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This is totally too good to keep to myself: on my "I showed my family opera clips" post,

selenak are talking about Frederick the Great (by way of Don Carlo, of course) and it is like this amazing virtuoso spontaneous thing and whoa

Things I knew about Frederick the Great before a year ago: he was king of... Prussia??

Additional things I knew about Frederick the Great before the last couple of days:

selenak informed me last year that he and his dad may well have been at least somewhat the inspiration for Schiller's Don Carlos, and everything that goes with that: his dad (Friedrich Wilhelm, henceforth FW) was majorly awful, he had a boyfriend (Katte) who was horribly killed by his dad

Only a partial list of the additional things I now know about Frederick the Great (henceforth "Fritz") and associated historical figures due to mildred and selenak:
-Fritz and Katte's escape plan (which resulted in Katte's execution) was... really, really boneheaded. As boneheaded as opera plots! :P
-Katte was in the process of destroying 1,500 letters when he got caught (! puts all those letters in Don Carlos into perspective) (ETA: but also see mildred's comment below)
-Fritz wrote opera libretti and so did his sister
-Fritz decided to use himself as an experimental test subject to see if it was entirely possible to do without sleep via the application of coffee WITH PEPPERCORNS AND MUSTARD
-Fritz wrote a poem about orgasm that also reads as if he's never actually, like, had sex (although that was not in this post, it was in the comments to this one)
-FW apparently beat up George II when they were kids
-I am totally not even going to try to summarize the discussion about FW's "rationalized sadism" and sexual hangups and the reeeeeally bizarre Dresden interlude (go down a couple of comments for the really insane stuff)
-Fritz' sister Wilhemina wrote tell-all memoirs about her totally insane family which I am SUPER going to read now, watch this space

Also, there is apparently some subplot involving Russian fanboys that introduces an entirely new cast of people which I am dying to find out about

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Also, it was practical for her to write in, if her letters got intercepted, which they sometimes were

LOL, this made me laugh -- all the nobility hated the German language so much at this point that it was a good way of encrypting messages from said nobility! Heh.

one could love all but six people here!

Do you mean "there are not six people here one could love"? (it just seems like it would make a little more sense in context)

Those letters sound awesome. And it sounds like, while maybe not a perfect marriage, a generally successful and sometimes even happy one, which is rather a relief after reading about all these terrible ones :P :)

Haha, yeah, I wouldn't have noticed that before taking singing lessons. But now I know how hard it is to sing even when one is upright, much less in odd contorted positions. And I'd think at that angle you're stressing the same abdominal muscles you use to sing!

[NOTE: I wrote the rest of this comment while on a plane (yes, I have this version of Don Carlo offline to reference :P) and before

iberiandoctor pointed out that Hampson/Alagna is a much better Fritz/Katte reference. I have also fixed that comment, by the way, to link you to the death scene in that one:
link to comment: https://cahn.dreamwidth.org/158748.html?thread=1018652#cmt1018652
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1eIhYz4DgIj4YhJdwRo8aBpKqHkJja1BZ
]

I didn't have time when writing the last comment to point you to other Posa parts but I'm going to now, because if you think of Rodrigo, Marquis de Posa as Katte and Carlo as Fritz I think you'll enjoy these too. (If not, then of course you don't have to watch it :) ) Same link as parented up: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hCf6wiMZgqYf-2LrvSqO9AsAt0R_0H0a

-Early on, Rodrigo and Carlo sing a duet affirming their friendship ("Dieu, tu semas dans nos âmes" / "Dio, che nell'alma infondere"). This is widely regarded in Don Carlo fandom as a love duet :P (I really like friendships in my fandoms and therefore I was probably the only person who didn't emphatically ship them, but now that I know about the Katte reference I see it's more of a canon ship than I thought...) 36:21 to 44:32. (Notes on this: 1. See Simon run! It's kind of amazing to actually run onto stage and then sing, not too many singers can manage this, but he does this all the time. Showoff :D (I'm really joking here. I saw Keenlyside give a masterclass last year and he was the nicest person ever.) 2. Look at his reaction when Carlo says he's in love with the Queen (okay, fine, they couldn't make this ALL Frederick/Katte), lol. He's been asked to make this shippy! 3. I have another video of this same staging with Keenlyside (though a different Carlo) and he plays it a little gentler; this Rodrigo is a little more soldierly and aggressive. Not sure how you envision Katte, although I (who know not much about him besides what you guys have told me) think of him as a little gentler than Keenlyside plays Rodrigo here. I can of course find that one for you as well :P This one is better though as a first introduction to Don Carlo because the videography is SO much better than the other one that it's clearly very exciting even if you don't care about the music, which you don't.)

