Opera for Beginners (Part 3 of 3)

[cahn]

I talked about Opera for Beginners for my family reunion talk and used much of the advice I was given here, thank you! :)

-I brought speakers, because there isn't much use in giving an opera talk if you can't hear the music! The hilarious thing was that I was not the only one who had audio/audiovisual components to my presentation, but I was the only one who had brought speakers. I had been a little bitter about lugging them all around Montana, but less so when they turned out to be broadly useful :) What was more irritating was that after they worked fine when I tried them out in my office, they didn't work at all for a while when I was trying to give the talk. Finally my cousin's teenager, who was acting as unofficial tech support, suggested rebooting as a last resort, and of course that worked. Sigh.

-A couple of people mentioned talking about where one might go looking for opera. My biggest recommendations to a newbie are the following:
1.The Chandos Opera in English CDs, without which I would still hate opera today. I highly highly recommend all the Mozart ones, particularly the da Ponte operas (Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte), and the bel canto comedies (e.g., Barber of Seville, The Elixir of Love), and dis-recommend their Verdi except Don Carlos (for some reason Verdi tends to come out a bit muddled). Their French opera also seems to be very good, and I absolutely adore their Eugene Onegin (which stars Thomas Hampson and Kiri te Kanawa).

2. Met On Demand, which comes with a free 7-day trial. People who know a lot about opera rag on the Met for not being adventurous in its staging and concept, which, fair, but for a beginner, in my opinion, that's exactly what you want, and you can't do better than the Met for gorgeous staging and costumes, great singers, and great videography, which I didn't even know would affect me until I started watching a bunch of these... and... it does actually make a huge difference when watching video. (Watching live is, of course, different.)

-I showed several clips, one of which was a 3-minute clip of Kaufmann/Hampson/Salminen in the auto-da-fe scene from Don Carlo. (Alagna/Keenlyside/Furlanetto is still the whole version of Don Carlo I would recommend, but for auto-da-fe out of context I thought the former was better, not least because it didn't have a giant weeping Jesus in the background.) I explained beforehand the background about how Posa is Prince Carlo's best friend but also has the relationship where he has sworn fealty to King Philip. (I have uploaded the clip here (google drive video clip, ~3 minutes) -- mildredofmidgard, I know music/opera is Not Your Thing but this is the moment in Don Carlo I was talking about, check it out) and my big triumph, as far as I am concerned, is that when the clip ended my cousin cried out, "Oh, that's so sad!" MY WORK HERE IS DONE.

-My other great triumph was that E was curious about what I said about Don Giovanni. Being her, she could not care less about Don G himself -- she was perfectly content with a limited understanding that he was the Bad Guy -- but she was particularly interested in what I said about Don G coming to a sticky end, and asked about it the next day. Once I further explained that there was a singing statue and that in many productions Don G disappeared into flames with the statue at the end, both she and A really wanted to watch it, so that afternoon we all snuggled up on the couch and watched "Don Giovanni, a cenar teco" (this one with Rodney Gilfrey) and they still ask for "the statue opera" on occasion. (That's the only part they have watched or are interested in watching, or that I am interested in playing for them, until they're a lot older. Well, okay, "O statua gentilissima," but that's along the same lines.)

-Since you guys said it was fun for people to recognize music in opera, another short clip I showed was from Thais, because, well, I don't know if it's all Koreans or just my particular family, but all our extended relatives LOOOOOVE Meditation from Thais and all of us cousins who play violin (or piano, if that cousin happened to be near one of the cousins who played violin) have had to play that song approximately six million times, every time a third cousin twice removed came to visit. There was much groaning when the melody was revealed :)

-It turns out my aunt (uncle's wife) really likes opera!!!! We are already making plans to go to Salzburg or Italy sometime and watch opera :D (well, pipe dreams right now... I certainly wouldn't go until my kids are older)

(Part 1 was where I asked for help; Part 2 was an outtake of this post about emoting in opera)

Comments

Re: Fredersdorf

[mildred_of_midgard]

Cahn: another Fritz anecdote, while we're talking about his micromanaging style of government. Once upon a time, in his elderly years, he was riding through Berlin, and a crowd was gazing at some piece of paper that had been posted. It was a caricature of him, and I'll quote Carlyle quoting his source here because it's too good: the "King in a very melancholy guise, seated on a Stool, a Coffee-mill between his knees; diligently grinding with the one hand, and with the other picking up any bean that might have fallen." <-- Accurate caricature is accurate.

