cahn | Opera for Beginners (Part 3 of 3)

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)

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From:

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.

From:

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.)

From:

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!!)

From:

selenak

Franz Stefan was Liselotte's and thus of course Philippe's) grandson on his mother's side. His mother wasn't pleased that he was required to give up Lorraine in order to marry Maria Theresia; he got Tuscany for it as the last Medici duke had just died, which was part of a deal with France so France would support the Pragmatic Sanction once Maria Theresia's dad was dead. (Spoiler: they didn't and let Fritz invade instead.) Franz Stefan, aka Franzl, thus basically had to give up his duchy on the chance that he'd be elected Emperor (a job which however his wife would execute), and if his father-in-law had gotten a male heir at the last minute, he'd have been stuck with Tuscany (that was, IF he'd been able to hold it without support) for the rest of his life. However, he and Maria Theresia had known each other from childhood onwards and were that extreme rarity in 18th century Europe, a love match, and even a strong-willed teen, she insisted it had to be him and no other. Mind you, he still cheated on her later on. But he still rates highly among 18th century spouses: their first few kids were girls until Joseph arrived, and instead of being upset, he was doting, he supported her emotionally through all the ups and downs (really important when the first thing that happened upon her father's death was Fritz pouncing, Bavaria following suit and the rest of Europe saying "Pragmatic Sanction? What pragmatic sanction, that's a WOMAN on the throne, hahaha), and as mentioned, he was that further rarity among nobles in any century, a truly good businessman adapt at making cash, not just spending it. (This meant when his son Joseph - aka the rational fanboy - had to balance the state budget, he could draw from the private Habsburg accounts that Dad had so ably filled.) Since the 7-years-war drained the Austrian budget A LOT, this came in really handy at that time, too. Maria Theresia seems to have fallen as a young girl and remained in love through all of her life, his mistresses not withstanding. Basically, he invented being a good Prince Consort though he was technically the Emperor.

From:

cahn

Eeeee, a love match! I think this is so great, and that generally speaking he actually turned out to be a great spouse. (I am now annoyed that he cheated on her, though!)

From:

selenak

Well, the three 18th century Royal spouses who as far as we can know never cheated on their wives were: 1) FW (no comment necessary), Louis XVI. (might not have needed sex tips from his brother-in-law otherwise, she said flippantly, but seriously now, no mistresses for Louis, which did not make Marie Antoinette a happier Woman), George III (was by far the best husband of any Hannover, though that's damming with faint praise, given how rotten the other Georges and William were, but otoh: Farmer George did go mad).

All of which is not meant to excuse Franz Stefan cheating on Maria Theresia, but to observe sexual fidelity wasn't the ultimate criterium was to which royal marriages were successful ones.

From:

cahn

1) FW (no comment necessary)

You should have seen my face at this. I concede the point :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

LOLOLOLOOOOOOL yes. :PP And remember our ever-reliable Wilhelmine's anecdote about FW trying to cheat on his wife at one point, but his intended mistress punching him in the face and giving him a bloody nose instead? Man, I hope that really happened. Wallop him a good one for all of us, Frau von Pannewitz!

If we're talking pseudo-royals, i.e., Stuarts in exile, it's been 15+ years since I read up on them, but I don't *remember* James Francis or Charles Edward being unfaithful to their spouses. I may just be forgetting, but what I remember is Charles being abusive*, and his wife having a lover and eventually leaving him. I can name two of his acknowledged mistresses, but both of them were before he married (which was a relatively short-lived marriage late in life). And James's life I knew much less well even when I was up on the Stuarts, so for all I know he had 10 mistresses I'm forgetting about, but I don't remember it.

* And possessive, including stringing bells up on chairs around their bed so he could tell if she was sneaking out at night.

At any rate, if I'm remembering correctly, Charles's is certainly another case where sexual fidelity =/= successful marriage.