-Here's where Posa takes Carlo's letters. You don't have to watch the trio preceding (where he gets into a scuffle with the Princess Eboli), although I like it too because Rodrigo's all "I keep having to get my boy Carlo out of trouble!" I just really like how the letters bit is staged in this version --

I'll have to give you some background here, as this is similar to but differs from the Schiller

selenak and I have discussed previously. In the opera (second act, ~1:35:30) Carlo has gotten a note to meet him at the garden at night. He is in love with the Queen so assumes she has written the note. It was actually written by the Princess Eboli, who is in love with Carlo. (Carlo is kind of a failboat, if we didn't make this clear before.) Carlo meets this veiled lady -- in a scene which I believe is cut in revision (and is certainly cut in this production), it is clear that Eboli is wearing the Queen's veil ~~so as to maximize plot confusion~~ -- and gets all excited until he realizes it's Eboli, at which point he tries to put her off (even though Eboli points out she can help him, that he's in danger, that Posa and the King have been talking about him...). Eboli, meanwhile, because of the veil, realizes he must be in love with the Queen!

At this point Rodrigo ~~who is apparently stalking Carlo in the evenings because his boyfriend~~ jumps in (1:39:22 will give you a little of the flavor before the trio plus trio, but if you don't want to listen to the trio read on) and threatens Eboli if she tells everyone that Carlo is in love with the Queen; he almost stabs her at one point (but Carlo prevents him). Notably, he also threatens her with being the favorite of the King, which Carlo hears and is taken aback by, thus his reaction in -- and finally this is the place for Carlo/Rodrigo interaction -- 1:46:07 to end of act at 1:48:10.

(You may not notice, but the tune that plays at the end of this bit is the same as in the "love duet." This tune also comes back in the middle of Rodrigo's death scene, although when I watch it I'm always so emotional that I never really notice.)

-Also, auto-da-fe in this version, still sad pandas although out of context I like the first clip I showed you better. But this one has a swordfight! Here: 2:04:24 to 2:07:19, although rewinding a couple of minutes will show you the Flanders delegation and everything just ramping up. (Posa's shellshocked face as they take Carlo away, omg.)

Edited 2019-08-28 16:27 (UTC)

Wait... so he went around telling eveyone they shouldn't cover up the Nazi past, but he didn't go around telling anyone about his Nazi past (even if brief) until decades later? I can see why there was a major uproar :P

I love your synopses, have I mentioned this recently? :D (and this is one of those periods I know even less about than my usual abysmal state of historical knowledge, so...)

Wowwwwwww. That's some exchange of letters!

To be fair, as an older sister myself *ahem*, it's a fine line between coming across as loving and coming across as patronizing, and the whole time I was reading Heinrich's first letter I was like, "...this is not going to end well." Though Thomas certainly... exceeded my expectations, there.

When you say Heinrich drafted a reply, does that mean he never actually sent it?

Also, lol to Heinrich's mention of Frederick the Great. What happened with Thomas Mann's Frederick the Great?

"In this country, there is freedom of conscience and penis."

LOL OMG FRITZ

Noooooo you didn't rec this! So I am glad you recced it this time! That does seem perfectly up my alley :D

OK, mildred, I'm starting to see what you mean about teen!Fritz just not... being very good at plotting. It seems clear from the way she talks about FW and Fritz that he just wanted OUT. Wilhelmine (who seems in general a little less damaged/abused, although the queen is putting her through a LOT of emotional abuse, it's super awful) keeps trying to tell him all of this is a bad idea!

Fritz: *waltzes in wearing fancy French clothes*
Wilhelmine: WHO IS THAT WEIRDO?! Oh, it's you, bro.
Fritz: I am FED UP with FW, I have a plan!
Wilhelmine: ...that is a really, really terrible plan, bro. Here are all the reasons this is super stupid. Please don't use that plan, you'll be captured immediately.
Fritz: ...oh. Okay.