The anecdote is told to illustrate how, instead of being offended like a normal king might be, he ordered someone to move the caricature lower so the people could see it better, and the people loved him for it. (Part of Fritz's whole "freedom of speech" thing he prided himself on, which he was not as consistent about as we moderns might like, but, as usual, "fair for its time.")

His musicians, like Voltaire, love-hated him: loved him because he was such a great patron of the arts and enthusiastic participant, hated him because, yes, he really did stand over your shoulder during the entire performance making commentary, and woe unto you if you did anything he didn't like, and that was very easy to do. Composers got the same treatment. People complained that he treated his singers like soldiers, and if he said you couldn't leave the country and had to stay and perform, well, then, you'd better be prepared to come up with a more successful escape attempt from Prussia than he and Katte did. (Friiiiiitz!)

I have *opinions* about his parallels not only with Alexander the Great but with Odysseus, and it has recently come to my attention that there's a translation of the Odyssey that renders the untranslatable word "polutropos" (which, if there's a word in Greek that describes Fritz, that's it) in the first line as "complicated", as in, "Tell me about a complicated man, Muse."

Tell me about a complicated man, Mildred and Selena. ;)

ETA:
People complained that he treated his singers like soldiers, and if he said you couldn't leave the country and had to stay and perform, well, then, you'd better be prepared to come up with a more successful escape attempt from Prussia than he and Katte did.

Part of the reason when I was reading about Carl August and Goethe I was all "Whoooooaa." Voltaire was no angel when he was fleeing the country, and he has to take his 50% of the blame, but I have a hard time seeing Fritz being that chill about it even if Voltaire had just wanted to rediscover his muse.

It's almost 3 am here (woken up by sciatica), but maybe tomorrow if selenak hasn't done one of her fantastic summaries, I'll give you "Voltaire Leaving Prussia."

Voltaire in Prussia

[mildred_of_midgard]

As we've explained, Voltaire and Fritz initially got on like a house on fire, when all they had to do was write letters raving about how the other one was the greatest writer or prince/king who had ever lived.

Young King Fritz: "Now, as we all know, French lang & lit >>>>>> German lang & lit. Problem is, I myself am a German. I need a Frenchman to bring me up to a higher standard of civilization!"

Voltaire: *is running out of people in Europe he hasn't already alienated*

Fritz: "Come ooooonnn, you know I love you, it'll be great! <3333 Teach me to be French!"

Voltaire: "You know how deeply disillusioned I've been with you ever since you invaded Silesia while the presses were still churning out copies of Anti-Machiavel." *frowny face*

Fritz: *puppy eyes*

Fritz: *offers of $$$$*

Voltaire: "Oh, all right, what could possibly go wrong? Frenemies forever! To Potsdam and beyond!"

Voltaire, under his breath: "As long as he pays the bills, I'll correct his godawful poetry clean his dirty laundry." [The part about the dirty laundry is an actual quote.]

Fritz, under his breath: "Awful human being, brilliant writer. I'll squeeze the orange and throw away the peel once I've got the juice." [The part about the orange is an actual quote, or at least Voltaire said it was.]

Voltaire: *quarrels with more people at Fritz's court than even Fritz has*

Voltaire: *finds out Fritz has been talking shit about him* "I am outraged, I tell you, outraged!"

Voltaire: *fed up with Fritz wasting aka micromanaging his time*

Voltaire: *publishes a pseudonymous set of memoirs tabloids suspiciously similar to his later set of memoirs tabloids, in which he endeavors to drag Fritz's name through the mud with accounts of his wanton homosexual lifestyle*

[I finally sorted out my confusion over Voltaire's memoirs: there were two sets! One pseudonymous and denied by him during his lifetime, one official posthumous set. Sheesh, Voltaire.

