Veritable Michael - a podcast opera
Veritable Michael - a podcast opera
Ep. 4 Michael's Closing Night
Michael Field’s career is heading south — can the premiere of their first staged play turn things around? More drama occurs as Edith’s father goes missing in the Alps.
EPISODE LYRICS
BEFORE QUESTION OF MEMORY
K.B. New Year’s eve, 1892
There is much to make this year close in cynicism. We have published two books that have been received with silence or with hate. Most of our friends are further from us than last year. The man we love is stamped and sealed another’s. Still I feel that much of our misery springs from the fact that we have not drawn on the infinite, we have asked for a happiness that could not have been given us without being taken from others.
E.C. New Year’s eve, 1892
Yes, the year 1892 has been almost the bitterest I ever spent — we have given our work to a silent world — twice have we given to the silence. I love in a deathly way… I long for freedom, England’s a prison!
E.C. Jan 26th 1893
The book might be a deader. We have not got on friendly terms with any of the publishers at Bodley Head and younger authors than we are have been pushed before us! We are desperately alone in this world that shuns us. What can it be!?
AFTER QUESTION OF MEMORY
E.C. October 28 1984
It seems more natural to be dead than alive. We wake to the surprise of finding every morning paper against us; The Time’s, The Telegraph are worthy of respect in their blame; they have some good words for us and for our actors; the rest howl!
K.B. Nov 22 1894
Not a flower had anyone sent us yesterday, not a flower was given to us. No word, no letter, not visit, only the execrations of the press! Friends have been very caressing but they avoid allusions to our art as if it were a dead husband.
THE FOREST
He lay asleep, and the long dark season wore:
The forest shadows marked him limb by limb
As on a dial: when the light grew dim,
A steady darkness on the spiny floor,
He lay asleep. The Alpine roses bore
Their last blooms and withered at the rim:
The harvest moon came down and covered him,
And passed, and it was stiller than before.
Then fell the autumn, little falling there
Save some quick-dropping fir-cone on the mound,
Save with the ebbing leaves his own white hair;
And the great stars grew wintry; in the cold
Of a wide-spreading dusk, so woodmen say,
As one asleep on his right arm he lay.
Veritable Michael — a podcast opera
This podcast captures the making of Veritable Michael, a new opera based on the true story of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper — two Victorian poets who lived, loved and wrote under the pseudonym, Michael Field. This podcast combines Katherine's and Edith's journals, poetry and letters with an original score by Tom Floyd, and interviews with guest speakers. Join the Shadow Opera team as we dive into Michael's fascinating and queer world.
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A full transcript of this episode can be found here.
Veritable Michael is generously supported by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, The Stephen Oliver Award and The Countess of Munster Musical Trust and our incredible band of crowd-funders.
For more information, video content or just to tell us that you're loving the podcast - go to shadowopera.com/veritable-michael or via our Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe this podcast.
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This podcast captures the making of Veritable Michael, a new opera by Tom Floyd and Sophie Goldrick. In May 1884, London awoke to the news of an exciting new playwright and poet bursting onto the scene to rave reviews. Michael Field not only won the praise of the papers, but also piqued the interest of literary giants Robert Browning and Oscar Wilde. But Michael was hiding a secret... Veritable Michael tells the true story of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper. Two poets who lived, loved and wrote under the pen-name, Michael Field, and their struggle with Victorian patriarchy. We've arrived at Episode Four. The story so far Edith Cooper and Katherine Bradley have written and published under the name Michael Field to great initial success. Their identity was revealed to the press by Robert Browning in a moment of indiscretion, and their subsequent publications were now reviewed quite differently. Undeterred, Katherine and Edith wrote many verse dramas and volumes of poetry together and became a fixture of London's literary scene, rubbing shoulders with George Moore, Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde. Edith had a close call with scarlet fever and an even closer call with an amorous German nurse. Her head was also turned by the dashing art expert Bernhard Berenson. But by the end of 1892, Katherine and Edith were back in old Blighty, recommitted to their union and to their writing. It's the eve of 1893 and Katherine and Edith are reflecting on the turbulent couple of years they've spent. Illness and relationship turmoil aside, the thing foremost in their minds is the books are not doing well. Michael Field needs a comeback. What will it be?
