The Story of Coppelia

     For some reason I love the ballet.  I'm not musical nor do I have the coordination to have been a dancer, so maybe it's the costumes and the sets that appeal to me.  The sensual delight of ballet creates fairy tales in my mind that just end too quickly.

     A few years ago, I saw Coppelia danced by the Ballet Arizona.  This is classified as a "comic" ballet because there are no deaths or great suffering played out in the performance.  The town's mayor announces a celebration to be held the following day when the town's bell will be honored.  Sitting in the window of the shop across from the town square is Coppelia, a life-size doll, who draws the attention of Swanilda's lover, Franz. 

Coppelia - art journal page

   Dr. Coppelius, the maker of Coppelia, drops his keys as he is leaving his shop.  After Swanilda finds the keys, she and her friends decide to enter the shop.  Before they can investigate too much, Dr. Coppelius returns, and everyone runs away except Swanilda who hides in the alcove where Coppelia is sitting.  Soon Franz appears declaring his love for the exquisite Coppelia.  The two men share several drinks while Dr. Coppelius plots to take the energy from Franz and infuse it in his exquisite Coppelia.  She will be alive!  The Doctor brings out what he believes to be the doll but is really Swanilda who dances around the room.  As she does so, Franz awakens and they flee Dr. Coppelius's shop.  Only then does the doctor realize that Coppelia is lying on the shop floor.  He has been tricked.

   Act 3 shows the celebration in the village where all the  betrothed couples are given a dowry.  Swanilda gives the doctor her dowry to make up for the trick played upon him.  The remaining part of this act is devoted to dancing and rejoicing.

     Copplia was introduced to the Paris ballet audience in May of 1870.  Within a few months, France and Prussia were at war with many privations for the French people.  France's Emperor Napoleon III was defeated and there followed a period of civil unrest.  The 16 year old ballerina, Giuseppina Bozzacchi,  chosen to dance the title role of Swanilda became a casualty of the time dying of smallpox on the morning of her 17th birthday, November 23, 1870.

     Surprisingly many men enjoy this ballet as well as women.  Perhaps it is the light nature of the program or the introduction of several folk dances.  Whatever causes the magic, it's there for all to see and enjoy.

     So, remember the ladies.

                       Carol


    

          

Africa with Lipstick

Although this isn't a photo of Mary Kingsley,
she probably dressed as the woman shown
above.

   Although I've never been one to want to go to Africa on safari, I do like to learn about those brave women who dared go there back "in the old days."  Several years ago, I researched an English woman who loved West Africa so much that she made two trips there and would have returned for a longer visit if she hadn't died of typhoid at the Cape of South Africa where she had gone to be a nurse during the Boer War.  The year was 1900, and Mary Kingsley  was 37 years old at her death.

     During Mary's second visit to West Africa in 1895, she collected fish specimens for the British Museum, studied the natives, and took a lot of photographs.  Back in England, she wrote popular books and gave lectures about her experiences.  People wanted to hear about polygamy among the natives and their other strange practices.

      Copies of Mary's book Travels in West Africa  and A Voyager Out by Katherine Frank tell of Mary's experience.

       A few days ago, I bought a copy of the March, 1928, Vanity Fair magazine at a flea market.  While paging through it, I found an article entitled "Through Africa with Lipstick and Camera" by Mrs. Corey Ford.  The article was filled with little tidbits about her African life while accompanying her explorer husband as he photographed wild animals.  She was to pose with the wild animals killed by the natives.  According to Zaza, a lady explorer had to endure a few hardships and take only the barest necessities. 

Photo supplied by Metro-Goldwyn probably to
promote a film of the time.

            "Of our modest train of 100 coolies, the first 5 or 10 carried trunks on their backs containing my evening-wraps, slippers and cloaks.  The next dozen brought a few little changes for early afternoon wear, and some simple morning frocks; the succeeding four or five staggered under my array of chemises, negligees, stockings, and other personal effects; the next squad carried my shoes and slippers; the next 12 my hats; while the succeeding forty-odd coolies carried such indespensible articles of my toilet as cosmetics, facial creams, powders, rouge, and some framed photographs of myself to decorate my boudoir.  The last coolie brought up the rear with my bath-salts and Corey's suitcase."
     