Btw, this allowed later historians and fans to no-homo Fritz on the grounds that the only evidence for his alleged homosexuality was an estranged Frenchman libeling him. Our Fritz WOULD NEVER! Meanwhile, sensible people continue to notice the vast amounts of independent evidence for Fritz's homoerotic and homoromantic inclinations, irrespective of how far he went in bed with whom or how often.]

Also Voltaire: *engages in all sorts of shady and illegal financial practices in Berlin, gets caught up in a lawsuit, alienates as many people around him as Fritz is currently doing on a grander scale in the lead-up to the Seven Years' War.*

Fritz: *has had it up to HERE with Voltaire*

Voltaire: *has had it up to HERE with Fritz*

Voltaire: *spends his last months in Prussia writing epigrams and poetry about how everyone in Prussia is terrible*

Voltaire: *finally flees the country before everyone strangles him*

5 minutes later...

Fritz: "OMG, you've got that book where I wrote poetry and epigrams about how everyone in Europe is terrible?? Give it back! That does not leave the country! That was for your eyes only! DON'T SHOW ANYONE!"

Fritz: *panic*

Voltaire: "Haha!"

Fritz: *has his agents arrest and manhandle Voltaire in a city outside Prussia where Fritz doesn't actually have the legal authority to do this* "GIVE ME BACK MY BOOK!"

Voltaire: "Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!"

Europe: *does not expect any better from either of them by now*

Europe: *popcorn.gif*

If you're getting the impression that Fritz and Voltaire didn't get along because they were SO MUCH ALIKE, well, that would be the same impression everyone ever has had after hearing this story.

Also, imagine this as my background to reading the Carl August/Goethe summary. "'Be the Voltaire to my Fritz'?? Haha, right, because that worked out so well...Oh. Oh, wow. You guys should be canonized! Sensible adults, who'd a thunk."

Also, I should just add that Voltaire's life was one long string of stories exactly like this in different settings, give or take some details. :P

Re: Voltaire in Prussia

[cahn]

Europe: *popcorn.gif*

I might have laughed out loud at this.

If you're getting the impression that Fritz and Voltaire didn't get along because they were SO MUCH ALIKE, well, that would be the same impression everyone ever has had after hearing this story.

Lol, what I was actually thinking was something along the lines of "Neither Voltaire nor Fritz gets along with ANYONE, do they? Kind of not so great to get them together..." Though I suppose that is not so different from what you said...

Also, imagine this as my background to reading the Carl August/Goethe summary. "'Be the Voltaire to my Fritz'?? Haha, right, because that worked out so well...Oh. Oh, wow. You guys should be canonized! Sensible adults, who'd a thunk."

HAHAHAHAHAA

Re: Voltaire in Prussia

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yay, I'm glad I made you laugh. :D Quote attributed to Louis XV when Voltaire left France for Prussia: "That's one less madman at my court, one more at his." I imagine he was snacking on metaphorical popcorn as the soap opera story unfolded.

I admit the part that made me laugh out loud was when I realized the Monty Python quote was a *perfect* fit for Voltaire (you should imagine it applied with heavy layers of irony on my part).

Lol, what I was actually thinking was something along the lines of "Neither Voltaire nor Fritz gets along with ANYONE, do they? Kind of not so great to get them together..." Though I suppose that is not so different from what you said...

Yep, that's definitely a big part of it! I tried to include as much parallelism in the summary as possible. Those two... *affectionate eyeroll*

Re: Voltaire in Prussia

[mildred_of_midgard]

Voltaire: "Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!"

This is the Monty Python quote, if anyone didn't recognize it.

Re: Fredersdorf

[cahn]

His musicians, like Voltaire, love-hated him: loved him because he was such a great patron of the arts and enthusiastic participant, hated him because, yes, he really did stand over your shoulder during the entire performance making commentary, and woe unto you if you did anything he didn't like, and that was very easy to do.