Katherine Bradley:There's much to make this year close in cynicism. We have published two books that have been received with silence or with hate. Most of our lives are further from us than last year. Still feel that much misery springs from the fact that we have not drawn on the infinite. We have asked for a happiness would not have been given to us without being taken from others.
Edith Cooper:Yes, the year 1892 has been the bitterest I ever spent. We have given our work to a silent world. Twice have we given to the silence. I love in a deathly way. I long for freedom, England's a Prison. The book might be a deader. We have not got on friendly terms with any of the publishers at Bodley Head. And younger authors than we are have been pushed before us. We are desperately alone in this world that shuns us. What can it be?
Sophie Goldrick:Michael Field had not yet been able to top the critical reception of their debut despite tireless effort and evergrowing ambitions. Since their identity was revealed, the tone of their reviews had markedly changed, and the themes and experiences that interested Edith and Katherine as writers were just not the ones that excited newspaper critics in the 1890s. How were they to distinguish themselves and ensure their legacy? A glimmer of hope arrives in mid 1893. Their first attempt at a modern prose play is accepted for performance by the Independent Theatre Society. Michael Field's Hungarian epic, A Question of Memory, is to be staged at the Opera Comique in October 1893. The society has previously staged placed by George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen and counts George Meredith, Thomas Hardy and Henry James among its members. This tale of nationhood duty and madness is sure to be Michael Field's second great debut, this time as a playwright.
Edith Cooper:Five o'clock, the gas lamps are lighted, the sun is setting.
The Critics:As a whole, we must admit that A Question of Memory is not markedly dramatic, the first act is almost wholly useless, all that takes place in it can be made clear in the dialogue the second, the second moves slowly, the third is really strong, it is indeed the pitch as well as the pivot of the piece. While the fourth is scarcely dramatic... only moderately successful, and the work suffers from the fact that it takes a wearisome time to approach the climax. Time that is spent in the development of characters which do not repay the labor bestowed upon them. A complicated mixture of love...Michael Field has earned an honourable, if somewhat limited, reputation as a writer of dramas in verse, but in prose, in the difficulties of a more exacting medium. Michael Field does not show to so much advantage. It is indeed difficult to write good prose, but it is not well that the difficulty should be conspicuous. And in A Question of Memory, the difficulty is patent, flagrant, ostentatious... just where the inexperience of the authors and the practical work of the stage betrays itself. Their story is very long, and on the whole, very trivial, though, concisely and pointedly written and the heroism of the mother and sister who prefer to die, rather than that the prisoner should prove faithless to his trust, passes the comprehension of an ordinary theatrical audience... a weak play ends weakly.
Edith Cooper:It seems more natural to be dead than alive. We wake to the surprise of finding every morning paper against us. The Times, The Telegraph are worthy of respect in their blame. They have some good words for us and our actors. The rest howl.
Katherine Bradley:Not a flower was given to us. No word, no letter, no visit. Only the execrations of the press. Friends have been very caressing but they avoid allusions to our art as if it were a dead husband.
