Wilhelmine's memoirs break off just when she has to describe realizing Marwitz - who wasn't just a Lady in waiting but a dear friend up to that point - was also her husband's mistress. At least in the of the memoirs I have, her last sentence is "I don't want to write about that court anymore". I might misremember, or have one of the shortened editions, but as far as I know, she never finished her memoirs propery. You have to consider her state of mind when she wrote them: marriage crisis, friend lost, Fritz estranged. I wouldn't be surprised if that was why she tackled her chiildhood and youth to begin with - not just because she had time at her hands, but to remind herself she'd survived worse. And afterwards, when Marwitz had at last left for Vienna, she'd made up with her husband, and she was reconciled with Fritz again, she probably didn't want to dive straight back into the arguments and the misery.
Unfortunately, that means the Maria Theresiia encounter didn't make it into the tell all (again, as far as I recall). She just mentions her when listing the royals who married at the same time she and Fritz had to. end on a slightly less depressing note, I'm currently reading about "Friedrich II als Musiker", and Wilhelmine plays a big role in that one, not just because music was a mutual passion for them but because he kept sending her his compositions for beta-reading for her musical judgment. Am v. amused but not surprised in one letter Fritz explains how he taught the castrato singer he'd just hiired, Porporino, how to sing properly. (Think Hamlet lecturing the players on how to act.) (And bear in mind that castrati were trained from early childhood onwards and that it was an incredibly tough musical education..)
(I also got a more detailed summary of Wilhelmine's opera "Argenore" than I iused to know. Ahem: Argenore, King of Ponto, has a daughter named Palmida, secretly in love with Ormondo, a noble soldier and war leader; however, Argenore has promised her to Leonidas, his other battle-leader, who in turn has a secret love affair with Palmida's friend Martesia. Our villain Alcasto has designs on Palmida himself and frames Ormondo for trying to run away with her. Ormondo gets arrested. Argenore demands that Palmida kills Ormondo herself, otherwise both of them would have to die.
Ormondo manages to escape. Argenore, who plans to present his daughter with her lover's dead body (since she refused to earlier demand) in order to make her marry Leonidas, orders Leonidas to recapture Ormondo. Leonidas does so and in the ensuiing duel mortally wounds Ormondo, who dies. In anger and despiar, Palmida kills Leonidas. Martesia then, too late, via a letter in her possession reveals that Ormondo was really King Argenore's long lost son, i.e. Palmida's brother. Palmida, learning this, drowns herself. Argenore realises he's destroyed both his children, sings about that and commits suicide on the stage. Fina della tragedia.
...I don't know about you, but I think someone was venting... (More seriously, Wilhelmine in some ways may have been more together than Fritz, but I think it's more a question of her being restrained by being a woman and not having the same power at her disposal to deal with her trauma. She was stuck writing opera and memoirs to even try to attempt to.
...I wanted to end less depressingly, didn't I? Okay, I did manage to find the pastel miniature Wilhelmine - who was never more than amateur but as a princess of her age had to learn to paint as well - did of Maria Theresia (the Erremitage online inventory says she did it with her own hands. Given she met her just that one time, it was probably done by memory unless that meeting took longer (will have to track down Thiel's biography who supposedly gives the most detail on this):
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Re: Yuletide ideas and the Other Royal Murder Dad
Date: 2019-09-21 06:46 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, that means the Maria Theresiia encounter didn't make it into the tell all (again, as far as I recall). She just mentions her when listing the royals who married at the same time she and Fritz had to.
end on a slightly less depressing note, I'm currently reading about "Friedrich II als Musiker", and Wilhelmine plays a big role in that one, not just because music was a mutual passion for them but because he kept sending her his compositions
for beta-readingfor her musical judgment. Am v. amused but not surprised in one letter Fritz explains how he taught the castrato singer he'd just hiired, Porporino, how to sing properly. (Think Hamlet lecturing the players on how to act.) (And bear in mind that castrati were trained from early childhood onwards and that it was an incredibly tough musical education..)(I also got a more detailed summary of Wilhelmine's opera "Argenore" than I iused to know. Ahem: Argenore, King of Ponto, has a daughter named Palmida, secretly in love with Ormondo, a noble soldier and war leader; however, Argenore has promised her to Leonidas, his other battle-leader, who in turn has a secret love affair with Palmida's friend Martesia. Our villain Alcasto has designs on Palmida himself and frames Ormondo for trying to run away with her. Ormondo gets arrested. Argenore demands that Palmida kills Ormondo herself, otherwise both of them would have to die.
Ormondo manages to escape. Argenore, who plans to present his daughter with her lover's dead body (since she refused to earlier demand) in order to make her marry Leonidas, orders Leonidas to recapture Ormondo. Leonidas does so and in the ensuiing duel mortally wounds Ormondo, who dies. In anger and despiar, Palmida kills Leonidas. Martesia then, too late, via a letter in her possession reveals that Ormondo was really King Argenore's long lost son, i.e. Palmida's brother. Palmida, learning this, drowns herself. Argenore realises he's destroyed both his children, sings about that and commits suicide on the stage. Fina della tragedia.
...I don't know about you, but I think someone was venting... (More seriously, Wilhelmine in some ways may have been more together than Fritz, but I think it's more a question of her being restrained by being a woman and not having the same power at her disposal to deal with her trauma. She was stuck writing opera and memoirs to even try to attempt to.
...I wanted to end less depressingly, didn't I? Okay, I did manage to find the pastel miniature Wilhelmine - who was never more than amateur but as a princess of her age had to learn to paint as well - did of Maria Theresia (the Erremitage online inventory says she did it with her own hands. Given she met her just that one time, it was probably done by memory unless that meeting took longer (will have to track down Thiel's biography who supposedly gives the most detail on this):
http://www.wilhelmine-von-bayreuth.info/index.php/streben-in-der-politik/maria_theresia_pastell/
To