Heeeeeee. To be fair, if I had absolute power and had been raised by a totally BSC family (holy cow, Wilhelmine, I have finished Part I and into Part II and if only a tenth of what she says about her parents is true... it's pretty bad) I would totally do that too. Since I don't have absolute power, I just write long critiques of every opera I see and post it to DW instead of making the musicians Do It My Way. :P :)

Re: Fredersdorf

[mildred_of_midgard]

LOLOLOL

I have *totally* been thinking a lot lately about what I would do in Fritz's shoes, in general. And even without the abusive family...so remember his Vorleser ("reader"), Henri de Catt? (He had other readers at different times, but Catt's the one who wrote famous memoirs.) In the foreword to the English translation of memoirs, Catt is described as more of a "listener" than a "reader". To which my reaction is always, "Oh, man, if I were an absolute monarch, I would so pay someone to be my listener!"

Then I realized I don't even need the absolute power. I've already offered the position of "listener", under a different job title, to one of my friends, who said he would gladly consider it as soon as he finishes his PhD (which he's in his 17th year of, so I don't consider it likely, but there you go). I've since had to retract the offer since my health deteriorated to the point of not being able to work full time, but just last week I was telling him that as soon as I can find an effective treatment, I'm going to open the offer again.

SO YES. In Fritz's shoes, I would absolutely have employed a "listener" and called it something else, hahaha. And I'm not musically inclined, but when I commissioned literature, it would be like Yuletide, except following the detailed list of preferences in the requester's letters would be mandatory. :PP

So Fritz, cahn and mildred_of_midgard are *with* you on that! :D

(Can you imagine Voltaire in Fritz's shoes?)

Re: Fredersdorf

[cahn]

I am totally willing to be the position of listener for certain historical fandoms that have a high overlap with my fandoms :P :D

And I'm not musically inclined, but when I commissioned literature, it would be like Yuletide, except following the detailed list of preferences in the requester's letters would be mandatory. :PP

If I had a whole lot more money than I do (operas are super expensive) I would totally commission operas just like this :D Of course, if I had that kind of money, I would also bankroll the Friedrich TV series and get you and selenak to advise, and totally micromanage anyone who wanted to make older!Friedrich more woobie diverge from best historical guesses :D

Re: Fredersdorf

[mildred_of_midgard]

Ahahahaha, I need more money. :PP I don't think screenplay writing is my thing, but I would make an excellent advisor of strict historical accuracy and could make all the screenwriters pull their hair out.

We also get to micromanage casting, right?

Re: Fredersdorf

[mildred_of_midgard]

I am totally willing to be the position of listener for certain historical fandoms that have a high overlap with my fandoms :P :D

And you are great, and as I said, my partner thanks you almost as much as I do!

I do have this one friend, though, who's willing to be a listener for ANYTHING I say, as well as having no food preferences that conflict with mine, and being a good driver and willing to go pretty much anywhere I'm interested in. (His official job title was going to be "chauffeur", but since driving was going to be an occasional thing, his real job description was going to be "listener".) I need more money so I can hire him stat. :P

Re: Fredersdorf

[mildred_of_midgard]

(holy cow, Wilhelmine, I have finished Part I and into Part II and if only a tenth of what she says about her parents is true... it's pretty bad)

Yeah. It was bad. Regardless of the extent to which her memoirs should not be taken as gospel (they are demonstrably factually wrong at some points), there's also a danger of falling prey to the tendency to disbelieve the victims of abuse and side with their abusers. And we know for a fact it was bad. :/

Re: Fredersdorf

[cahn]

Yeah, I am assuming that the memoirs will tend to be factually wrong (when they are wrong) at the points where she's describing other people's actions / things she only knows by hearsay, the more sensational the better (e.g., Grumpkow being part of an assassination plot!!) and reasonably accurate when Wilhelmine is describing her own experiences, though I'm allowing for some memory/bias there too.