Sophie Goldrick:So it's a total kick in the guts? This, their moment for serious recognition, for them to aspire to be the English answer to Ibsen. But the papers are either indifferent or they really hate it. The dream of standing ovations and flowers at the stage door are dashed. Yet, reeling from the excoriating reviews, Edith, impressively, approaches one of their most vociferous critics, Mr. William Archer of The Globe, to ask his advice on how to improve the play. After exchanging correspondence for some time, Edith and Katherine then publish an edited version of A Question of Memory. After a lot of slicing and dicing, including losing the quizzically cheery last act. A Question of Memory is a flop. But why was it the performers, or the play itself? Perhaps it was their transition from verse to prose, and their inexperience in pacing the drama? Several reviews acknowledged the strength of the key scene. And as this was a stage debut, why wasn't Michael Field offered more of a chance based on this promise? I wanted to better understand the cause for the failure of A Question of Memory. Ana Parejo Vadillo was involved in a staged reading of the play in 2019. And she had some ideas on what may have gone
Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo:...it was a theater caucus that that wrong... set it up, and I wanted to be a part of it. And the script was edited substantially, in part to make it shorter, because the play was too long. And, and I think that that really, really explained to me in some way, why the first performance perhaps couldn't work as that as well as one might have expected it. They did not have any experience of being in a theater. And I think they suffered precisely because of that. And there's one instance I think, and I think it is Edith Cooper that says, you know, "if I had to do it, I would do it again. You men get experienced like air, but we women do not". And, and I think that, that that is really part of what was happening in the... in how the play was performed, and how, and how it wasn't as well received as as one could.
Sophie Goldrick:So from your experience of that project, bringing it to life, could we see... is there a version of A Question of Memory that could be on modern stages, commercially now?
Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo:Yes.
Sophie Goldrick:Let's get it happening, I'm excited.
Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo:Yes, my my My answer is a straightforward, yes.
Sophie Goldrick:Fantastic.
Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo:I think it will be fascinating to have it in, in a theatre. And the the, the play, really I could see the audience was interested in it. I mean, obviously, it was a read performance. And I could see the the audience was thoroughly engaged. And it was also quite interesting because they were, the audience was laughing at the wrong parts, it felt very Wildean. And, and I was shocked by that. I thought that that really, that really interested me.
Sophie Goldrick:So just a quick interruption, I was listening back to this. And it reminded me of a review I read that mentioned, inappropriate laughter also happened back at the first performance. Here it is.
The Critics:But what they have chosen is utterly undramatic and leads to nothing of interest or value. Throughout the play are striking thoughts. Some well expressed, though sometimes unwisely chosen, but the characters do not seem real. In fact, they're made so complex as at times to be incomprehensible, that a few serious scenes in consequence led to laughter.
Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo:The... the play had a lot of passion, and a lot of intellectual thinking about, about feeling and about emotion and about being torn apart between your ideals and your loves. And, and there are moments in the play in which you can see how they are they are trying to write about those and they're putting themselves in the position of each of the character. And I really love that. So I do see that this in a on a stage really worked quite well. My thinking is that perhaps a script might need a little bit of attention. Just because of my my experience in doing the performance because I thought that the shorter version actually made it more impactful.
Sophie Goldrick:So Lizzie, I've got an excerpt from Edith's diary. It's dated 28th of October 1893. So that is the day after the night before which was the opening night of A Question of Memory and they've had the morning papers,
Edith Cooper:and we aren't... we are not feeling good. Are we? This is Edith at her most dramatic no Sophie?
Sophie Goldrick:Peak Edith! Peak Edith! So I'd love you to read from where it says "there are caves in my brain" if that's
Lizzie Holmes:Okay. There are caves in my brain through which okay,
Sophie Goldrick:Oh,
Lizzie Holmes:Oh it's so heart-breaking. cruel tides swing and rave. My stomach feels as it does when anyone you love is dead. My throat is dry and quakes from time to time. I rise up from lunch and walk to the British Museum. The Egyptian deities support my mood more than the Elgin Marbles. I longed to lie in one of those sarcophagi covered with hieroglyphics and to know that the weight of ages would hold the lid down. I walk home for the first time to cry a few moments. My love comforts me with tea, with a strong face and with tenderness. Then my love quails, she who has been so brave. The evening papers are worse than the morning. They are like a lot of unchained tigers. We are hated as Shelley was hated by our countrymen, blindly ravenously
Sophie Goldrick:I know it's also pretty extra, let's be honest.
