Veritable Michael - a podcast opera
Veritable Michael - a podcast opera
Ep. 2 Michael is Born
Michael Field is born. Katherine and Edith publish their first plays to a positive critical reception. Robert Browning simply must know who Michael Field is! They are revealed.
EPISODE LYRICS
EDITH'S LETTER
Dear Mr. Browning,
I cannot thank you for the words you have written.
Such words as yours give more abundant life:
to expend it in higher, more reverent effort
is the only true gratitude possible.
As to myself and my part in the book —
to make all clear to you I must ask for complete secrecy.
My aunt and I work together.
She is my senior by 15 years.
She has taught me, encouraged me and
joined me to her poetic life.
This happy union of two is sheltered by “Michael Field”.
Please regard him as the author.
Still hoping, doubting,
that I can make you feel what your letter has been to me,
I remain dear Mr. Browning.
Yours with deep respect,
Edith Cooper
KATHERINE'S LETTER
Dear Mr. Browning,
Spinoza, with his fine grasp of unity, says
“If two individuals of exactly the same nature
are joined together, they make an individual,
doubly stronger than each alone”
Edith and I make veritable Michael.
We humbly fear you are destroying this truth:
it is said the newspapers were taught by you
to use the feminine pronoun!
I write to you to beg you to set the critics on a wrong track.
We have many things to say
the world will not tolerate from a woman’s lips.
We must be free to work out in the open air:
we cannot be stifled in drawing-rooms.
You are robbing us of real criticism — such as man gives man.
In respectful entreaty, I am faithfully yours,
Katharine Bradley
Veritable Michael — a podcast opera
This podcast captures the making of Veritable Michael, a new opera based on the true story of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper — two Victorian poets who lived, loved and wrote under the pseudonym, Michael Field. This podcast combines Katherine's and Edith's journals, poetry and letters with an original score by Tom Floyd, and interviews with guest speakers. Join the Shadow Opera team as we dive into Michael's fascinating and queer world.
If you are enjoying Veritable Michael and want to support our show, please consider making a donation.
A full transcript of this episode can be found here.
Veritable Michael is a Shadow Opera production.
Music composed by Tom Floyd.
Words by Michael Field.
Created and produced by Sophie Goldrick and Tom Floyd.
Artwork by James Long.
Performances by Lizzie Holmes, Sophie Goldrick, James Long and Patrick Neyman.
Thanks to our guest speakers, Professor Marion Thain, Dr Ana Parejo Vadillo and Dr Sarah Parker.
Veritable Michael is generously supported by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, The Stephen Oliver Award and The Countess of Munster Musical Trust and our incredible band of crowd-funders.
For more information, video content or just to tell us that you're loving the podcast - go to shadowopera.com/veritable-michael or via our Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe this podcast.
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This podcast captures the making of Veritable Michael, a new opera by Tom Floyd and Sophie Goldrick. In May 1884, London awoke to the news of an exciting new playwright and poet bursting onto the scene to rave reviews. Michael Field not only won the praise of the papers, but also piqued the interest of literary giants Robert Browning and Oscar Wilde. But, Michael was hiding a secret. Veritable Michael tells the true story of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper to poets who lived, loved and wrote under the pen name, Michael Field, and their struggle with Victorian patriarchy. Welcome back, so in Episode one, we began exploring the first scene of our opera set in the Opera Comique, which is a small London theater near the Strand. And that's where Michael Field's first stage play was about to open and Katherine and Edith were super excited. Then we dialed it right back to the very start of the story, the early part of their lives and looked at how Katherine and Edith's bond developed from a family relationship into a romantic one. And then talked about how that's a bit of a challenge for us to accept over here in the 21st century. So that brings us right now to the next chapter, the birth of Michael Field. So having pledged themselves to one another, and having formed this artistic union, Edith and Katherine set to work choosing a medium for Michael to work through. They settle on the verse drama, which is basically a play written in verse that you don't intend to stage, ie you read it at your mates house after a few drinks. I think Katherine and youth especially liked them because they gave a really big canvas for their imagination. They could use wild settings and big cast sizes that a stage play couldn't possibly accommodate. Someone else keen on the old verse dramas was the big man himself, Richard Wagner, who used this form for some of his large scale operas, including The Ring and Tristan and Isolde.The difference here is that he was actually able to stage these massive-scale works, something something well connected white guy something something. Michael Field saw Tristan, and their diaries tell us how taken they were with it to the extent they wrote their own play on the same subject. Although they lacked the means and opportunity to stage their verse dramas, Michael Field lived and wrote on an operatic scale. Here's Dr. Sarah Parker.