*rinse and repeat SEVERAL TIMES*

Fritz: I have another plan!
Wilhelmine: As usual, that is a really terrible stupid no-good plan.
Fritz: Don't care. I'm DOING IT.

selenak, I am now kinda wondering whether Schiller had specifically read Wilhelmine's memoirs and whether Elisabeth owes a debt to her, because Wilhelmine's pointing out how boneheaded his plans are and begging him to stop is giving me flashbacks to Elisabeth doing pretty much the same with Posa.

Indeed. *facepalms*

"there are not six people here one could love

What she meant was if one could love only people not into m/m sex at the court of Versailles, there would be only six or thereabouts left, so - yes? Also, found a good Translation of the entire passage, Liselotte writing to her nieces at home:

"Where have you and Luise been that you know so little of the world? It seems to me that one does not have to live at court very long to know all about it; but if one were to hate all those who love young fellows, one could not love - or at least not hate - six persons here. There are various kinds of such people; some of them hate women like the plague and can only love other men, others love both men and women … some only go for children of ten or eleven, others want young fellows between seventeen and twenty-five, and these are the most numerous; some of the debauched characters love neither men nor women and have their pleasure by themselves, but there are fewer of them than of the others. Some also engage in debaucheries of various kinds, with animals or people, whatever comes their way. I know one man here who boasts that he has done it with everything, even down to toads. Ever since I learned this, I loathe the sight of this fellow."

I don't blame her. Toads!

a generally successful and sometimes even happy one, which is rather a relief after reading about all these terrible ones :P :)

Okay, here's Liselotte telling her aunt a story she had from her husband's favourite boyfriend, the Chevalier de Lorraine, and bear in mind this is an ex-Protestant who only converted because she had to writing to a still Protestant:

: I know some fine stories, one of which I simply must tell Your Grace: I heard it three or four days ago, and it happened in a Jesuit college. The Chevalier de Lorraine claims that it is his son who did this trick and that he does this sort of thing all the time. One of the pupils at the college was full of mischief of all kinds, ran around all night long, and did not sleep in his room. So the reverend fathers threatened him with a tremendous beating if he did not stay in his room at night. The boy goes to a painter and asks him to paint two saints on his buttocks, on the right cheek Saint Ignatius of Loyola and on the left Saint François Xavier, which the painter did. With that the boy tidily pulls up his breeches, goes back to his college, and starts making all kinds of trouble. When the reverend fathers catch him at it, they tell him, “This time you’ll be whipped.” The boy begins to struggle and plead, but they say that pleading will not do him any good. So the boy gets down on his knees and says, “O Saint Ignatius, o Saint Xavier, have pity upon me and perform a miracle for me to prove my innocence.” With that the fathers pull down his breeches, and, as they lift up his shirt to beat him, the boy calls out, “I am praying with such fervor that I am certain my invocation will be heard!” When the fathers see the two painted saints, they exclaim: “A miracle! the boy whom we thought a rogue is a saint!” And with that they fall on their knees to kiss the behind and then call together all the pupils and make them come in procession to kiss the holy behind, which all of them do.

And here is a great vid showing Liselotte, Philippe d'Orleans and the Chevalier de Lorraine as depicted in the tv Show Versailles.

Edited 2019-08-28 17:00 (UTC)

Alas, Schiller can't have, because he died five years before they were published. (In 1810 - 52 years after her death -, Schiller died in 1805; Wilhelmine was careful not to have her tell all published within her or her brother's or her husband's lifetimes.) Otoh, I suppose it's just possible that he could have read them in manuscript if he really wanted to, because he did know enough nobles and librarians in the relevant principalities.

Thomas Mann never wrote it. He did write an essay in 1914, "Frederick II and the Great Coalition" which tells us how Germany invading Belgium is just like Fritz invading Saxony, and the current enemies of Germany were just like those Fritz faced in the 7-years-war. Most telling sentence:

"The Koalition may have changed a Little, but it is his Europe, the Europe allied in hate, which does not want to endure us, does still not want to endure him, the King, the Europe which has to learn again in lengthy Detail, maybe even through another seven years, that it will not manage to murder him."

("Die Koalition hat sich ein wenig verändert, aber es ist sein Europa, das im Haß verbündete Europa, das uns nicht dulden, das ihn, den König, noch immer nicht dulden will, und dem noch einmal in zäher Ausführlichkeit, in einer Ausführlichkeit von sieben Jahren vielleicht, bewiesen werden muß, daß es nicht angängig ist, ihn zu beseitigen.")