Edith Cooper:It's it's very dramatic, isn't it? Well, so you were saying earlier that as they do they are kind of self aware. And they write kind of two versions of this.
Sophie Goldrick:Yeah, so I was gonna say she's... this entry does not appear once but twice and she's written it in a different way, underneath. I chose this one because of the line "I longed to line one of those sarcophagi covered with hieroglyphics so to know the weight of ages would hold the lid down."
Edith Cooper:I think Tom should just write a whole song. Yeah, just about that.
Sophie Goldrick:It's called Edith in the British Museum. And you can imagine her dressed in black in her mourning clothes
Lizzie Holmes:A dream sequence
Sophie Goldrick:with a handkerchief to her eye. No! I mean, we've talked about this"laughing at and laughing with" I'm making fun of her a bit there. And she's definitely leaning into the drama, I feel, on purpose. But
Lizzie Holmes:oh, but Sophie, don't you lean into the drama if you get a bad rejection? We are artists.
Sophie Goldrick:I don't I mean, I wouldn't know what a bad review feels like. It's never happened to me before. Not true. But yeah, definitely there's a kernel of absolute true grief here because I think she knows you get one shot, one opportunity in the words of Eminem. That's it. They, you don't come back from reviews like this. Their credibility is kind of shot.
Lizzie Holmes:Oh, it's heartbreaking. And every time they write their heart is on their sleeve, isn't it? And this is, this is such a deep cut.
Sophie Goldrick:Yeah, I think the potential of the debut had sort of fizzled. This was the second chance this was the comeback.
Lizzie Holmes:The important follow up and it flunked
Sophie Goldrick:the difficult second album, we like to call it. Yeah, it didn't, it didn't quite happen. So I think she's grieving the success in their own lifetime, in a way.
Lizzie Holmes:I would love to know. Is there any mention in the diaries running up to it? Do they ever talk about how they think it will? I guess they believed it was a good play.
Sophie Goldrick:Oh, that's such an interesting question. I want to find this other excerpt, which I wanted to get in... Oh no, let me find it. I bet I can't find it now. Let me just find this. No. I had this other excerpt, which was from Edith, which was, after they get the notice that the play is going to be on. She just talks about how her anxiety just like ramps right up. And she's like, I'm filled with thoughts of the future. And I nearly dream myself into Peril. That's what she says. And elsewhere. Katherine, also talks have a lot of apprehension. So like they're not, they're not in the dark about this being a big challenge for them, a big step forward into something they've never done before. So I don't think.. they're not. Like we said they're self aware. They're not ignorant of their limitations, I guess. So yeah, I think they definitely had an idea this could go either way, and they desperately wanted it to be liked. And that maybe is why they've sort of over-egged it in points. It's not that... because everyone praises all those bad reviews still praise the third act, the main crux, which is the execution scene as being really dramatic, impressive. But just pacing was off, characters didn't talk in a realistic way. They were hard to grasp because they're so lofty and noble, especially the female characters, so unbelievably, preposterously noble.
Lizzie Holmes:They kind of got in their own heads.
Sophie Goldrick:I just think yeah, they kind of over egged it, and a more experienced playwright would know that less is more, and maybe if they got a second chance, or a third chance, or a fourth chance, like many playwrights of moderate talent, that we know, you know, that people do... certain kinds of people get lots of, lots of chances, and certain people get one chance, and they were sitting in the one chance camp. So for Tom and me, the failure of A Question of Memory felt like the point where the potential for Michael Field to achieve recognition in their lifetime is kind of over. They're no longer taken seriously by critics after such a promising start. I'm talking here with Marion Thain about the trajectory of their career Michael Field always seem to have one eye on their legacy. And that there would... there's an audience... because they didn't really find the audience they desired... that maybe promised to open up to them at the very start of their career around the time they publish Callirhoe. But they seem to have an eye on their future readers. Could you talk a little bit about their relationship with fame and celebrity in their own time or lack thereof, and how that might connect to the 21st century in readership and scholarship?
