Michael Field’s career is heading south — can the premiere of their first staged play turn things around? More drama occurs as Edith’s father goes missing in the Alps.
EPISODE LYRICS
BEFORE QUESTION OF MEMORY
K.B. New Year’s eve, 1892
There is much to make this year close in cynicism. We have published two books that have been received with silence or with hate. Most of our friends are further from us than last year. The man we love is stamped and sealed another’s. Still I feel that much of our misery springs from the fact that we have not drawn on the infinite, we have asked for a happiness that could not have been given us without being taken from others.
E.C. New Year’s eve, 1892
Yes, the year 1892 has been almost the bitterest I ever spent — we have given our work to a silent world — twice have we given to the silence. I love in a deathly way… I long for freedom, England’s a prison!
E.C. Jan 26th 1893
The book might be a deader. We have not got on friendly terms with any of the publishers at Bodley Head and younger authors than we are have been pushed before us! We are desperately alone in this world that shuns us. What can it be!?
AFTER QUESTION OF MEMORY
E.C. October 28 1984
It seems more natural to be dead than alive. We wake to the surprise of finding every morning paper against us; The Time’s, The Telegraph are worthy of respect in their blame; they have some good words for us and for our actors; the rest howl!
K.B. Nov 22 1894
Not a flower had anyone sent us yesterday, not a flower was given to us. No word, no letter, not visit, only the execrations of the press! Friends have been very caressing but they avoid allusions to our art as if it were a dead husband.
THE FOREST
He lay asleep, and the long dark season wore:
The forest shadows marked him limb by limb
As on a dial: when the light grew dim,
A steady darkness on the spiny floor,
He lay asleep. The Alpine roses bore
Their last blooms and withered at the rim:
The harvest moon came down and covered him,
And passed, and it was stiller than before.
Then fell the autumn, little falling there
Save some quick-dropping fir-cone on the mound,
Save with the ebbing leaves his own white hair;
And the great stars grew wintry; in the cold
Of a wide-spreading dusk, so woodmen say,
As one asleep on his right arm he lay.
Veritable Michael — a podcast operaThis 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.
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A full transcript of this episode can be found here.
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.
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