The Real Traviata and the Men Who Loved and Immortalized Her

Marie DuPlessis at the theater

"...a young woman of exquisite demeanor...chaste, oval features, her gorgeous dark eyes shadowed by long lashes, the purest arching eyebrows, a nose of the most exquisite and delicate curve, her aristocratic shape that marked her out as a duchess for those who did not know her...by a wist of fate she was born a peasant girl in Normandy." from the obituary of Marie Duplessis written by Theophile Gautier

I became a Verdi fan in the 1980s. La Traviata was made into a movie in 1983 starring Placido Domingo and Theresa Stratas and directed by Franco Zeffirelli; the movie was my first encounter with the opera. Then I learned the Verdi Requiem while in the Mastersingers choir, the most exciting music I had ever sung.

I knew that La Traviata was connected to the Alexander Dumas fils book The Lady of the Camellias (La Dame aux camelias) but I didn't know there was a real woman behind the stories, Marie Duplessis, born Alphonse Plessis.

The Real Traviata: The Song of Marie Duplessis by Rene Weis reveals the woman and the men who loved her and presents a history of the transcendent art that has made her immortal. Alexander Dumas fils was one of her lovers; his novel inspired by Marie's short life arrived soon after her death. It became a play, and that play inspired Verdi to throw out his nearly completed project to write La Traviata--all within four years of Marie's death.

The book, play, and opera met with resistance getting past the censors. Marie was a courtesan, one with class and style and regal bearing whose lovers included men from the highest ranks of life. Marie's protector had her educated, paid for her housing, and availed himself of her love even while knowing she had at least one other lover on the side. Some courtesans of the day were quite wild and profane but Marie had the bearing, soul, heart and generosity of a high born lady. Dumas loved her but was too poor and had to give her up. Liszt was on concert tours and couldn't bring her with him; he left the first woman he ever loved behind in Paris.

Impoverished Girls Preyed On by Men

Weis takes us into the disturbing history of prostitution and child abuse in the early 19th c. Marie's childhood was tragic and horrifying. Her drunkard and abusive father forced Marie's mother into hiding for her life, leaving her two daughters with family. Marie's surrogate family could barely feed themselves and when Marie was ten she was told she had to find her own food. At some point she was trading sexual favors for food.

She was a beautiful girl with skin like Camellias, and with dark eyes and hair. Starved for food and love, Marie later confessed that she had enjoyed the attention of the men. After her father found and reclaimed his daughters he himself abused Marie and when she was thirteen sold her favors to a local pedophile. Shortly afterwards she had her first menses. Weis cites an 1857 study by Ambroise Tradieu who first revealed the pervasiveness of sexual child abuse and rape. Men from the highest classes picked up teenaged girls and indulged themselves without thought.

Marie as Pretty Woman

That Marie, like other young girls who were abused and raped, became a prostitute was ordained by such a childhood. She was smart; to avoid the dangers of the streets she sought a protector. At age 16 she found her protector in Morny, a Bonaparte. Just six years before she was starving; now had a home of her own, enough to eat, and lovely clothes to wear. Her lover paid for her education--reading and writing, piano, dancing, everything needed for her to move among the highest classes of society. (Think Pretty Woman or Pygmalion or My Fair Lady.) Her protector even fell in love with her. At age 17 Marie gave birth and was sent to her country hometown to recover; Morny took the baby, who died. Marie didn't learn of her baby's death until a year later.

Queen of the Night

Morny left Paris for a position with the government and his friend took his place keeping Marie. By then she was a real trophy mistress. She had a series of generous lovers, protectors who paid for her upkeep while seeing other men. Marie lived the high life abroad and at home, enjoying the opera and gambling and waltzing through life. Then Marie met Edouard de Perregaux, a serial womanizer, romantic and feckless. He became the man immortalized as Alfredo, Violetta's lover in Verdi's opera. Their affair had ups and downs, marriage and estrangement.

Edouard saw that Marie was a 'pearl lost in vice', a kind and romantic woman. He moved her out of Paris to keep her to himself for a while. He had his own checkered past and was involved with another courtesan and actress. They idyll didn't last.  Back in Paris Marie had to juggle the man paying for her keep and her lovers. She had to think of her future when her older protector would die; any of these lovers could be taking his place. Although Edouard may have loved Marie he was in debt and his family pressured him to give her up.