Prof. Marion Thain:You're right there was that that initial moment where they were receiving such accolades. And the world was receiving their work with such excitement when those first Michael Field works came out, and they were being celebrated. And Robert Browning was saying, Wow, look at these... this amazing new writer. It was everything that they wanted, I think at that moment, and then For a variety of reasons, they saw the world, as they would have put it, turning against them. So various scholars, various critics have talked about this in a variety of really fascinating ways. And some people have hypothesised that it was when they were understood to be two women, which happened quite early on that the secret was was let out to the bag. And that then they the reviews changed quite considerably. There was a real troubling around this idea of dual identity is not not the single male genius, but these two women writing collaboratively. Perhaps it was that that that caused the backlash in the turn against them. They had this spectacular failure of putting on their play A Question of Memory, and that knocked them very, very hard. So they went from this moment of incredible, promise, incredible.... They burst onto the scene if you like, and then it felt like they were losing everything quite rapidly after that. But nonetheless, they stayed with this idea that our work will mean something to future generations, our work will mean something in the future.
Sophie Goldrick:In the next few years, Michael Field's plays and poetry volumes were increasingly ignored by the press. Their pain moved from the stabs of damning reviews to something much worse, the numbness of obscurity, yet they continued to write in earnest. The last years of the 19th century were hugely important personally for Michael Field. They made friends with Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon in 1894. These two have made an appearance in both episode one and three, nicknaming them The Painters among other things, this relationship was of huge significance for Edith and Katherine, and led to The Painters becoming Michael Field's publisher. Bernhard Berenson and Mary Costelloe have enjoyed an ongoing friendship with Michael Field. But this was heading for disaster, in an episode described in Emma Donoghue's excellent biography We are Michael Field. Well, well worth the read. She says. Early in the new year of 1895, Mary Costelloe wrote to say BB and her new male lover, we're all going to try 'life a trois'.'The most difficult of all combinations' wrote Katherine dubiously. The Michael's expected to hear from BB but Mary claimed that he was too busy to write, which made Katherine finally lose her temper. Katherine said "and now I want to tell you and Mary to sail out of our lives as if you were dead." She wrote to him petulantly. "Bon voyage! Illusion Perdue! Michael." That night Edith dreamed that she and Katherine were visiting a tomb in Italy. The effigy came to life and by its long lashes she knew it was BB. "I can lend you a pair of scissors" It gasped. So clearly this, like everything else was a loss Edith felt keenly. In summer of 1897, Katherine and Edith were living at the family home in Reigate enjoying their solitude as Edith's father, James Cooper and her sister Amy had gone to the Swiss Alps for a holiday. James was 79 but was an impressively youthful and vigorous fellow, very experienced at tramping about the mountainous terrain. A few weeks after their departure, however, came several telegrams from Amy
Edith Cooper:and afraid father has met with an accident. He started slightly ahead of us to Riffel not seen since, everything being done. Not Found- official inquiry.
Sophie Goldrick:I quote here again from Emma Donoghue's, We are Michael Field. For two months the Michael stop writing in their diary, Katherine writes a poem The Forest. His body was eventually found on the 25th of October, his head on his hand as if sleeping at the bottom of the 40 foot precipice he had fallen into. After the funeral, the Michaels retrace James's steps. At the summit, they exchanged rings, feeling more wedded than
Katherine Bradley:He lay asleep, and the long dark season ever.
wore:The forest shadows marked him limb by limb As on a dial: when the light grew dim, A steady darkness on the spiny floor, He lay asleep. The Alpine roses bore Their last
blooms and withered at the rim:The harvest moon came down and covered him, And passed, and it was stiller than before. Then fell the autumn, little falling there Save some quick-dropping fir-cone on the mound, Save with the ebbing leaves his own white hair; And the great stars grew wintry; in the cold Of a wide-spreading dusk, so woodmen say, As one asleep on his right arm he lay.