     Zaza Ford claimed to sometimes spend evenings with Martin and Osa Johnson, actual famed African explorers who spent many years in the wilderness.

As I read the article written by this Mrs. Corey Ford,  I wondered if it could possibly be real.  It was such a contrast to Mary Kingsley's African experience, but then Mary was a minimalist.  It is true that some early women on safari took a staggering amount of items with them.  Mrs. Ford's article made me laugh, so I decided to do some research on her.  Not surprisingly, I couldn't find out anything about her, but I did discover that Corey Ford was a writer of the times who wrote humor and satire for various magazines (including Vanity Fair) along with some books.  So, I'm guessing this is probably one of his satire articles pointed at the ridiculous amount of beauty products and costumes some women deemed necessary for travel in the wilds of Africa.  Can't you just picture a caravan of 100 "coolies" with 99 of them totting clothing and accessories for a spoiled hieress?  That's my kind of roughing it!

     So, remember the ladies.

                      Carol

Fooling the Eye

       Many of the photos of ladies from the 1800s look romantic to me.  I think of Scarlett's full and fabulous shirts without thinking of the reality of wearing all the hidden structure necessary to keep such skirts puffed out and unwrinkled. 

      Around 1839, the most popular petticoats were made of horsehair.  Soon ladies began to put cording or whalebone in strategic places to help give skirts their bounce.  In 1856, an inventive Frenchman by the name of R.C. Milliet came up with the"cage" crinoline which was  constructed of 8 hoops of steel wire running around the petticoat in increasing diameter from the waist to the bottom of the skirt  The wires were held together with vertical tapes of  fabric.

        The early crinoline was dome-shaped to accomodate the rows of flounces on the skirt.  The crinoline made the skirt stand away from the body in a graceful bell.

           It's said that Empress Eugenie of France, who set the styles during the second half of the 1850s and the 1860s, loved the hoops because it kept men at a distance.  Her husband, Napoleon III, had a play written in which the leading lady wore a "grotesquelly wide" crinoline.  Eugenie immediately had one just as wide made for herself.


     By 1860, crinolines were so wide that two women were unable to go through a doorway at the same time nor sit on the same sofa together.  When walking outside, the wind could nearly upset a woman if not carry her away like a kite.




        

         The hooped crinolines were often unpredictable.  They tilted up behind or at the side when a lady stood near a table or chair.  When she sat down on a sofa, the crinoline might go up in front exposing her feet along with a shocking glimpse of a stockinged leg!  When walking, the hoop caused her skirt to sway from side to side knocking objects over.

         It was nearly impossible to wear a coat even during the coldest winter days with such wide skirts so capes and shawls had to be substituted.

         The total look wasn't always what a lady might wish as this photo probably taken in the early 1860s shows.

     In the 1860s, the shape of skirts began to change so that the front was more flat with the fabric moving to a train in the back.

     By 1866, the crinoline's popularity diminished as elegant bustles in back became the rage.   

     Although the fashion seems foolish to us today, the whole idea of the hooped crinoline was to make a lady's waist appear as tiny as possible by contrasting it with an extremely wide skirt.  Just think of the the weight of the petticoats and uncomfortable situations women of the times must have undergone. 






       Isn't it  amazing what we'll do to make ourselves look just as good as our girlfriends

           So, remember the ladies.

                         Carol

Warm Vanilla Sugar

Art Journal Page

      It's hard to believe that in the 1700s and much of the 1800s, washing was thought to be bad for your health.  One of the best things about the lack of bathing was that everyone smelled bad...not just some people. 