Marie was an exceptional woman, especially considering her profession and childhood. One day a woman and with her son struck up a conversation with Marie. The ladies hit it off but Marie felt the need to confess she was a courtesan. The woman had seen Marie's soul and remained a lifetime friend. Marie donated money for an orphanage and raised even more from her friends.

Marie eventually became involved with a 'manager' and had men lining up at her door.  She lived in splendor and it took a lot of money to keep up appearances. Her most notorious love affairs at this time included Alexander Dumas fils and Franz Liszt. Dumas was the first to note symptoms of T.B. in Marie.

Death and Transfiguration

Marie's tuberculosis claimed her life in 1847 when she was only 23 years old. She had been estranged from Edouard and wouldn't let him see her. She wouldn't ask for help from friends. She spent her last days sitting at the window in her empty suite. Her possessions were sold at auction. Dumas purchased back a necklace he had given Marie; his daughter wore it to her grave. She was buried in a temporary unsanctified grave until Edouard had her reburied with a tomb. He insisted on opening the coffin to be sure it was Marie. His last image would be her already decaying face.

Alexander Dumas, the son

Almost immediately the low-born courtesan was turned into an angelic soul, starting with her obituary. Dumas wrote The Lady of the Camellias; he revealed the seamy side of Parisian society, an unflinching look at the world of the prostitute and the men who frequented them. After getting past the censors he turned the book into a play. It too was unable to pass the censors until Marie's former lover and protector used his governmental power to approve its performance. And then Verdi attended the play and immediately starting writing the music of La Traviata, even before he had a libretto.Verdi was not married to his companion and understood social prejudice; they too had tried to hide in the country. Verdi had lost a wife and children and understood grief. The opera allowed him to deal with his personal losses.

The story of the abused child who inspired one of our most beloved operas is fascinating and disturbing. While reading the section about the opera's performance history I was able to find clips on YouTube and other online sites. The book is illustrated showing the people and places of Marie's history. It was a fascinating read.

[A] superbly readable and meticulously researched biography...It is hard to think of a more dramatic life, from a horrific childhood to the glamour of high society, and Weis tells it with operatic pathos. The Sunday Times

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Real Traviata: The Song of Marie Duplessis
by Rene Weis
Oxford University Press
Publication November 1, 2015
$39.95 hardcover, 38 B&W photos, 2 maps
ISBN: 9780198708544

Learning to Conduct Life's Storms: All of Us and Everything by Bridget Asher

On a dark and stormy night in Ocean City, New Jersey in 1985 Augusta gave batons to her daughters Esme, Liv, and Ru, and while playing the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique taught them how to conduct the storm. Augusta knew there were people who loved storms, people who feared them, and people who loved them because they feared them. Augusta wanted to teach the girls how to control the uncontrollable, for even the appearance of control can make one feel really in control.

All of Us and Everything is about a dysfunctional family of sisters who grow apart into lives they can't control, all believing the roots of their problem lie in growing up without knowing their father. Did their mother sleep with strangers? one questioned.

Augusta wanted to keep the girls safe, just the four of them, not needing anyone else. Liv wanted to find out for herself if being like other people was good. She grew up to be a profiteer though marriage. targeting rich engaged men she deemed desperate and feeling trapped. Esme couldn't wait to escape, desiring an Ivy League education. She marries safe Doug, who leaves her for a dentist he saw while in France. And Ru, the youngest, memorized the whole family drama that would someday inform her novel; she is also a perpetual runaway bride.

August had told the girls what they thought was a story: Your father is a spy.

In 2012 Hurricane Sandy floods Augusta's home and the girls, all at impasses in their personal and professional lives, return home--together for the first time in years. Esme brings her troubled daughter Atty, who Tweets every minute of her life to thousands of strangers. Each is looking for something.

The storm has dredged up a packet of letters that are delivered to Augusta. The contents change her perception of the past and her understanding of the present. And the last member of the family is invited back, the father the girls have never known. The lost are found, the separated are reunited, things taken apart are put back together.

