Tea at Trianon: Louis Antoine Duport and Beethoven

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Louis Antoine Duport and Beethoven

From The New York Times:

In 1812, he became the ballet master at the Kärntnertor in Vienna, choreographing the first dance adaptation of Charles Perrault’s “Cinderella.” After marrying his favorite ballerina, he went on to dance in Munich, London and Italy, performing in several ballets that allowed him to dance Zephyr, his signature role.

While at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Duport met its flamboyant manager, Domenico Barbaja, who was eager to bring his composer discovery Gioachino Rossini to Vienna. Taking over the Kärntnertor’s lease, Barbaja asked Duport to help run it, and when Rossini and his new bride, the diva Isabella Colbran, arrived in 1822, the city greeted them with enthusiasm bordering on idolatry.

By February 1824, Beethoven was ready with both the Ninth Symphony and his “Missa Solemnis.” He had long wanted to set Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” to music and had incorporated its call for peace and unity into the symphony’s rousing choral finale. Given the sweeping popularity of Italian opera in Vienna, however, he toyed with the idea of presenting the work elsewhere. It was only after 30 friends and music lovers signed a petition of support that he began to look for a theater in the city. (Read more.)