       To cover up the ugly odors, people used strong scents in their houses and on their clothes.  Most of these scents were produced at home using recipes that were passed along from one person to another.  In France during the middle of the18th century,  the people of King Louis XV's Court wanted professional perfumes.  Soon the English wanted them too.



        In London, a barber shop opened in 1730 with the owner  selling fragrances in addition to giving haircuts.  By 1800 more than 100 fragrances were being made in the back room of the shop, packaged, and sold up front in the store called Floris.  If a lady wanted her own fragrance, it was concocted with the recipe written in a special ledger.  Floris is still open at 89 Jermyn Street.

     After WWI, returning U.S. soldiers brought home to the women in their lives some of the European beauty products, including French perfumes, and American women started using them.  By the 1950s perfume was still an expensive luxury usually given to a woman as a gift.  She would use it on special occasions with just a dab behind each ear. 

     One of the most romantic stories told in the book Fragrance and Fashion, is that of Caron which Ernest Daltroff began in Paris in 1903.  Daltroff, who is said to have an instinctively brilliant 'nose,' met the dressmaker Felicie Vanpouille in 1905.  She designed most of the flacons for their fragrances and directed their presentations throughout the years.  In 1922, Daltroff gave Felicie half of the business.  Even though they were lovers for more than 30 years, she wouldn't marry him.  Later she married another man. 

     Daltroff was Jewish so things became tough for him when the German's began to raise their anti-Jew campaign in 1939.  Daltroff left the business in Felicie's care when he emigrated to Canada dying in New York in 1941.  His assistant 'nose' took over as perfume designer using the hundreds of recipes for new fragrances that Daltroff had written on scraps of paper.

    What about Felicie who had sparked so many of Daltroff's ideas and carried them out?  She sold the company in 1962 but continued to work for the new company until her retirement in1967 at the amazing age of 94!

     So, remember the ladies.

                      Carol

The Peabody Girls

     My book club selection for last month sounded a little intriguing to me before I started reading it because I have my own sister, and I love knowing about her life.  However,  The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall may have been chosen as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, but it's not a book to pick up for pleasure.  Well documented, the story of these remarkable sisters lives from their births in the early 1800s until 1843 took forever to read.  At last I reached the end but didn't attempt the pages and pages of research notes.  So much for intrigue.

The Peabody Sisters
Book Art Journal Page

      Born in the early 1800s at a time when girls and women were considered less important and less intelligent than men and boys, the 3 Peabody sisters weren't allowed to attend school so they directed their own educations themselves.  The girls  challenged themselves to learn everything they could including several foreign languages  They were all quite intelligent and their mother, Eliza, encouraged them to grow up to be independent women.

      Elizabeth (1804-1894), domineering and the most independent of the girls, was eventually the founder of our American kindergarten system.

      Mary (1896-1887) would marry Horace Mann, have 3 children, and leave an unpublished novel behind after years of teaching.  She was the most beautiful of the sisters and the one with musical ability.

      Sophia (1809-1871), used her migranes as a crutch to get out of responsibility, married Nathaniel Hawthorne, bore 3 children but quit her sculpture and painting when the children came.

     Poverty ridden, these three women had a thirst for better lives especially Elizabeth who worked tirelessly to gain that end.  They all worked as teachers sporatically which was one of the only acceptable occupations for women at the time.  Their three brothers, who had received good educations, didn't apply themselves in the same way as the girls.  Two of the boys died in their twenties, and the third ended up being bitter towards his sisters.

     Even though the girls had some problems among themselves, they remained united throughout their lifetimes.  Elizabeth had, at one time, fallen for Horace Mann only to see him marry her sister Mary.  The man Elizabeth felt she really loved, however, was Nathaniel Hawthorne who chose Sophia for his wife.  In the end, Elizabeth never married although she had several close male friends who stimulated her intellectually.

     In my opinion, its interesting to note the changes in attitudes toward women and their worth.   The self-motivation of these women is remarkable especially at a time when there were so few options open to them.   Perhaps life is just too easy for the young of today.

     So, remember the ladies.

                       Carol