Dr. Sarah Parker:And I mean, my initial thoughts are I think that obviously, there's so many interesting things going on and have been for a long time to do with Michael Field. There's There's many people who have found them inspiring, you know, not not just academics, I suppose there's other kinds of responses to them. But I think this is one of the only responses that they would actually have appreciated as In short, you know, Sophie, how difficult they were to please and I think I'm sure my own interpretations they would absolutely love that, you know, that have no doubt about that. But I think being turned into art and being treated with such respect, and and adoration and the kind of, I suppose, please don't be insulted, but like the overblown nature of opera and the sound of it and the performance. I just think all of that just captures that kind of campy extravagance that is Michael Field.
Sophie Goldrick:They wrote over 60 plays in their lifetime starting in June 1884 With the first pair Fair Rosamund and Callirhoe. So we want to explore one of these plays in the probably Callirhoe. However, Tom has not quite settled on which bit he wants to set. So while we wait for him to do that we're gonna hear an excerpt from the play. But to set it up for you. It's an ancient Greek setting clear away is a maenad, a servant of Dionysus, which is a favourite subject for Michael Field. But the play has a few different modes. It's got a declamatory Shakespearean style, then there's kind of comedy patter scene between three old witches. And then this third layer which is sort of a discussion between the spiritual and the scientific, a Victorian doctor character and ethereal for and having this sort of relationship. Displaying with past and present is a common theme in Michael fields work. Their verse dramas are set in crucial historical moments, but sometimes feature characters that belong to another era. They are deliberately full of anachronism. This was pointed out to me by the very brilliant Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo.
Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo:The majority of the plays, if not all the plays are based on historical moments in which something is about to happen, that will change history forever. Right? That there's this this that, that that's what all the dramas I think are about. And I was I was reminding myself of Callirhoe and I was reading the preface and I read the very first sentence."Before the bar of time, this poem pleads guilty to anachronism." And, you know, you could not find a better starting sentence for the life and writings of Michael Field than that.
Sophie Goldrick:This excerpt you're about to hear is in the more declamatory style. In this speech Callirhoe has been saved from death by someone whose love she previously spurned. In this moment she questions everything she thought she knew about duty and she is changed forever. It's stirring stuff. Let's have a listen.
Lizzie Holmes:Alone lost. Deep in the shady hills, the dark heights I have yearned for. Far below a pyre is burning. Leap ye glowing flames, leap up to me. Coresus it avails nothing to heap thee with my proffered love. Do we lay food and wine about the dead, when the stiff lips are barred to make amends for past refusal to the trembling mouth? That I'd done evil deeds I might atone. The gods are gracious and make clean from guilt. But simply to have lived my summer through and borne no roses. Nothing compensates for dearth, for failure when seasons past. Ah me, ah me! And he besought my love as wildly, passionately as the dead beseech their burial. My heart aches with tears.
Sophie Goldrick:I love this section because it feels really modern. What is life's purpose? This is a female character being allowed to rich inner life of her own, uncommon at this time. I find the exploration of duty versus freedom really moving in this context. But these are my humble thoughts. Why did the guys with the typewriters ie the press think. Clue? I think they were pretty into it.
The Critics:A new voice which is likely to be heard far and wide among the English speaking peoples. Michel Field's, it's just the kind of genius which an analytic mind would be apt to prove a priori that the present century hardly could produce. The kind of genius which we should ascribe to a world awakening from a long sleep rather than to a world. Whether or not Callirhoe is Mr. Michael Field's first venture in public favour as a poet, it can be described as a work not only a remarkable promise, but of notable performance as well. We cannot leave 20 lines anywhere without finding traces of a strong genius and a great dramatic imagination, profuse in its power and failing where it does fail rather from baste and wealth and prodigality... What do you have desire to show? It's not merely that in Michael Field, we have a very considerable poet, but a very considerable poet who displays that special kind of freedom and rigor. Now careless, now luxuriant, now startling us with a flash of lightning. If it pleases Mr. Field to know that in reading scores of attempts at it by novices in recent years, we have hardly ever come across one more successful than his own. He may take that reassurance.
