The Serenade: The Prince and the Siren
Page 49
“Few buildings in history have had the sinister beauty of this fabled pleasure dome…The Seraglio was not only the symbol of all power in the great Ottoman empire, but also, to the dazzled imagination of foreign travellers, the seat of all pleasures too. For it was here, too, that the Grand Seignior's harem was incarcerated—several hundred concubines, beautiful slave girls brought from as far away as Venice, Georgia, and Circassia, and kept, out of sight of other eyes, for the Sultan's delight alone.
“Whoever controlled Constantinople controlled not only the great gateway between Europe and Asia, but also one of the greatest water trade routes linking the northern and southern hemispheres. Looking north, the Black Sea gave access through the Volga to southern Russia, and through the Danube to the Balkans and eastern Europe. To the South, the Sea of Marmara led not only to the Aegean, but to the whole of the Mediterranean, North Africa, and beyond.” - Daughters of Britannia: The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives by Katie Hickman.
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Abdul Hamid II, the Sultan in 1895
“The Red Sultan”
“Abdul the Damned”
Reign 1876-1909
“Abdul Hamid II (Ottoman Turkish: عبد الحميد ثانی, `Abdü’l-Ḥamīd-i sânî; Turkish: İkinci Abdülhamit; September 21, 1842 – February 10, 1918) was the 34th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the last Sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. Hamid II oversaw a period of decline, with rebellions particularly in the Balkans. He had an unsuccessful war with the Russian Empire followed by a successful war against the Kingdom of Greece in 1897. Hamid II ruled from August 31, 1876 until he was deposed shortly after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, on April 27, 1909. In accordance with an agreement made with the Republican Young Ottomans, he promulgated the first Ottoman Constitution of 1876 on December 23, 1876, which was a sign of progressive thinking that marked his early rule. Later, however, Hamid II noticed Western influence on Ottoman affairs. Citing disagreements with the Parliament, he suspended both the short-lived constitution and Parliament in 1878 and accomplished highly effective power and control.” – Wikipedia
Modernization included railways, telegraph, and a great number of schools (secondary, primary, military, law, linguistics, engineering, veterinary, farming, and the arts).
“Abroad, Sultan Abdul Hamid II was nicknamed the Red Sultan or Abdul the Damned due to the alleged massacres of Armenians and Assyrians during his rule and use of the secret police to silence dissent and republicanism. These initiatives led to an assassination attempt in 1905 by Armenian revolutionaries.
On 27 April 1909, Abdul Hamid was deposed, and sent into exile in Salonica. After Salonica fell to Greece in 1912, Abdul Hamid returned to Istanbul, and settled in the Beylerbeyi Palace, where he died in 1918.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Hamid_II
Abdul Hamid II’s consorts (wives) were: (13 wives, as follows)
Ottoman Caliphate (1895)
Consorts
Nazikeda Kadın
Bedrifelek Kadın
Nurefsun Kadın
Bidar Kadın
Dilpesend Kadın
Mezidimestan Kadın
Emsalinur Kadın
Müşfika Kadın
Sazkar Hanım
Peyveste Hanım
Pesend Hanım
Behice Hanım
Naciye Hanım
The harem was abolished in 1909 after the fall of Abdul Hamid II, the last Osmanli Sultan. “Harem: The World Behind the Veil” by Alev Lytle Croutier. Croutier's paternal grandmother, Zehra, lived in a harem until 1909. I don’t see her name above, but I’m thinking she must have been in Abdul Hamid II’s harem. This is one of the few books referenced here I haven’t read yet.
“The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.” –Bertrand Russell, "The Conquest of Happiness"
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“The Extraordinary Operatic Adventures of Blanche Arral”
Claira Lardinois “Blanche Arral”
A high-born opera singer
The story of how Claira Lardinois (1864-1945), the daughter of a nobleman, convinced her family to allow her to study opera is an illuminating study of the Victorian era. This book is really a fun read and I would recommend it to anyone.
The author (Ira Glackens) actually knew Blanche as an aging star, which adds another element of intrigue and interest, this younger man showing interest in an old woman who was no longer famous but who had once met kings and queens (and Rasputin!). Most people in Lardinois’ circle dismissed her simply as an old woman (she wasn’t wealthy). There are so many fascinating aspects to this book which I would recommend to anyone: lovers of opera, the Victorian/Edwardian era, character studies, relationships, how we treat the elderly in our society. I’m so grateful that Mr. Glackens took the time to write a tribute to a uniquely interesting and talented woman which would have otherwise been lost. I don’t know of any other book like this and it certainly portrays a unique life.
Claira’s first public performance
“I mounted the little platform and the director announced my song…I was much offended that everyone in the restaurant did not at once cease all conversation. I gave a sweeping and indignant look at every table in the room. There was an immediate silence. I sang the two songs and the response was tremendous…and I was overwhelmed with flowers. People snatched the bouquets off the tables and presented them to me, and I received them with gracious dignity.”—The Extraordinary Operatic Adventures of Blanche Arral by Blanche Arral and Ira Glackens.