Oh, Tommy, as Heinrich would have said and did say. Just last year, I discovered there's a Fritz novel which is also a Brothers Mann novel, with a great premise: in their exile years, at which point they've long been reconciled (but the past is unforgotten), they decide to write a Friedrich novel together, only it's going to be a Fritz-and-his-brother-Heinrich novel. Guess who gets two write whom? Heinrich is uncertain whether roleplaying feuding Hohenzollern brothers is really a good idea, given, you know, but can't resist, and they start writing chapters, at which point the novelist does a credible parody of both Thomas Mann's style and Heinrich Mann's style, but then, alas, the whole thing collapses and stopped being credible, and I stopped reading.

No, Heinrich didn't send the second letter. They were reconciled in 1922 or 23 (I Forget which), when Heinrich was really dangerously ill and Thomas made a tearful appearance at his hospital bed.

RIGHT?! Most on-brand thing he ever said. "I am an extremely enlightened monarch! As well as an extremely gay one!"

Sadly, our source on this is Voltaire, which, Voltaire + things stated or implied about Fritz and sex =/= reliable journalism, so unless there's another source corroborating this anecdote, I find it suspect, but, you know, I totally believe it anyway. :P If he didn't literally say it in those words, I feel the message was received regardless.

Well, that's good to know. :) As you know, my parents literally told me it didn't matter what high school I went to, as long as my brother got into a good elementary school, so my high school was less than well suited to my needs, and that was fine by them.

My individual teachers were by and large not terrible (unlike the guidance counselor), and I got along with a lot of them as people, and a number of them were even good teachers for the rank and file, and I respect that, but the vast majority were not invested in challenging me. Plus the whole system was set up to make sure my time was being wasted, and you know how my parents were about supplementing school with extracurriculars. My two exceptional teachers were US History and junior + senior English. (Not surprisingly, the English teacher was the most hated and feared teacher in the school. She was my favorite.) The librarian was wonderful, I miss her so much (cancer shortly after I graduated). <3 :'-(

My freshman English teacher, god, I liked him as a person, but he argued with me that "The volleyball team played good" was grammatically correct and "The volleyball team played well" was incorrect, because "volleyball team" is a noun, so it takes an adjective. <-- My education.

Freshman me actually asked him to his face what he had majored in, because I didn't think it was English. When my mother heard this story, she made me write him a note of apology. To this day, I think that question was justified.

"there are not six people here one could love

What she meant was if one could love only people not into m/m sex at the court of Versailles, there would be only six or thereabouts left, so - yes?

cahn, yes, when I was reading this, I had to look at the German to figure out the intended meaning. (My German being just good enough to be not totally a black box, if I have a lot of vocab help.)

selenak, "One could love all but six people here" means that, if there are one thousand people at court, you could love the 994 of them that are not into m/m sex. Which, of course, is the opposite of what she's saying, hence our confusion. "There are not six people here one could love" means at least 995 of the thousand are into m/m sex. Which sounds about right. :P

Ditto. If I haven't said this recently enough, it bears repeating. :D As for me, the only thing I know about the 1910s is Antarctic exploration. Was there a war on? :P

OK, mildred, I'm starting to see what you mean about teen!Fritz just not... being very good at plotting. It seems clear from the way she talks about FW and Fritz that he just wanted OUT.

Yeah. :/ Even adult Fritz was like, "That went off like a childish prank, and Keith and Katte were GREAT GUYS, don't get me wrong, but, uh, about as dumb as I was at that age." ("Now I just never tell anyone anything ever, problem solved. I have a different problem now, called failing Interpersonal Relations 101, but that's okay, you can just bury me next to my dogs, k? K??")

Honestly, I feel like bb!Fritz was trapped and desperate and furious and impulsive and scared to death and also *despising* most everyone around him and especially FW, and none of these things lent themselves to thinking clearly. The real problem, in my mind, is that every time I read about these events, Fritz, who's young and not thinking clearly, is completely alone and trying to come up with an escape plan on his own, and having to drive it and drag everyone else into it, and everyone is going, "Um, maybe...not...Fritz?" and no one is saying, "Look, this is an abusive situation, you're right, you 100% need out. Sit down, it's okay, I as an adult will come up with a better idea."

I'm not blaming anyone for this, it's the 18th century with 18th century mores and FW is an absolute monarch plus totally batshit to boot, everyone gets a pass from me, but really, expecting an 18-yo to come up with a plan for escaping his abuser, when his mind goes into blind emotional turmoil every time he even thinks about said abuser, is asking for a really, really bad plan.