Fritz himself, of course, may have met the "18th century monarch not cheating on his wife" criterion on a technicality, but only if he literally never had sex inside or outside of his marriage, which is unknowable (and doubtful, imo). :P

I agree all these examples illustrate the limitations of sexual fidelity as a signifier of a good marriage or lack thereof. ;)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Holy cow, I hadn't realized that Maria Theresia's ascension, er, took quite so long

Oops, we may not have told you that the war Fritz started when he invaded Silesia was called the War of the Austrian Succession and lasted 8 years. Haha. So here's how it goes. Dates are included where relevant to characterization.

May 31, 1740: FW dies, Fritz inherits giant treasury and efficient army.

September 1740: Fritz publishes the Anti-Machiavel, aka "You should totally not break treaties and invade other people's territories just because you can." (Voltaire: "Woohoo!")

October 20, 1740: Maria Theresia's dad dies, leaving her no training, no treasury, and a wobbly army.

October 21, 1740: "Pragmatic Sanction? What pragmatic sanction, that's a WOMAN on the throne, hahaha" #Europe

November 8, 1740: Fritz silently mobilizes ~~Dad's~~ his army without telling anyone what he's up to. (This is the context for the "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes, Your Majesty!" "Well, so can I!" anecdote.)

December 11, 1740: Fritz sends a message to MT demanding she hand him her richest province, Silesia.

December 16, 1740: Fritz invades Silesia without waiting for an answer from MT, without declaring war, without any legal pretext whatsoever other than this.

Sometime later, while he's occupying the province: Fritz tells his people to come up with a legal pretext giving him a historical claim to Silesia. They find one. He says, "Good job!" (Voltaire: "OMGWTFBBQ!!!")

June-July 1742: MT reluctantly says, "Fine, you can keep most of it," thus ending the First Silesian War.

1744-1745: MT and Fritz fight the Second Silesian War, because she's not actually giving up that easily.

1745: MT reluctantly says, "Fine, you can keep it. Asshole." MT still trying to get the Pragmatic Sanction recognized.

1745: Having gotten what he wants, ~~Machiavelli~~ Fritz totally ditches his ally France and leaves France to fight the rest of the war on its own. "See you, suckers!"

1748: MT FINALLY gets the Pragmatic Sanction recognized by Europe, ending the War of the Austrian Succession, but has to acknowledge for the third time that Fritz has Silesia. "For now." *cue ominous music*

June 1756: MT is determined to start the Third Silesian War. She's prepared this time! She's also assisted by the fact that, as described elsewhere, every major neighboring European power is now pissed off at Fritz, for various reasons, e.g. France at being ditched in the last war. Everyone gets sucked into what is going to develop into the Seven Years' War.

The only reason England doesn't also gang up on him is that political considerations take precedence over ~~the King of Prussia being an over-the-top asshole~~ interpersonal relations, and they're kind of already at war with France, etc, etc.

August 1756: Fritz realizes he just got himself into a 3 1/2 front war. What does he do? Invade Saxony before any of his enemies have a chance to realize they've lost the initiative. "Dammit, Fritz!"

September 1756: Fritz tells his people occupying Saxony to seize the state archives and find a legal justification for the invasion.

7 years, some Russian fanboy shenanigans, and numerous near-defeats later...

1763: Fritz gets to keep Silesia.

1772: "That was fun!* Can we divvy up Poland too? Come on, MT, it'll be fun. You, me, and Catherine. What's not to like?"

* He didn't actually say "That was fun," he said, "That war was the worst thing ever, I'd rather have been composing symphonies at home, but I am totally INNOCENT of that war and my enemies forced it on me *cough* and I had responsibilities to the state of Prussia, and maybe this time I can meet some of those expansionist responsibilities with less bloodshed, whaddaya say, Austria and Russia?" TL;DR: "That was fun, would invade an innocent country again!"

No, Fritz wasn't a Nazi, he was one of the most liberal European rulers going at the time, but he diiiid have a very high death toll in his unprovoked expansionist wars at the time, plus he set a two-hundred year very bad Prussian/German precedent for "Invaders keepers!"

Ambivalent legacy is ambivalent.

