's opera the previous year. Presumably, she is winding up the Dance of the Seven Veils at this point. Von Stuck's paintings would later

Life as Opera

Sappho

This is Sappho by French painter Charles Mengin (1877) in Manchester Art Gallery. It pretty much captures her racy reputation throughout the 19th century. Although it was said that Sappho wrote love poems to her female students, this painting chooses to illustrate a story that said she threw herself into