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Orlando staged in London July 31-Aug. 4

Friday 5 July 2019 by Paula Maggio

Orlando, the stage adaptation by Sarah Rule, will be produced by the Marvellous Machine Theatre Company production, which is part of The Camden Fringe, July 31 through Aug. 4. Performances of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel are at 7:30 p.m.
Location: Theatro Technis, 26 Crowndale Road, London NW1 1TT (Mornington Crescent tube)
Tickets: £15 (£13 concessions) + £2.50 fee: book online: Book online.

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The rise and rise of Ethel Smyth

Wednesday 3 July 2019 by Paula Maggio

Editor’s Note: This post was written by David Chandler of the Retrospect Opera and a professor of English at Doshisha University, Kyoto.

The Virginia Woolf community will know that Woolf became a close friend and prolific correspondent of Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), Britain’s leading female composer. Smyth fought a long, hard battle to break women’s music out of the heavily gendered constraints which had been placed upon it in the nineteenth century, and from the 1890s onward achieved a long run of important successes.

But like most female composers, her music mostly sank into oblivion after her death, and it was not until the 1990s that it began to be recovered, performed, recorded, and praised. In recent years, Retrospect Opera, a recording company set up as a charity, has led the way in restoring Smyth to her proper place in the history of music, theatre, and women’s cultural history.

Smyth recordings

Our recording of Smyth’s The Boatswain’s Mate (1916), her most commercially successful opera by far, and the one generally recognised as having a feminist story – the overture includes Smyth’s famous Suffragette anthem, “The March of the Women” – was released in 2016, conducted by the famous champion of women’s music, Odaline de la Martinez. It has been highly praised by reviewers and described on BBC Radio 3 as the finest ever recording of Smyth’s music. It is an exceptionally tuneful comic opera and the obvious place to start for anyone new to Smyth.

On the back of The Boatswain’s Mate, we re-released Odaline’s famous recording of The Wreckers (1906), Smyth’s biggest, most ambitious opera, and for that matter the most substantial of all her compositions. This had been released on the Conifer Classics label in 1994, but had long been unavailable.

Fundraising for a third opera

We are now fundraising for a release of a third Smyth opera, Fête Galante (1923), perhaps the most beautiful of all, and certainly the most original. Drawing on the world of the traditional commedia dell’arte, it stands on the border between opera and ballet; Smyth called it a “Dance Dream.” (It was in fact played as a straight ballet in the 1930s, with sets by Vanessa Bell.) Again, Odaline has conducted it.

Like all our releases this is being crowd funded. All donations of £25 or more are listed on our website, and all donations of £50 or more are also listed in the booklet that goes out with the CD, containing the full libretto and three introductory essays.

How you can help

We already have a number of Woolf scholars from all around the world supporting us, but we do hope to find more! If you don’t want to donate to Fête Galante, simply buying The Boatswain’s Mate, or The Wreckers, or any of our other releases, or getting your friends or library to buy them, is another valuable way you can help us put Smyth and women’s music firmly back on the map.

For more information on the Fête Galante project, see: http://www.retrospectopera.org.uk/SMYTH/FeteG.html

And to buy any of our existing catalogue, please see: http://www.retrospectopera.org.uk/CD_Sales.html

Posted in feminism, music | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Cecil Woolf obituary in The Telegraph

Tuesday 2 July 2019 by Paula Maggio

A fourth obituary for Cecil Woolf, the oldest living relative of Virginia Woolf who died June 10 in London, was published yesterday. This one appears in The Telegraph. It is listed below, along with the other three.

Cecil Woolf and Jean Moorcroft Wilson at the Nov. 22, 2014,
unveiling of the Blue Plaque at Frome Station, which recognized the marriage of Leonard and Virginia Woolf.

He had too much style and charm, however, to say more at the events and conferences he was prevailed upon to attend than that he always saw Virginia through the prism of his childhood in the 1930s. Then, she was merely a well-regarded writer rather than a feminist icon. – The Telegraph

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Cecil Woolf obituary in The Guardian

Thursday 27 June 2019 by Paula Maggio

Obituaries and tributes to Cecil Woolf, the oldest living relative of Virginia Woolf who died June 10 in London, are ongoing. The latest is published in the June 26 issue of The Guardian.

Cecil Woolf stops at 46 Gordon Square, London, while giving Blogging Woolf a personalized tour of Bloomsbury in June 2016.

The article’s subhead, “Publisher and nephew of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, he extended the hand of friendship to Woolf scholars and writers,” encapsulates an important part of the legacy of this beloved gentleman, scholar, and founder of Cecil Woolf Publishers.

In The Guardian story, Cecil’s wife, author Jean Moorcroft Wilson, reflected on her decades-long collaboration with her husband, as well as the future of the couple’s publishing house:

We had an extraordinarily good working relationship … My great wish is that Cecil Woolf Publishers continue, and I have every intention of doing my utmost to ensure it does, either with me or our children, or with someone else who shares the same values and ideals.

Although The Times June 15 obituary is behind a paywall, you can read it on this blog via photographs of the print page.

Jean also wrote an obituary that ran in the Camden News Journal, which can be read at this post.

His funeral was held in London at Golders Green Crematorium on Monday, June 24, at 3 p.m., with friends and family gathering at the family home in London home afterwards. A memorial service will also be held in late September or early October, but details have not yet been set.

His legacy

Some tributes to Cecil’s legacy have taken place; others are planned.

They include: 

  • O outro garoto na Hogarth Press: homenagem a Cecil Woolf
  • Dedication of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain’s Dalloway Day events at Waterstones Gower Street to Cecil Woolf.
  • A special section devoted to Cecil Woolf in Issue 95, the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of the International Virginia Woolf Society’s Miscellany. Here is the call for papers:

    Call for Papers: A special section devoted to Cecil Woolf will be included in Issue 95, the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of the International Virginia Woolf Society’s Miscellany. If you would like to submit a remembrance of Cecil Woolf to be included in that section, please contact Paula Maggio at bloggingwoolf@yahoo.com. Submissions, which can be submitted via email to bloggingwoolf@yahoo.com, should be limited to 1,000 words. However, briefer remembrances are also welcome. Submission deadline is July 31.

  • The next issue of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain’s Bulletin will be dedicated to Cecil Woolf and will include remembrances of him.

Condolences

Those who would like to send a message of condolence to the family may direct it to Jean Moorcroft Wilson at 1 Mornington Place, London NW1 7RP, England.

A daughter’s tributes

Below are a selection of tweets sent by Cecil and Jean’s daughter, author Emma Woolf, in tribute to her father.

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Posted in Cecil Woolf, Cecil Woolf Publishers, in memoriam | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

Flowers, reading, writing, quoting, and more on #DallowayDay

Wednesday 19 June 2019 by Paula Maggio

Oh, yes, dear readers, today is #DallowayDay! And although celebrations took place last weekend, Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel and her memorable character Clarissa Dalloway are being feted at celebrations around the world today, the official #DallowayDay, the third Wednesday in June.

If you can’t join a celebration in person, join in via Twitter. Just search #DallowayDay. And consider buying some flowers yourself.

Meanwhile, here are some notable tweets for the day.

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Posted in Dalloway Day, events, Mrs. Dalloway | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

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