I loved everything about this novel. It is hilarious, wildly funny. It is unbelievable and it is real. It is humane, forgiving, and hopeful. I read it in twenty-four hours and wanted to read it again. It is rare to find a book so witty, a plot line so crazy, characters so eccentric, that is also well written, literary, and insightful.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

“Charming, original, and impeccably written, All of Us and Everything is a spirited romp through the lives of an unusual family of women. When I wasn't laughing out loud or eagerly turning pages to see what happened next, I was marveling at Bridget Asher’s ability to tell a highly entertaining, fully engaging, and deeply insightful story.”—Cathi Hanauer, New York Times bestselling author of Gone

All of Us and Everything
Bridget Asher
Random House
Publication Date: Nov 24, 2015
$15 paperback
ISBN:9780385343930

A Hexie Workshop with Mary Clark

Mary Clark's Class Sample

This past weekend I took a workshop with Mary Clark on a new way to make Hexies. Mary spoke to the CAMEO quilt guild last week. Her quilts are amazing! This past year she was a guest teacher at the Sauder Farm Quilt Show. Her first appliqué quilt won best of show at Sauder Farm! Mary's quilts have appeared in books and she has taught in the Toledo/Michigan area for many years. She was a wonderful teacher. She was methodical and precise in her descriptions and demos. Not every great quilter is a great teacher. Mary is both!

Mary's samples of hexagon quilts and the Superior Under Thread 

Mary had several secrets to making Hexagons. First she used Superior Bottom Line Thread, a very fine thread that really does not show. For templates Mary uses a water soluble fusible precut hexagon templates from Hugs N Kisses.

She fuses the template to the wrong side of the fabric, cuts the hexagon leaving a quarter inch seam allowance, and then uses a glue pen to iron the seam allowances to the back of the hexagon.

Mary also had a new way of knotting the thread that allowed continual sewing. A gal made a video of Mary's instructions so we wouldn't forget! I hope the insertion of the video works.

My work in progress in class. The print fabric is my new kitchen curtain fabric. I wanted to make a teapot hotpad.

My finished project

The class also learned how to make the folded Bow Ties seen in on the table

Sorry for the lousy photos but here are several of Mary's quilts from her presentation.

Lots of half square triangles make this quilt spectacular

Rework embroidery, piecing, and that lovely house

This was made for Anita Shakelsford's publication Coxcomb Variations

Mary loves dimensional appliqué'

I used up all the my Fons & Porter glue pen on this project. But I was able to compete the entire project in 24 hours.

A Row By Row Completed

The 2015 row from Northern Hearth Quilt Shop in Cadillac, MI had a fisherman in the foreground. I found a Dover publication silhouette of a girl under a tree and used it instead. I machine quilted it and bound it off as a stand-alone wall hanging or table topper.

Must. Get. Sewing. It has snowed, Thanksgiving is next week, and I had planned on making row quilts as presents. It will be a busy December.

The apple trees still had green leaves when the snow came yesterday.

An Explorer of People: Knud Rasmussen's Arctic Journeys to Document Eskimo Culture

"Even before I knew what traveling meant I determined that one day I would go and find these people, whom my fancy pictured different from all others. I must go and see 'the New people' as the old story-teller called them." Knud Rasmussen

Enthralling. Thrilling.

Every time I picked up White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic  those words popped into my head. I had to put the book aside for a few weeks. I SO was eager to return to it.

Rasmussen endured treacherous journeys across the Arctic, driven by his need to discover and document people who had rarely, if ever, seen Europeans. He was fully aware that 'civilization' was already ending the Eskimo way of life.

Charismatic, with high social intelligence, ruggedly handsome and fun loving, Rasmussen could charm his way into any society. The Inuit called him the White Eskimo for he lived fully as one of them; he could drive a team of sled dogs, hunt, relish rotten meat and green liver, talk the language and walk the walk.

Rasmussen was born in Greenland in 1879. His father was a Danish missionary. His mother's people had lived in Greenland for over a century and she was one-fourth Inuit. Rasmussen loved the Arctic; there were great hardships but there was also great freedom.

When he was twelve the family returned to Denmark, a shocking transition for the boy. At boarding school he mourned the loss of his old life and was an indifferent student. He became a heart-breaker and the 'king' of social gatherings. He dropped out of university and considered acting and opera. He socialized with the intelligentsia. In 1900 he decided on a travel writing as a career.

Rasmussen charmed his way into expeditions to Iceland and Lapland, writing articles as a freelance journalist. The Danish Literary Expedition finally brought him back to his beloved Greenland. He was able to reach the Thule people who lived farther north than any other people on earth. Rasmussen had finally found a new people, with different customs, in an unknown land. Thule became his home base for most of his life, With Peter Freuchen he established a trading base there. He became part of the community listened to the stories, memorized them, then wrote them down. He loved the artistry of the Inuit poetry and folklore.

