ABOUT LOLA MONTEZ

The exotic dancer known as Lola Montez performed to packed houses in Bendigo, Ballarat, Castlemaine, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide during the gold-rush in 1855/56. But previously she had cut a swathe through the European artistic, aristocratic and Royal elites and, unintentionally, played a key role in the story of composer Richard Wagner. Among many love affairs she was paramour to Franz Liszt and conducted a scandalous relationship with King Ludwig 1 of Bavaria. She was in-fact an imposter and her life is full of incident.


ABOUT THE TALK

This talk aims to be a light, locally focused diversion and will be colourfully illustrated, mainly covering the Australian and Wagner-related connections. The presentation to The Wagner Society in NSW will include an emphasis on her time in Sydney and the Royal Victoria Theatre.

Divorce! After six years of marriage the choleric and chronically jealous Pauline, daughter of a general, has had enough of Richard Strauss. Pauline always knew it: her husband who at 36 is celebrated as the most important living German composer across the globe is cheating on her. His congeniality and moral uprightness is just a mask! Are his inspirations for the erotic escapades which are the basis of several of his tone poems and songs based on the love affairs of the artist? The film Richard Strauss and his Heroines goes on an exciting journey discovering the women in Strauss’ life. At the focus is primarily his relationship with Pauline, to whom he was married for over 55 years up to his death. Until today she has been viewed as a harridan who often embarrassed her husband in public. It hereby falls under the table that Strauss at the beginning and the end of his relationship composed his finest songs for the trained singer who gave up her career for him and covered his back for the rest of his life. What was it that made the broken old man, who experienced the most varied of epochs in German history, from the Empire to the Nazi dictatorship to the post-war period, write in 1948 in his final song (“At Sunset”) one of the most moving declarations of love in the history of music: “We have through sorrow and joy gone hand in hand”? Richard Strauss and his Heroines – this is the first filmed search for clues about the unforgettable heroines created by Strauss. It is both the story of a turbulent, and at the end moving, love story of two people who were prepared to walk through fire for each other. We visit Strauss' last surviving grandchild in Garmisch and we meet the great Strauss singers Brigitte Fassbaender, Reneé Fleming, Dame Gwyneth Jones and Christa Ludwig, who report on their famous Strauss roles. With the conductor Franz Welser-Möst we research the secret of Strauss’ instrumentation genius. Strauss expert Christoph Wagner-Trenckwitz, member of the board of the Vienna Volksoper, leads us through the film. [EuroArts]