Читать книгу Seven Czech Women - Josette Baer - Страница 13
ОглавлениеI. 1 The historical context
On 26 February 1878, when Emilie Kittlová (later Ema Destinn) was born in Prague, Tomáš Masaryk (1850–1937),[20] a young Doctor of Philosophy, was on the way to New York to join his fiancée Charlotte Garrigue (1850–1923), who was recovering from an accident. They had met in Leipzig in 1877, where he had been enrolled in postdoctoral studies in economics and philosophy. The young American woman from a protestant family, which was progressive with regard to women’s rights, was a talented pianist. Her family was wealthy, and Charlotte had enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory, planning to train as a concert pianist.[21] She would give up her career plans to be the wife of the Czech philosopher, with whom she shared common views about religion, social issues, and politics. On 15 March 1878 Charlie, as her parents called her, and Tomáš married in New York. They returned to Vienna, where Masaryk began to write his second post-doctoral thesis. He had submitted his first one shortly before he learnt about Charlie’s accident. He had rushed to the USA and could not attend his post-doctoral thesis’ defence, therefore, his first thesis had become invalid. Little did Vienna University and the Austrian authorities know that the philosopher from a working-class background who was teaching at high schools for a low salary would lead the Czechs and Slovaks to sovereignty in a common state called Czechoslovakia, ending five centuries of Habsburg rule in Central Europe in 1918.
The career and life of the talented Emilie Kittlová are a good illustration of the professional opportunities open to Czech women in the last decades of the 19th century, in particular with respect to social mobility. Emilie’s family was of modest means: they were comfortable, but not rich; her talent would make her a millionairess.
Czech delegates to the Austrian Reichsrat were trying to push through political rights to counteract the dominance of the German minority in the Czech lands; they were demanding a status of autonomy and self-government within the monarchy’s political framework. In the last two decades of the 19th century, mass parties were emerging in the Czech lands that would later compete with each other in the first free elections in 1907. Naturally, women did not yet have the vote; they would gain access to higher education and political participation only in the 20th century.
Girls and women from the lower social classes received compulsory primary education and then would find jobs as housemaids, seamstresses, shop assistants, cleaners and cooks – in brief, the usual female occupations in the service of others. Daughters of the aristocracy and girls from families that had achieved some wealth and formed the social stratum of the entrepreneurial middle class were focussed on the two events that would determine their lives: marriage and motherhood. Girls were taught how to instruct the personnel, oversee a respectable household, bring up children and be faithful and supportive wives. To marry well, that is, find a wealthy husband, secured the social and financial standing of the bride and groom’s families. Besides the family, charity was another area where respectable society ladies could engage in helping the poor in the spirit of Christian love. Thanks to her father, the young Emilie would be able to choose a different life for herself.
Who was Ema Destinn? In this chapter, I will focus on her career as an opera singer, which peaked when she signed a contract with the prestigious Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1908. A further important aspect of her life was her patriotic activities during WWI. After 1918, the authorities of the new state, whose creation she had continuously and courageously supported, ignored her, causing a slow and painful decline in her health and mental wellbeing. Ema’s sad life in the Czechoslovak Republic demonstrates how badly Czech society treated the diva who had made the ‘mistake’ of beginning her career under the old monarchy.
I. 2 Emmy or Ema? Destinn’s success, work for independence and decline
Emilie’s father was successful in the mining business and, with hard work and astute financial investments, had acquired some wealth. Emanuel Kittl supported his first-born child in her extraordinary talent for music and literature; he made no difference between girls and boys.
Emilie Kittlová was pretty, with a shock of dark brown hair, matching dark brown eyes and perfect fair skin. Her voice was strong yet light, sensitive but also dramatic. She could sing anything; her extraordinary soprano mastered the heavy and lyrical Wagnerian parts as well as the lighter Italian operas of Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) and Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924). Her interpretation of the roles, acting ability and absolute dedication to the music would endear her to the members of the international aristocracy and the wealthy American public attending her performances. She would rise to international stardom under the name of Emmy Destinn.
Ema would translate Italian and German libretti into Czech, and Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) and Antonín Dvořák’s (1841–1904) libretti into German, introducing the music of the most famous Czech composers to an international audience. This was an extraordinary accomplishment since, in the eyes of international opera fans, the Czech lands were but an Austrian province. A laird in Scotland or a millionaire in Oregon knew the Austrian Empire from the map, but had no idea about the Czechs as a nation. To them, the Czech lands were some territory in Central Europe governed by Austria.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) had experienced, in the 18th century, that the Czechs were his most accomplished and educated public. Like Ema, Mozart achieved success abroad, not in his native Salzburg and not at court in Vienna, but in Prague, the province of the Austrian monarchy. He deeply appreciated the Czechs’ dedication to music and allegedly said “My people, the citizens of Prague, understand me” (Meine Prager verstehen mich) after the première of his Don Giovanni at the Ständetheater (stavovské divadlo) in Prague in 1787; when Mozart was in the Bohemian capital, he used to stay at the Villa Bertrámka, a mansion on the left bank of the Vltava.[22]
Ema would write poetry, plays, fairy tales and memoirs, buy a castle in southern Bohemia, sing Smetana’s Libuše for President Masaryk and eventually die alone and impoverished at the age of 51, a month short of her 52nd birthday.
Young Emilie gave her first performance in public at the age of eight: she played the violin. Music was how the little girl expressed herself. When she signed her first international contract with the Court Opera House in Dresden, Saxony, in 1896, she was 18 years old and had accomplished five years of education in piano, violin, languages and voice. That same year she had attended an audition at the Czech National Theatre in Prague; she was not hired – apparently she was not good enough. Yet, young Ema was determined; she knew that she was extraordinarily talented and did not give up. She received no role while in Dresden, but would make her stage debut a year later at the Court Opera House in Berlin.
The Czech opera houses’ refusal to offer her a contract in the early stages of her career was painful, but steeled her and strengthened her resilience, a quality that would prompt her to try her luck abroad. Ignored at home, Ema would become prima donna assoluta at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. She would perform at the Národní Divadlo (National Theatre) in Prague for the first time in 1901, after her great successes in Wilhelminian Germany.
She was particularly indebted to her teacher Marie Loewe, whose stage name was Destinn, a short form of the English destiny, fate. The fact that Ema adopted Destinn as her stage name[23] proves her life-long friendship with Marie and Thomas Loewe. When Ema learnt about Thomas Loewe’s death in June 1921, she immediately sent Marie a large sum to see her over the first difficult months,[24] although she was in dire financial straits herself. Two of Ema’s characteristic qualities were generosity and loyalty. Whenever a friend in need asked her for help, she did not think twice.
Ema’s lifestyle conformed to the cliché of the archetypal artist: emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, caring only for art, completely impractical and absolutely indifferent to money. Money was to her but a means of gaining freedom, of being herself, of enjoying life without any further thought.
At the peak of her career, from 1908 to 1916, Ema was unmarried; she didn’t have children