Claira Lardinois (stage name “Blanche Arral”) fell to her knees at the end of the piece when she sang a piece from Mignon at a dinner party, just as Nicolette did. I was not aware that the style of singing was so different in Victorian times. There are certainly fashions and developments in art as in everything else. “In concerts one is supposed to stand like a stick, creating every illusion with the voice alone—that is the style. But creating a mood is the great purpose, and who can make an arbitrary rule in art? Besides this, my actions showed that I had inspirations of my own, in acting as well as singing…” –The Extraordinary Operatic Adventures of Blanche Arral.
A Sultan of Constantinople at this time would have worn European dress with some variations (a fez hat, a cape); clothing reforms were instituted in 1828 by Mahmood II. I opened the scene with earlier dress to create a feeling of different cultures rather than of an homogenized world.
How Claira developed the alto to her soprano
Claira Lardinois swallowed iodine in an attempt to kill herself when her nobleman father would not allow her to study music. As a consequence, he finally relented. Years later a doctor proclaimed that Claira’s vocal chords were black, attributing her rich low notes to this tactic—apparently effective if it does not lead to death.
“This was my death knell. There was no mistaking the tone of his voice. Stifling my sobs, I slipped away and rushed upstairs to the medicine chest. I was frantic with despair. I knew there was a bottle of iodine in the medicine chest—fortunately a weak solution, which Mother kept to rub on our chests for a cold, because I attempted to swallow the whole bottle and did indeed manage to get some of it down. The burning was terrific. My mouth felt like a furnace, and my shrieks of agony brought the whole family running. If I could not sing, I wanted only to die…The doctor examined my throat through a laryngoscope. He remarked on the peculiar black color of my vocal chords…Some singers used to gargle with a few drops of iodine in water before singing, as this was supposed to clear the voice…My vocal chords had been burned and toughened by the severe dousing I gave them, and in the doctor's opinion this accounted for my unusually strong and rich low notes. But I do not advise this treatment for those desiring to strengthen their low register…Perhaps he
stage was preferable to a dead one after all.”— The Extraordinary Operatic Adventures of Blanche Arral by Ira Glackens.
Claira’s professional career
Melba and the Marchesi were real people in Claira’s life
I wished to be true to the actual characterizations of the personalities as per a first-hand account.
Follows Claira’s recounting of meeting Melba for the first time. Claira was having a voice lesson with the Marchesi at the time, who was also Melba’s teacher.
“In the middle of the aria, the door burst open without a knock or the least warning, and a tall, large-boned lady walked into the room. I can see the lady yet! Great was her astonishment at my not having stopped singing, and she walked completely around me staring at me with truly terrifying eyes. ‘Je suis la Melba,’ she said.” I am the Melba. “I continued my song to the end. ‘Yes,’ I then said. ‘I heard you in Brussels, in Hamlet and Faust. And I prefer Madame Calve´ in Faust.’
‘Probably because she has black hair,’ Melba said, looking at my own dark hair.
‘No,’ I answered calmly. ‘It was because she was so sweet.’
I had of course said too much. Madame Marchesi, who was standing behind Melba, made me a sign with her eyes to say nothing more. But I was not yet ready to be silent. I thought that if Miss Van Zandt and Monsieur Carvalho had been so kind to me, Madame Melba had no cause to look at me in such a manner or to treat me so rudely. In a whisper to the accompanist, I added, ‘Melba was quite good as Ophelia, however.’” (You need to know that Ophelia was mad).
“Melba said aloud, ‘Perhaps she will arrive with a great deal of hard work, but I counsel her to be less impertinent and to eat a lot of good soup, to grow taller.’ And she walked out of the room without looking at me—luckily, for she would have seen the tears dropping down cheeks…Madame Marchesi…kissed me without saying a word. My lesson was finished for that day and I went home having gained a great enemy in Melba.”
I guess the moral here is, Melba had a lot more experience being nasty. If you can’t run with the big dogs, you’d better stay on the porch. Don’t try to be what you’re not.
Claira’s philosophy of singing
“I asked Melba how she was able to go on her long tours of one-night stands through Australia, and she answered, 'Oh, I don't give them all I have!’…I do not see how it is possible for an artist to hold anything back when standing before the public. He or she has to give everything—the presence of the audience demands it. One cannot restrain oneself when inspired. But Melba learned how, and she sold her singing by the yard.”
—The Extraordinary Operatic Adventures of Blanche Arral, by Claira’s account.
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The Princess Royals
“The 7th Dragoon Guards”
“The 7th (The Princess Royal's) Dragoon Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first raised in 1688. It saw service for three centuries, before being amalgamated into the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards in 1922.
Ravensdale fought in the Battle of Tel-El-Kebir which put Egypt under British rule, obtaining the Suez Canal for Britain until Gamal Abdel Nasser’s brilliant 1952 coup.