But what kills me are all the times where she's all "and then the king grabbed me by the hair and dragged me through the room and it pretty much sucked" and "and then the queen told me, 'you've ruined my life and you're the worst daughter ever and I hate you and you should die in a fire', and it made me sad" totally matter-of-factly, like it's totally normal and of course you'd expect your parents to do that. That more than anything else tells me that it really was that bad.

Re: Fredersdorf

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah. :-((( Those poor kids.

In general, I try to give abuse victims the benefit of the doubt, particularly when they say there *was* abuse (specific details are often inaccurate). The only person I know for a fact to have straight-up made up abuse claims out of whole cloth was an abuser who lied about everything, all the time, including in really absurd situations, and as part of this, systematically accused *everyone* around her of abuse.

In the Hohenzollerns' case, uh, there were witnesses.

Carl August, Master of Chill

[selenak]

I had a weekend featuring a baptism and two birthday celebrations, sorry - but I adore your "Voltaire in Prussia" summary. BTW, there used to be an audiobook featuring two of our most eminent actors having a go at it as Fritz and Voltaire in excerpts from their correspondance. Sadly, it's not sold anymore. (And in German besides, quelle horreur, Fritz!)

And yes, verily, Carl August was a more sensible fellow in how to handle a poet bff than great-uncle Fritz. Mind you: he's not kidding in my summary when bringing up his favourite mistress getting leading roles. Since one of Goethe's tasks was running the Weimar theatre, the fact the female star was literally in bed with the Duke sometimes caused friction, since her NOT getting the best parts was a strict no. When, a few decades down the line, he wanted a change of theatre director but didn't want to tell Goethe outright, he instead insisted a funny dog should be put on stage. This was it for Goethe, as Carl August knew it would be, and old Johann Wolfgang resigned from that post. (BTW I always thought that was where Tom Stoppard got the bit with the dog in "Shakespeare in love" from.)

Generally, they handled each other's private lives well. Which was a big issue since when Goethe returned from Italy, he returned not just with erotic poetry in his luggage but with, none too long after his arrival, moving in with a local girl who worked at the manufacturary for artificial flowers (not quite working class as we understand it today, but definitely not middle class, let alone noble), Christiane Vulpius. The scandal here wasn't that they had sex but that they lived together, in the same house, sans marriage, with illegitimate children (all of whom but one died, and the surviving son was named August after CA)... for the next eighteeen years. And then they married. This was a big big scandal in stuffy little Weimar, both the living together (as opposed to the usual rich man has sex with the lower classes, moves on thing) and the eventual marriage, and if Carl August hadn't provided cover and withstood all demands to hand down an ultimatum to Goethe along the lines of "get rid of the low born slut or lose my patronage", who knows what would have happened. Once Christiane was officially Frau von Goethe, Carl August shocked the Weimar society by dancing with her at a court ball, which, together with Schopenhauer's mother Johanna offering a cup of tea ("if Goethe gives her his name, I can offer her tea") signalled the official acceptance of the quondam Demoiselle Vulpius in Weimar society. Which never stopped bitching about her until she died, sad to say, but Carl August was a champ throughout in this matter.

Re: Carl August, Master of Chill

[mildred_of_midgard]

I had a weekend featuring a baptism and two birthday celebrations, sorry

Nothing to apologize for! I'm glad my summary entertained.

BTW, there used to be an audiobook featuring two of our most eminent actors having a go at it as Fritz and Voltaire in excerpts from their correspondance.

O.

M.

G.

That sounds amaaaaaaaazing!

(And in German besides, quelle horreur, Fritz!)

Now, that's just adding insult to injury. :P

if Carl August hadn't provided cover and withstood all demands to hand down an ultimatum to Goethe

Man. Carl August keeps blowing my mind. Go him!

Re: Carl August, Master of Chill

[selenak]

Voila: https://www.mail-order-kaiser.de/crossProduct/Duell-in-Sanssouci-Voltaire-und-Friedrich-der-Grosse-im-Briefwechsel-CD

One more Carl August tale for you, then, or rather, a quote from old Goethe about him to Eckermann, his secretary. (Who like Henri de Catt wrote memoirs.) (Bear in mind Goethe is also being discreet. No stories about foursomes to Eckermann.)