Oh, hilarious mini-anecdote about liberal Fritz: in 1773, the Pope decided the unpopular Jesuits (an extreme brand of Catholicism) were banned. The response in Catholic countries ranged from "Woohoo!" to "I guess we have to do what the Pope says?" The response of more liberal rulers (Fritz in Prussia, Catherine in Russia, the US) was "Religious tolerance FTW! Come here, Jesuits!"

The response of Old Fritz, now elder statesman of Europe: "I have my realpolitik reasons as well as my Enlightenment reasons (cause I'm Fritz the Great and I can juggle the two like no one's business), but seriously, look at the atheist monarch providing the Catholics a haven from the other Catholics in a Protestant country, THE IRONY, look at how awesome I am, LOL FOREVER *dies laughing*"

ETA: This was one of the anecdotes that made 15-yo me fall in love with Frederick the Great, with the tolerance and the snark being equally important. I had juuust discovered the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of religion (had not yet discovered expansionism was bad, haha), and this was total catnip (along with, as I mentioned, the supposed magnificent bastardy of lulling everyone with Anti-Machiavel and immediately invading Silesia, um, yeah, lol, whoops).

Edited (Subject not really accurate any more) Date: 2019-09-15 01:19 am (UTC)

From:

cahn

You (plural) might have told me that's what it was called? I'm still trying to keep everything straight :P :)

lol this is a Great summary! :D (And I think I'm starting to make sense of all the different pieces now... :P :) )

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Searching through the comments, I don't think we did! I appear to have mentioned "War of the Austrian Succession" in passing once, without explaining what it was, in reference to something else (relevant to the comment I left 5 minutes ago, so you might want to reread to put the pieces together), and without including MT. So, it was about time we explained that one.

There's a lot to keep straight! We've been mostly going for the characterization/fandom type anecdotes, and sneaking in the military and political history in bits and pieces. This was the first time I thought you had enough context on events and personalities that a chronology would be 1) comprehensible and 2) interesting, instead of boring. Like, you can really see Fritz's personality (and to a lesser extent MT's) reflected in a close reading of those dates!

From:

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2019-09-17 10:08 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

mildred_of_midgard

1730: Katte executed, just FYI, to bring things full circle. Okay, here's the set of birth and death dates, just for completeness' sake:

February 28*, 1704: Katte born.
January 24, 1712: Fritz born.
November 6, 1730: Katte executed, age 26. Fritz is 18.
August 17, 1786: Fritz dies in his sleep, age 74.

* Per Wikipedia. I've seen the precise date questioned on the internet, albeit not by a reliable source.

We don't know exactly when they met, maybe 1728/9. :'-(

From:

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.

From:

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.

Edited Date: 2019-09-11 08:27 am (UTC)

From:

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).

Edited Date: 2019-09-11 12:12 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

I would say "poor Caroline" in that AU where she has to marry into the Hohenzollern, but then I remembered what her own family was like. Though they seem to have adored her. Also, can you imagine how someone famed as a female truth-to-power teller would have fared anywhere near Fritz, especially if he's awful to her husband?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Also, can you imagine how someone famed as a female truth-to-power teller would have fared anywhere near Fritz, especially if he's awful to her husband?

To answer this, I'm just going to reach back for something you said in another context:

I don't think Fritz would have killed Kleitus for making the "you'd have been nothing without your dad" crack, but he would have made his life spectacularly unpleasant.

From:

cahn

Friiiiiiitz! :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Haha, #1 most frequent reaction of contemporaries and posterity to everything he said or did.

I still love you, Fritz. *hugs* But I'm not going to pretend your flaws weren't larger than life too.

(I will say I'm less critical of how he treated his wife than a lot of biographers I've read. There are specific things he said and did to her that I will agrees are no-nos, but there are multiple occasions where some biographer exclaims that such-and-such was unconscionably cruel, and my reaction is, "Okay, but, like, it really wasn't.")

From:

cahn

Interesting! All right, spill, what were these things :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

cahn

Thank you, and hee, I was unaware when getting into Verdi that it would have so many connections to Prussian royalty :P

From:

selenak

Come on, the one element which is surely unsurprising is that Gustavo/Riccardo should turn out to be a Hohenzollern on his mother's side and thus a nephew of Fritz and grandson of FW. :)