In 1882 Urabi attempted to recapture the canal when he attacked the British forces near Kassassin on September 10. The British troops were caught by surprise, as they did not expect an attack. Fighting was intense, and there were heavy losses on the British side. Fortunately for them, fresh reinforcements arrived, including the 7th Dragoon Guards (Princess Royal's) and the Highland Brigade , and these forced the Egyptian troops, who were tired and weary of the fighting to retreat.” -Wikipedia.
Alita and Val’s romance is told in “The Destiny Code: the Soldier and the Mystic”.
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The Ravensdale’s departure from Constantinople
The ship's salute upon the Ravensdale’s departure is similar to a scene described in Daughters of Britannia: The Lives and Times of Diplomatic Wives by Katie Hickman: “On the Captain's orders, the men lined the rigging, their muskats at the ready. As the ship grew closer to the Sultan's palace, in a suffocating cloud of gunpowder, a salutation of sixty-one guns was fired. A little while later, when the ambassador finally embarked, it was to a second deafening salute of fifty-one guns.”
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Other Wars of the period
The Greco-Turkish war was in 1897.
The Spanish-American War
Apr 21, 1898 – Aug 13, 1898
http://www.spanamwar.com/casualties.htm
SPANISH LOSSES:
Information on the Spanish losses in the war are somewhat sketchy. The Spanish were already fighting an ongoing war with Cuban Insurgents when the U.S. became involved and the war officially began.
The best information we have on this is from one of our correspondents in Spain. It is as follows:
“One century after the war experts still do not a clear idea about the Spanish casualties in the Spanish American War. Data varies but indicates that between 55,000 and 60,000 men died. Of these men, 90% died from malaria, dysentery and other diseases; the remaining 10 % died during the battles or later as a consequence of their injuries.”
AMERICAN LOSSES:
“Battle casualties were relatively light during the Spanish-American War. Only 379 U. S. soldiers died in combat. More than ten times that number (4,234) would be killed during the Philippine Insurrection. In addition, there was a very high death rate due to disease, especially typhoid fever, in both theaters. The total number of deaths attributed to disease and "other causes" during the Spanish-American War was 5,083. A significant number of these deaths actually occurred at training areas in the southeastern United States.”
https://www.iowanationalguard.com/History/History/Pages/Spanish-American-War.aspx
Roosevelt's exact words were that the Maine was “sunk by an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards”.
In response to the supposed attack on the Maine, the Americans blew the antiquated Spanish ships out of the water at Cavite in the Philippines on 1 May 1898 and at Santiago de Cuba on 3 July 1898.
“Many United States naval officers, explosive experts, nautical engineers, and ship architects told reporters they believed an accidental fire had triggered the Maine disaster… Coal bunker fires were particularly dangerous. . . An undetected fire, however, could heat the bulkhead separating the coal from the powder and cause an explosion.” p. 123, An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States & Spain over Cuba, 1895-1898, by John L. Offner.
Spain was forced by the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898 to agree to Cuban independence and to sign over Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the United States. “Since Spain lost the war of 1898, and thereafter lost Cuba and the Philippines, the once-great imperial power was transformed overnight into a second-ranking nation state.” Spain's 1898 Crisis: Regeneration, Modernism, Postcolonialism, edited by Joseph Harrison and Alan Hoyle.
“Because Spain could not capitulate to the Americans without so much as a single shot. Such an action could not be countenanced by Spain's politicians. Their dignity and their honor—not to mention their elections—were at stake.”
The monarch in Spain during the Spanish-American War of 1898 was actually María Cristina, a Hapsburg, the Austrian wife of Alfonso XII and the mother of Alfonso XIII, then thirteen years of age. When Alfonso XII, who was much loved, died in 1885 of tuberculosis, “the authority fell to María Cristina until 1902 when Alfonso XIII turned sixteen years of age. Although a foreigner, untrained in Spanish politics, and little loved by her Spanish subjects, the young queen regent took her position seriously. She was intelligent and diligent. By 1895 the queen regent was an important political presence in Spain's governing councils.”-- An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States & Spain over Cuba, 1895-1898, by John L. Offner.
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Émile Loubet
President of France
Émile Loubet (1838-1929) was actually the President of France at this time (1899-1906).
Loubet was also “one of the famous 363 who on 16 May 1877 (Seize Mai) passed the vote of no confidence in the ministry of the duc de Broglie, which ultimately sealed the defeat of the royalist movement and the Bourbon line.”
“There is something very ingenuous about President Loubet which attracts almost all foreigners—a quaint, almost childlike desire to be liked, very evident even to those who merely pass him in the street, and which explains at once why the Empress of Russia was so drawn to him.” – Wikipedia
“But Loubet, in his quiet way, proved to have more courage than he looked to have…He walked as the chief mourner of the nation behind the hearse of Felix Faure, as fine a target for any fanatic as ever history offered…the steadiness with which Loubet bore himself that day in circumstances where actually nothing could have been done to guarantee his safety.”—by Mildred Aldrich, New York Times, 12/8/1901.