"He was eighteen when I came to Weimar, but his buds already showed what the later tree wold be like. He became intensely close to me, and was interested in all I did, which built our relationship. He sat entire evenings with me in deep conversations on topics of nature and art and other good things. We often were up till late in the night, and it wasn't unusual to fall asleep together on my couch. Fifty years we've been together now, and it it wouldn't be surprising if we've achieved something in all this time. It was like a good vintage when it still was fermenting. We rode on parforce horses over hedges, ditches and through rivers, exhausted ourselves up and down mountains, camped outside under the sky, or next to a fireplace in the woods; that was what he loved to do."

Re: Carl August, Master of Chill

[cahn]

Holy cow, I see what you mean about the slash potential! (And even without looking at it through a fandom-slash lens, that's just a really sweet quote <3 )

Re: Carl August, Master of Chill

[cahn]

Well, obviously you are not supposed to have a life of your own, your only function is clearly to supply me with historical anecdotes!! /channeling Fritz

I don't know which is funnier, the bit where CA insisted a funny dog be put on stage to drive Goethe away or the part where it actually worked! HEE.

Yay Carl August <3

Re: Carl August, Master of Chill

[mildred_of_midgard]

Well, obviously you are not supposed to have a life of your own, your only function is clearly to supply me with historical anecdotes!! /channeling Fritz

LOL, good job! A++++ impersonation, would mistake you for Fritz again.

Charlotte and sisters?

[cahn]

Since you mentioned Carl August's mom was the kid of Charlotte (?)... tell me about Charlotte? It's hard to follow Wilhelmine's memoirs because she only ever mentions "my sister" even when (I think) she's talking about different sisters within a couple of pages, so I don't really understand what Wilhelmine thinks about Charlotte, much less whether she is justified in thinking so.

As far as I can tell, there seems to be at least one sister Wilhelmine wasn't on good terms with, who (at least from Wilhelmine's point of view) was jealous (?) of her, and at least one sister she seemed to be on generally good terms with (was this Charlotte?).

It's not super clear from the memoirs, but it does seem a little like they weren't quite as battered around as Wilhelmine and Fritz.

Re: Charlotte and sisters?

[selenak]

Honestly, I don't know that much more about Charlotte than what is in the memoirs (where yes, Wilhelmine accuses Charlotte of having schemed against her and badmouthed her to Fritz). Whether or not she did, who knows. Wiki says Charlotte, like her siblings, was brainy and a patron of arts and libraries (she financed a good 5000 for the Braunschweig one), but also very... well, when her sons went off to fight for Uncle Fritz in the 7-years-war she told them a variation of the Spartan "come back with your shield or on it", i.e.: "Prove yourself worthy of the House of Hohenzollern or never see me again".

Let me put it this way: her daughter Anna Amalia's principle of education for Carl August seems to have been "how Mom and her siblings grew up? Yeah, I'll do the opposite with my kid".

But yeah, given the sheer number of siblings, the designation „my sister“ in the memoirs is not helpful. Btw, another confusion to avoid later on – „the Empress“ whom Wilhelmine meets isn’t Maria Theresia (whom she also met, but later). Maria Theresia gets referred to as either „the arch duchess“ or „the Queen of Hungary“. Background: remember in Shakespeare’s play Henry V. the long monologue about „The Salic Law“ by the Archbishop of Canterbury early on (to justify Henry invading France)? That. The Salic Law applied to the Holy Roman Empire, which meant no woman on the throne. Now, since the fourteenth century, the Emperor had been exclusively from the House of Habsburg, though technically, Emperors were elected by the German princes. However, Maria Theresia’s dad had no sons, try as he might. That he didn’t really accept this until basically five minutes before his death meant MT hadn’t been prepared for the throne and had to learn on the job. But when he acknowledged at least the possibility there would be no sons, he worked hard to get the other German princes to acknowledge „The Pragmatic Sanction“, which meant Maria Theresia would inherit Austria and assorted territories and her spouse would be elected Holy Roman Emperor. (This meant the Salic Law technically still applied, since it was the spouse who would be Emperor, and Maria Theresia only Empress by marriage, not crowned in her own right.)

