Veritable Michael - a podcast opera: Recent Episodes
Shadow 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.
Welcome to the last episode of Veritable Michael — a podcast opera. This Episode is an audio version of the complete opera. If you are joining us here and would like to learn more about the research and making of this opera, go back and listen to our earlier episodes. If you've been with us from the start, it's time for you to meet the man himself, Michael Field.
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.
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.
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 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.
Michael Field is in seclusion. Katherine and Edith and their beloved dog settle into their London home to write for each other. They set their sights on a future audience by committing every word they wrote to be preserved and published.
Episode Lyrics
A window full of ancient things, and while,
Lured by their solemn tints, I crossed the street,
A face was there that in its tranquil style,
Almost obscure, at once remote and sweet,
Moved me by pleasure of similitude -
For, flanked by golden ivories, that face,
Her face, looked forth in even and subdued
Deep power, while all the shining, all the grace
Came from the passing of Time over her,
Sorrow with Time, there was no age, no spring:
On those smooth brows no promise was astir,
No hope outlived: herself a perfect thing,
She stood by that reliquary
Simple as Aphrodite by the sea.
Epilogue
The Moon Rose full (continued)
Female Chorus
And in a circle moved around,
Responsive to her music's sound,
That through the silent air stole on,
Until their breathless dread was gone,
And they could dance with lightsome feet,
And lift the song with voices sweet.
Then once again the silence came.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
Support the show
Michael Field is the toast of the town. They are rubbing shoulders with Oscar Wilde — he’s a fan! Edith falls for another. What will this mean for Michael Field? **EPISODE LYRICS
EDITH'S WALTZ**We go into our bedroom which leads from the salon —
it looks impossible at first sight — so small a bed.
We have a sense we are beginning a life
in which the impossible becomes possible.
As I pass through the door Bernhard says
“How charming you are looking”
and I feel an angry self-depreciation at the remark…
After a walk with Bernhard
we light our own lamp in the dark salon.
A young Americaine comes in
— a little shapely dusk thing,
with fire-flies in her pupils
A despair lies over me —
I cannot play with life as she can.
Bernhard plays too,
and I feel heavy.
In course of conversation he says that a
“place becomes provincial by believing it is not so.
No place is so provincial as London”.
The Americaine goes — will Bernhard go
is a question that almost stops my heart.
Yes — he gives his hand to all, and goes.
There is no beauty like freedom.
No grace that must not be foregone for freedom.Mary shows me the studio under our vine tree where a painter lives with his mistress. We seem to live in the air of a French novel.
At Duval’s we chose a table
They come in.
We watch them
They come up to us,
Bernhard says:
“Miss Cooper and I should marry and be miserable ever after.”
I am powerless to shake off such remarks with irony or wit.
I suffer and I hate.
But it is true — we give one another no pleasure;
the fascination we have for each other
makes us wretched.
DEEP APRILIt was deep April, and the morn
Shakespeare was born;
The world was on us, pressing sore;
My love and I took hands and swore,
Against the world, to be
Poets and lovers evermore,
To laugh and dream on Lethe's shore,
To sing to Charon in his boat,
Heartening the timid souls afloat;
Of judgement never to take heed,
But to those fast-locked souls to speed,
Who never from Apollo fled,
Who spent no hour among the dead;
Continually
With them to dwell,
Indifferent to heaven and hell.
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.
Support the show
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 go to our Instagram.
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 LETTERDear 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 LETTERDear 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 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.
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.
Support the show
Michael Field is in rehearsal. Will their first play to be staged be a triumph? We return to the very beginning and explore Katherine’s and Edith’s pre-Michael Field lives.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 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.
Support the show