Rasmussen went on seven expeditions, journeys that took him from Greenland to cross Arctic Canada. Rasmussen endured what many other could not: starvation, frozen limbs, pushing himself past exhaustion. He noted the similarities of the cultures, language and mythology and developed a theory of their interconnectivity through migration eastward.

He accepted the Eskimo culture and peoples without European judgment. He knew their life was harsh and they did what they needed to do to survive. The killing of girl children or the voluntary suicide of the elderly prevented a community from growing bigger than their food sources could maintain. Cached meat spoiled in the summer warmth, but Rasmussen enjoyed mildewed blubber or green liver with the locals. Cannibalism happened in starvation times. Since men outnumbered women, husband sharing occurred.

Rasmussen's private life is not well documented. He never wrote about himself, never made himself into the hero of his own story. He had numerous lovers, and married and had children although his family rarely saw him. In later years he returned to his family to write. Promoting his books meant visiting populated cities like New York but he never felt at home anywhere but in the Arctic. His final journey to that hostile land, to film a movie that showed the true character of the Inuit, he became ill and never recovered.

Stephen R. Bown has written the first biography of the Danish Arctic explorer and ethnologist Rasmussen in English, which may be why few recognize his name. Since Rasmussen's extensive writings have not been translated into English, Bown was required to buy books, take them apart and tediously print them, scan them into a computer, then use software to translate them into English.

The book has charming black and white illustrations, maps, and photographs.
Read an excerpt from the book here.

I had never heard of Rasmussen before. I am thrilled by this book and now want to read his book The People of The Polar North.

I thank the publisher and NetGalley for a free ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

White Eskimo: Knud Rasmussen's Fearless Journey into the Heart of the Arctic 
by Stephen R. Bown
DeCapo Press
Publication Date November 10, 2015
$27.99 hard cover
ISBN: 9780306822827

1911 Handkerchief Depicting Walrus Hunt, from my blog post here

Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Geneva

I was invited to participate in a study that records reading responses. I received the novel Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova, author of Still Alice. and read it as usual except after every chapter I synced where I was. I hope the publisher Simon and Schuster and author learned something. I sure did.

The novel concerns a family who discovers they have the Huntington's disease gene. This is the disease that killed Woody Guthrie, leaving his son Arlo growing up and waiting to see if he carried the gene. There is a 50/50 percent chance of inheriting the disease.

Genova is a neuroscientist who specializes in Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury, and autism. She has become a best selling novelist whose books focus on families struggling with crisis involving brain related diseases. In this novel she introduces a Boston policeman and his family. Joe is ten years from retirement with full pension. His eldest son is newly married. He has a daughter who is a ballet dancer and another teaches yoga. His youngest son is 'finding himself'.  Joe exhibits strange behavior and tests reveal Huntington's disease.

Joe struggles with his failing body, his inability to provide a financially secure future for his wife, and the knowledge that several of his children will also die of this disease. Each child has to decide if they want to undergo testing to know if they have the gene. Which is worse? Knowing you will or won't die an early death from a debilitating disease, or ignorance while endeavoring to live a normal life?

We learn about the disease along with the family.

The beautiful part of the story is when Joe realizes his mother, who had suffered from undiagnosed Huntington's disease, had tried to die with dignity. Her example inspires him. His daughter reminds Joe that how he responds to what is happening to him will be an example to his children when their time comes.

Such stories can be relevant outside of the specifics. I thought of my own parents who each died of cancer. Mom showed acceptance. She called all her friends and without self-pity chatted and told them her prognosis. Dad held onto every thread of hope and battled to live for several months. I had resented Mom's desire to die peacefully although I knew she'd endured enough physical pain in her life and she saw death as a respite and an avoidance of a dependent old age. Then I saw Dad's long decline and the indignity of a slow death. Was that the better way?

We all know we will someday cease to live. Some of us know ahead of time that we have a disease that will inevitably kill us. There is no right or wrong way to handle the knowledge. But our choices are an example to those who love us.

I received a free ebook from the publisher. The review is my choice.

A Pumpkin Runner Just in Time

I planned to make this table topper several months ago. It was delayed. I finished the hand appliqué a few weeks ago. Thanksgiving is around the corner, then it will be time to bring out the Christmas quilts. Time was running out. So I did what I never do: I machine quilted it.

Now it is where it was meant to be, just in time for Thanksgiving.

 I goes on the desk/table under Pumpkin Pie by Bunny Hill.

The pattern can be found in Better Homes and Gardens Easy Appliqué. The original had pretty pieced borders.