Now, when MT’s Dad did die, this at first was ignored by practically everyone. Instead of her husband – Franz Stefan, the Duke of Lorraine, which is why from this point onwards, it’s actually the House of Habsburg-Lorraine -, the German princes voted the Duke of Wittelsbach (ruler of Bavaria) as the next Emperor, and Fritz invaded Silesia to make her on-the-job learning even more joyful. The old fat Empress Wilhelmine mentions near the end of her memoirs this is the lady of Bavaria. After the Duke of Wittelsbach-turned-Emperor, who wasn’t the youngest, died, however, MT had on-the-job-learned, and also, she’d persuaded the Hungarians to crown her Queen despite her being „only“ arch duchess, not Empress. Which meant that this time around, the electors voted for her husband Franz Stefan as Emperor. Behold, Empress-by-marriage Maria Theresia. Fritz still referred to her as „the Queen of Hungary“ only, which is why Wilhelmine does, too. (Though she did meet her.)

(Who did the ruling, which was never a question. Franz Stefan was that rarity of a male 18th century and later spouse who did not object to this. He also had a talent for spotting economic advantages and focused on large scale cloth manufacturing.)

Re: Charlotte and sisters?

[cahn]

Ah, excellent, thanks. Really the question I was asking was "how did Carl August turn out so well," which you have answered :) (And... a great deal of my childrearing philosophy does in fact turn on that same principle, so I feel for Anna Amalia!) Well, that and "was that actually Charlotte she was talking about, and was Charlotte actually that awful." :)

Holy cow, I hadn't realized that Maria Theresia's ascension, er, took quite so long -- thank you for this, this is fascinating. And I would never have figured out that "the Queen of Hungary" referred to her, so I'm glad you clarified that :)

(Also, yay Franz Stefan!!)

Re: Charlotte and sisters?

[mildred_of_midgard]

Now, since the fourteenth century, the Emperor had been exclusively from the House of Habsburg

Nitpick: Wikipedia agrees with my memory that it's the fifteenth. Habsburg was a prominent house before that, but not yet HRE level.

I'm glad I checked, because Wikipedia disagrees with my memory that Maximilian I was the first Habsburg emperor; he was the second, and the first was his father Frederick III. Which, since he was the emperor Frederick in Ash--cahn, you remember Ash!--idk how I forgot he was a Habsburg too. Wikipedia tells me Frederick was MT's 7 times great-grandfather (if I didn't lose count following the links), and given it's the Habsburgs, he was probably her 7 times great-grandfather several times over, 5 times great-uncle and 9 times great-grandfather at least once, and half eighth cousin twice removed, and that's just getting started. :PP

Speaking of Habsburg inbreeding, have you seen Carlos II of Spain's family tree? It's pretty special. Have you seen his jaw? Also special. (You know about the Habsburg family jaw, right? If not, search for "Habsburg jaw" or "Habsburg chin" immediately on Google images and marvel. You can walk through a random museum in Vienna, spot a portrait, and spontaneously identify it as a Habsburg before even reading the description.) MT got lucky by Habsburg standards, in that her parents and grandparents had toned down the inbreeding by the time the line got to her. Which may help account for some of her general with-it-ness.

Non-Habsburg FW and SD were first cousins, btw, and as noted, a bunch of physical and some mental health problems galloped in the family. "[Fritz] suffered repeatedly from colic, stomach cramps, migraine, skin rashes, erysipelas, leg ulcers, gout, cramps, asthma, fits of choking, vomiting, constipation, chest pains, fever, dropsy and hemorrhoids, and often simultaneously from a permutation of any of these. They suggest it is likely that he had inherited the porphyria that had made his father’s life such a misery." To quote Eddie Izzard talking about the European royals: "Because it's a bad idea when cousins marry!"