Sophie Goldrick:So that is a pretty incredible reception for a debut. Michael Field is born and Katherine and Edith are delighted. But why create Michael? What was the pseudonym for? Just to improve their chances with the press and audiences? To have a level playing field with other male writers? Or did it serve another purpose? I asked Professor Marion Thain about this,
Prof. Marion Thain:they were writing, in fact, in part, to get away from the confines of gender. To get away from the confines of what a woman should be talking about, could be talking about. So there was definitely that in the mix, which is what we usually think of as you know, some of the more normal reasons for using a pseudonym. But what what is interesting is they didn't stop using the pseudonym, once it was discovered, and everybody knew that they were actually two women writing under that one name, and a name that seems to be in some sense a male name, although we can perhaps talk about that a little bit more. So the fact they didn't stop using it at that point, I think signals something really important. And the name Michael Field, in fact, comes from two nicknames. Michael was Katherine Bradley's nickname. Field was Edith Cooper's nickname, and it's two, their two names put together. So really, it's a signifier of their unified, dual identity. And it's the identity they lived through, as well as the identity they wrote through and that's really important. So their friends are calling them Michael and field and they're using that name Michael F ield to signify their actual lived experience, not just something that they hide behind. It's something that you see them through, rather than something that hides their identity.
Sophie Goldrick:The press attention had all kinds of admirers seeking Michael Field out to congratulate him on the success of Callirhoe, including the celebrated writer Robert Browning, he pressed the publishers of the play to give him an address and wrote Michael an ardent and flattering letter, praising his talents and trying to tease more information out of this mysterious poet
Lizzie Holmes:It's like someone outing Banksy or Sia didn't, wasn't Sia always like hiding behind something?
Sophie Goldrick:She was yeah, definitely maybe at the outing of Banksy, if Banksy were two people and one of them said don't tell anyone the other one... Shh Don't tell anyone but this is actually who we are. Yeah.
Lizzie Holmes:Outrageous but do you think that, I, I was about to say I, Edith?
Sophie Goldrick:Yeah, she is you
Lizzie Holmes:She, she really didn't see the repercussions. And this is one of the times where you do see that real difference in age and greenness.
Sophie Goldrick:Big time. Well, isn't she she's flattered, isn't she? She's flattered. Like your hero has written to you and said, I think I really rate you Michael. Tell me more about you.
Lizzie Holmes:She's done like a happy spew of just all the information that you'd like.
Sophie Goldrick:So my name is Edith, and my Auntie's name is Katherine and she's 15 years older than me and we write the poems together.
Lizzie Holmes:But please don't tell anyone this juicy gossip. And he was a huge gossip?
Sophie Goldrick:Oh, totally. You can... you're a singer. You know what the music scene's like? A bit of gossip spreads like that.
Lizzie Holmes:God it makes my heart like I feel really anxious even just hearing and talking about this story.
Sophie Goldrick:So anyway, bless her she sent it with the best of intentions, but she also couldn't wait to tell him I don't I feel like that's in there as well. And I feel like that's also what Tom has put in musically it's like
Lizzie Holmes:But she does... but what I love about the music is that it also there is like a true kind of pang of seriousness
Sophie Goldrick:Yeah, she's like witness me, witness me
Lizzie Holmes:she is saying witness me and she's saying and she's very clear she says do not share this information so it's really
Sophie Goldrick:well...
Lizzie Holmes:...awful behavior.
Sophie Goldrick:I don't know I think if you tell people they're gonna tell other people they owe you nothing? I dunni
Lizzie Holmes:She may not think that
Sophie Goldrick:yeah, she's pretty naive.
Lizzie Holmes:No one else knew this. Like how how many of the rest of society were actually properly talking about them as being Michael Field or did people not know?
Sophie Goldrick:Well people didn't.. people just saw... had the publication with the name Michael Field on the book.
Lizzie Holmes:So even their inner circle?
Sophie Goldrick:Oh, yeah. But I mean, I don't think they weren't literary particularly. It was their friends knew. But in terms of the success of the publication, people saw, you saw Callirhoe by Michael Field. What would you think? It was a dude.
Lizzie Holmes:It's that's such a betrayal. No? I'm defending Edith here is a total betrayal
Sophie Goldrick:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think she did it with the best of intentions because she wanted but she, Edith Cooper wanted to be witnessed by Robert Browning. I think that's what is behind it
Lizzie Holmes:And truthful to an idol. Like if if someone gets in touch with you like that you want to show them the respect
Sophie Goldrick:and candor
Lizzie Holmes:and being on par with them and then it really backfired.
Sophie Goldrick:Yeah it did and then of course you get Katherine
Lizzie Holmes:your music is angry,
Sophie Goldrick:But it's your music! It's the same music! I was just saying like when I heard it the first time I imagined her just like storming down a corridor slamming doors boom boom.
Lizzie Holmes:The really dark glasses come on or
Sophie Goldrick:I think part of it is protectiveness over not only Michael Field, but also over Edith for the mistake. So she doesn't get angry at Edith, though maybe she did in person but I don't think so. She directed straight at Robert Browning for the betrayal.