Actually. Writing that out. I wonder if the reason *so many* people were in the know about this plan was that, consciously or subconsciously, Fritz was looking for someone to go YES YES YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE* and to actually take some initiative, instead of him having to drag everyone into his plan by sheer force of personality, when everyone I can think of is--quite understandably, given the nature of the plan and the risks involved!--very reluctant to have anything to do with it.

* This...may or may not be one of my fix-it fic AU WIPs, just saying. :P

I would point out that Alexander the Great, tactician extraordinaire and undefeated in battle, came up with a really bad plan for dealing with *his* semi-estranged father at the same age (

selenak, I'm referring to the Pixodarus affair), and the only reason it didn't end as badly was because Philip was never as awful to Alexander as FW was to Fritz.

ETA: I couldn't agree more with selenak's claim that Alexander would have killed FW well before FW killed Katte. How much of that is the difference between their mothers (Alexander's mother is #1 suspect in the eventual murder of Philip; no one's clear whether Alexander was involved or not), the difference between their centuries (Enlightenment prince vs. Achilles-cosplayer), and the difference between their innate temperaments, we'll never know.

Wilhelmine (who seems in general a little less damaged/abused, although the queen is putting her through a LOT of emotional abuse, it's super awful)

Yeah, FW was awful to his wife, Wilhelmine, Fritz, and to a lesser extent most of the other kids, but everyone is agreed that, as the heir and future king, Fritz got the brunt of the abuse. Wilhelmine, in turn, got more abuse from non-FW people.

It SUCKED to be those kids. :/ CPS for everyone.

Fritz: I have another plan!

Lol, your summary reminds me of an Eddie Izzard skit, where he's talking about Napoleon invading Russia, then deciding it was a bad idea.

Hitler: "I've got a better idea, got a better idea..." *invades Russia* "Oh, it's the same idea! It's the same idea, it's the same idea..."

ETA 2: I also wish to point out what I said in a slightly different way somewhere else in this conversation. I, at the age of 17, having just been accepted to MIT to study physics, could not figure out a plan to get across the country and attend MIT in the face of my parents' resistance, despite the presence of sympathetic adults at my high school. Which you'd think someone who'd just been accepted to MIT could do! You'd think it would be inherent in "smart enough to be accepted to MIT"! But no. That's not how it works.

And granted my situation was much less desperate. But the flip side to that was that I wasn't all panicky inside and should have been thinking more clearly. So this is one reason I'm reluctant to say this plan wasn't Fritz's best effort at that age.

Edited 2019-08-29 21:59 (UTC)

Oh, MAAAN, that is some shippy shipping! \o/ Thanks for sharing. That's...that's canon slash, is what that is. :P

And no worries about the French, my passive French is just good enough (a teensy bit better than my German) that I could follow along with the subtitles.

Got it! Yes, the later was what she meant.

Yes, I know just enough German (not very coincidentally, I decided I should learn German when discovering Die Zauberflöte -- but did not get very far; this whole conversation is making me think I should, though, someday when I have more tiiiiime) that I thought I might be able to parse it. It helps that German structure is very much like archaic English structure :P :)

Ha, well, guess it wasn't Wilhelmine -- I imagine there are other strong awesome women in the world, after all :) I can see why she didn't want it published in her brother's lifetime! (Not her husband, yet -- I haven't even gotten to the part where she gets married yet.)

wowwwwwww. Oh Tommy indeed.

I got rather excited about the Fritz-Brothers-Mann novel from the first part of your description -- that's really too bad it didn't live up to its premise.

ahahahaha :D I will take it with a grain of salt, then, although clearly I need to read more Voltaire :P

I think you were justified in asking that as well!

heh, yup, my US History teacher was also a super nice person! She also told us at some point that the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis were the same thing, which even as high schoolers we were pretty sure was not the case. But she often just didn't even show up for class (we were sent to the library to work on history outlines, which you will be unsurprised to hear none of us actually did), so the amount of actually false things we imbibed was fairly low.

I'm told that earlier classes remembered her fondly, so apparently she wasn't always like that -- I wonder what happened.

Toads! OMG.

Oh man, Liselotte sounds amazing. LOL.

Also I adore that vid. Should I put Versailles on the queue? (...though I am way behind on TV shows, I might get to it... next year?? at the rate I'm going)

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