Also worth remembering that both FW and Fritz remained complete workaholics when not completely incapacitated, and it took a lot to incapacitate them. FW did a famous "painted in torment" self-portrait (weirdly, the man did learn how to paint well enough to do a self-portrait, go figure) of himself in the throes of his illness, Fritz is constantly seen talking in his correspondence and other people's memoirs about the importance of not giving into your hemorrhoids and other health problems, and at one point Voltaire even wrote a poem to Fritz expressing sympathy for the infamous hemorrhoids. Incredible pain tolerance must have also run in that family.

Re: Charlotte and sisters?

[selenak]

A kindness of sisters:

Friederike Luise. Had porphyria (like nephew George III, possibly). Had an awful marriage.

Philippine Charlotte>. Charlotte, see above. The marriage was mostly okay. (Her husband, btw, was the brother of Elisabeth Christine, aka Fritz' not-even-a-beard wife.)

Sophia Dorothea (the 3rd). Had an awful husband and inherited Dad's propensity for congestive heart failure. Was supposed to be the least smart of all the Hohenzollern kids.

Luise Ulrike. Married Swedish royalty and was the mother of Gustav III., of Verdi opera fame (where he moonlights as a Puritan governor of Massachusetts). Again, brainy, patron of the arts, but also really really into Dad’s army. She was FW’s favorite daughter and her mother’s favorite daughter as well, or at least the one Sophia Dorothea said she’d never been able to say no to. Was also really into absolute monarchy and not keen on reforms, a central figure behind various attempts to make Sweden more absolutely monarchical, as it were.

Amalie. Didn't marry at all. Did supposedly have a passionate love affair with one Baron of Trenck, though it can’t be proven. (This was dicy because not only was he her brother’s sidekick but he had a high ranking cousin in the Austrian court.) Was mainly into music, composed as Fritz and Wilhelmine did. Was the one of the siblings looking most like Fritz physically according to their contemporaries.

Re: Charlotte and sisters?

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm surprised it took us one of this long to cover the Pragmatic Sanction!

A couple small supplements for cahn:

Had porphyria (like nephew George III, possibly).

Had porphyria (like dad FW, probably).

Had porphyria (like brother Fritz, possibly).

It is a genetic condition.

(Her husband, btw, was the brother of Elisabeth Christine, aka Fritz' not-even-a-beard wife.)

Likewise, unfavorite brother of Fritz, favorite son of FW, and father of FW 2, Augustus Wilhelm, was married to a sister of Fritz's not-even-a-beard wife. So 3 of the Hohenzollern siblings married 3 of the Brunswick siblings, instead of, as Mom wanted, the Hanover siblings.

Philippine Charlotte was married off by FW at around the same time he was marrying Fritz to EC and Wilhelmine to the Margrave of Bayreuth. Augustus Wilhelm was married off ten years later at Fritz's behest, shortly after he became king and no longer had to even pretend to be trying to impregnate his not-even-a-beard wife, as a political concession to make her family, the Brunswicks, less upset at how completely he was setting aside his wife (initially in favor of his mother, eventually in favor of his dogs, the marquises de Pompadour ;) ). Especially after he'd been using EC to get her family to help cover his book, art, and music expenses while Crown Prince. Fritz's idea of a solution: not, "maybe I could be nice to my wife," but "my brother can have sex with his wife, since he's so good at that." (Fritz, remember, after losing a battle, engaged in his usual "well, it wasn't MY fault" scapegoating practice by telling Augustus Wilhelm he sucked so much as a general he could go focus on the heir-begetting part and leave the war to Fritz and Heinrich. AW is devastated, dies, Heinrich holds a grudge forever, builds that obelisk as soon as Fritz dies. <-- An unkindness of brothers.)

Huh. If the English double marriage project had gone through, would Fritz have had to (try to) get his wife's sister Caroline married off to AW? Hadn't thought of that. As discussed, I think he might have been less blatantly dismissive of Amelia than EC, but he still wouldn't have been fathering heirs on her, and he might have been worried about her tattling (and that's a much more powerful family to piss off).