NEW CENTURY’S EVE WITH THE CREATIVE PARAGONS: CULTURAL FIREWORKS AT THE PARISIAN SALON OF ERNESTA STERN ON A 31/12/1899 REVEILLON – A PLAY BY JACQUES CORY ALIAS JACQUE COROT DRAMATIS PERSONAE In order of appearance Ernesta Stern, 45, French, Salonniere, Author – Host Jacque Corot, 80, French, Witness – (Greek) Chorus Émile Zola, 59, French, Author and Journalist Lev Tolstoy, 71, Russian, Author Henrik Ibsen, 71, Norwegian, Playwright Georges Clemenceau, 58, French, Statesman and Journalist Oscar Wilde, 45, Irish/British, Playwright * Oscar Wilde recites from his poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol George Bernard Shaw, 43, Irish/British, Playwright and Polemicist Claude Monet, 59, French, Painter * Monet’s paintings are screened, while Claude Debussy plays on the piano his Arabesques Claude Debussy, 37, French, Composer Giacomo Puccini, 41, Italian, Composer Enrico Caruso, 26, Italian, Operatic Tenor *Enrico Caruso sings 12 opera arias by Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, Leoncavallo, Gounod, Bizet Edmond Rostand, 31, French, Playwright Sarah Bernhardt, 55, French, