When our long-widowed nana definitively
left Austria, after sticking it out through the whole war, I always imagined
that she came out to New Zealand by ship. Why? Because for the whole of my
life, there was, lodged in our basement, a big, green, metal-bound ship’s trunk
‘made in Vienna’ which had arrived at the same time as she.
Now, ancestry.com
has been kind enough to tell me that she actually arrived by airplane. So I
guess that great, hefty case followed on after. Anyway, I have kept it for the
seventy years since, and it now sits on my verandah as a stand for a lovely
big fern plant pot. With no fern in it any more. The peahens have co-opted it as the favoured
place to lay their eggs.
Once a fern... now an egg-basket |
The Witwe Rudolfine Gänzl brought
with her, on the trip to the other end of the world, a curious bundle of
possessions. There were, naturally, the large bundles and books of photos and
the diaries and ephemera of past years, but also a varied collection of
knick-knacks (‘A present from Augsburg’ etc), a good collection of postage-stamps,
an odd variety of books, one or two ordinary pictures … Why? Of course, what
she didn’t bring was a groschen or a penny. I was told later that she wasn’t
allowed to. So she took what little Austrian money she had and spent it on
things she imagined she might cash in when she arrived in New Zealand. Books,
stamps …
Today, I was sorting shelves.
Picking out what stuff I would keep (why?) when the rest of my theatrical stuff
walks out of this house and my life in a couple of months. One of Nana’s books
had got in among the French libretti – the special libretti which I kept when
the large bulk of my collection went to Harvard. Beloved favourites like Les Fêtards, Joséphine vendue par ses soeurs,
Les Douze femmes de Japhet, Geneviève de Brabant and other greats of the
C19th musical theatre. So here was this German one, stained a little with the
cover-wax from the C18th bible it had travelled with, and which had been fatally damaged
by sea water. Die seidene Schuhe a
two-act musical comedy, published in … 1776!
Why, for heaven’s sake? What was this show from the pre-history of the musical theatre? So I looked. And I got a big
surprise. I didn’t find a tiny mention in a corner of Google or Hathi, I found
dozens! And a dozen libraries holding copies, around the world, in German or
the original French. Yes, of course, French.
As for the music, it is not credited
in my copy, but it was the music that was given the publicity in France. The
composer was one ‘Alessando Maria Antonio Frizeri’. Or Fridzeri. Or Friziéri. Or
Frexit or Friner or Frixer. Said to be fashionable Italian but probably French.
But that wasn’t what got him his press. He had been – and the fact was printed
on bills and libretti – blind since the age of one. Or from birth. Or from
three years old. My goodness, that should get him a Hollywooden film starring Daniel Day Lewis!
At 35 years of age, this was
apparently his second produced show, and it saw the light of day at Paris’s
Comédie Italienne (the precursor of the Opéra-Comique) on 11 January 1776. It
was billed as a comédie bouffon mêlée d’ariettes (ie a ‘musical comedy’). The
press of the time told us that it was taken from an old tale, but the original
was too rude and to had to be de-sexed for the stage. Any way it was judged ‘une
des plus jolies comédies’, ‘très plaisant’ and went on to be played for the
Emperor at Versailles on 16 February. The piece was a jolly success, the
score was published by its composer … and, as we see, it went on to be played
at Frankfurt, Cassel et al in a German version. I also spot it being done in Belgium,
Martinique and … Philadelphia (24 December 1796)!
So nana’s naughty musical wasn’t exactly unknown in
its time. Well, I shall have to go looking for a French script – and I’m sure
it will have been pilfered by the English too – and the music is out there
somewhere …
Ah, well. I suppose anyone searching for the script and score of Irma la douce or Valmouth in the year 2217 will have much the same trouble...
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