Sophie Goldrick:I'm not generally a crier, but honestly I really battled not to start blubbing when I was learning this song, the combination of the directness of the poem and the way Tom set it kills me. I spoke with Marion about the quality of Michael Field's, poems, something that can get lost behind their interesting biography,
Prof. Marion Thain:just to return to where we started, which is the quality of their writing the quality of their poetry. We, we talk a lot about the fascination of their life story. And the fact that it's so documented in their diaries really helps with that. But here, it's a special poetry. And I think that really is one of the key things that is just igniting this enthusiasm in the 21st century, is just coming across that poetry and feeling that it's so fresh, and it's so powerful. And it's so interesting. And, you know, there aren't so many voices, I think that speak to us like
Sophie Goldrick:No, I agree, I think from singing this poetry that. myself, and putting voice through it. I was recording yesterday, The Forest, which is the poem around James's death in the Alps, which is such a kind of beautiful, gentle maternal gesture to someone who's lost their father, I just think, to say, you know, all of these elements of nature came to settle on him and, and care for his body in that way. But it's, it's ravishing poetry. It's full of feeling and it's got a simplicity to it. That is so direct. I just think it's powerfully modern. I think that is the thing that is striking me more and more all the time. Something I've found throughout the project is Michael Field seems to pop up in all sorts of random places, such as the Alpine Journal of 1934, in which a piece appeared about them and their friendship with famous English mountaineer Edward Whymper. I read here from the journal, James Robert Cooper, Edith's father was staying at Zermatt with his younger daughter, Amy when, on June 24 1897, he went out from the hotel and never returned. Edward Whymper had interested himself in the disappearance of Mr. Cooper, and had carried out inquiries in the face of local indifference, writing to The Times and insisting that the mystery should be cleared up. Though the actual discovery of the body was accidental, the Michael Fields felt deeply grateful to him, and in December, wrote, Dear Mr. Whymper, we are all delighted to welcome you on Monday. I am not surprised, though deeply moved at what you say about repayment.(They had offered to reimburse his expenses and he had refused.) A friend of mine who has encountered sore trials abroad said to me a few weeks ago, that relatives had ever failed her, and the people of the country had failed her. But always some one person had come forward, a divine stranger. These were her words, and I thought, well, she said them that we too had met our divine stranger, happily, one no more. You have wiped away from my mind a very black page against humanity, by your action, and the great spirit of your action. Always in gratitude beyond any return. Your sincerely E.E Cooper. The kindness of Edward Whymper was a great support to Katherine and Edith in this time. In tribute to his generosity, they named their beloved dog after him. A gesture of huge importance, which we'll hear more about in our next episode. The turn of the century heralds a new chapter for Michael Field. James is gone. Amy Edith's sister, marries and leaves Reigate. Katherine and Edith decided to move near London and settle in Number one, The Paragon in Richmond, finally a home all of their own. This was to be their home for the rest of their lives. The beginning of a new century is associated with excitement and the promise of new things. However, the turn of the 20th century, also known as the Fine de Siecle, was coloured by themes of anxiety, ennui and degeneration is captured in the iconic works, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dracula and Munch's The Scream; in our next episode, as the world comes to terms with modernity, what place will there be for Michael Field and their reverence for the past? Join us in Episode Five. Michael's Ancient Things. Veritable Michael is a Shadow Opera production. Music composed by Tom Floyd. Words by Michael Field, Created and produced by Sophie Goldrick and Tom Floyd, performances by Lizzie Holmes Sophie Goldrick, James Long and Patrick Neyman. Thanks to our guest speakers, Professor Marion Thain, Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo and Dr. Sarah Parker. Veritable Michael is generously supported by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, the Steven Oliver Award, and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, as well as our incredible band of crowdfunders. For more information, video content or just to tell us you're loving the pod, go to shadowopera.com/veritable-michael or via our Instagram. Don't forget to rate review and subscribe to the podcast.