Lizzie Holmes:It's fierce. Your aria is fierce!
Sophie Goldrick:Yeah, it's great and I think you see that's the maternal instinct as well which is a definite part of their dynamic. She's like "you have done the wrong thing "
Lizzie Holmes:Feel my wrath!
Sophie Goldrick:Yeah, definitely and then obviously it's great to take the kernel of the same music and just extrapolate it to the two opposite ends. I just think it's such a cool
Lizzie Holmes:It's so lovely to be able to have that and to be able to hear that you get such kind of a vivid image of their two different worlds
Robert Browning:Dear Miss Cooper, I was deceived by the Michael Field on the title page and only read the plays last evening. It is long since I have been so thoroughly impressed by indupitable poetic genius. A word I consider while I write only to repeat it. Genius. Accept my true congratulations, and believe me. Yours sincerely, Robert Browning
Edith Cooper:Dear Mr Browning, I cannot thank you for the words you have written. Such words as yours give more abundant life: to expend it in higher, more reverent effort is the only true gratitude possible. As to myself and my part in the book to make all clear to you I must ask for complete secrecy. My aunt and I work together. She is my senior by 15 years. She has taught me, encouraged me and joined me to her poetic life. This happy union of two is sheltered by Michael Field. Please regard him as the author. Still hoping, doubting, that I can make you feel what your letter has been to me, I remain dear Mr. Browning, yours with deep respect, Edith Cooper
Katherine Bradley:Dear Mr. Browning, Spinoza, with his fine grasp of unity, says If two individuals of exactly the same nature are joined together, they make up a single individual, doubly stronger than each alone Edith and I make Veritable Michael. We humbly fear you are destroying this
truth:it is said the newspapers were taught by you to use the feminine pronoun! I write to you to beg you to set the critics on a wrong track. We have many things to say the world will not tolerate from a womans lips. We must be free to work out in the
open air:we cannot be stifled in drawing-rooms. You are robbing us of real criticism such as man gives man. In respectful entreaty, I am faithfully yours, Katharine Bradley.
Sophie Goldrick:Michael has been unmasked and Katherine is pretty upset, you can hear the contrast of the two letters and imagine what must have gone down in between times. With their cover blown, the tone of the press attention has already changed. You can hear the newspapers are calling them by the feminine pronoun. If this wasn't bad enough, they're writing together. This is totally at odds with the popular idea that great poetry comes from the solitary male genius. They are writing in unison. And that seems to undermine their quality in the eyes of the press. I rather think it was their superpower. Marion explains why
Prof. Marion Thain:What I think is most fascinating when we're thinking about their their dual authorship and the way that you can in some of their works, you see them separate out into two quite distinct voices. And then through the identity of Michael Field, you see this this collaboration, as you rightly put they're editing each other's contributions, everything is sort of worked over twice pretty much as far as we can tell. What's really fascinating from looking at the moments where they separate out is they do have very different poetic voices actually, you can see that in those later volumes. But I think what's most successful is the combination of those two voices. So when I read Katherine Bradley's poetry and when I read Edith Cooper's poetry, I see two very distinct styles, but I don't feel that either is nearly as successful as the combined style. There's something about Katherine Bradley's earthiness, directness, and something about Edith Cooper's much more esoteric, mythological voice, that taken on their own are not nearly so effective. It's somehow the combination of those styles that seems to me really powerful where you get this combination of the direct, the immediate, the intense and essential combined with the more esoteric, the more ethereal and the more mythological.
Sophie Goldrick:So Katherine and Edith have united as Michael Field and had a hugely successful public debut. But already the mask has slipped. So what next for Michael? In episode three, Katherine and Edith will tentatively step out of the shadows and into the limelight, entering the London literary scene, and rubbing shoulders with Oscar Wilde. Join us next time for Michael's Wilde Adventures. Veritable Michael is a Shadow Opera production music composed by Tom Floyd, words by Michael Field. Created and produced by Sophie Goldrick and Tom Floyd, performances by Lizzie Holmes Sophie Goldrick, James Long and Patrick Neyman. Thanks to our guest speakers, Professor Marion Thain, Dr. Ana Parejo Vadillo and Dr. Sarah Parker. veritable Michael is generously supported by The Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, the Steven Oliver Award, and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, as well as our incredible band of crowdfunders. For more information, video content or just to tell us you're loving the pod, go to shadow opera.com/veritable-michael or via Instagram. Don't forget to rate review and subscribe to the podcast.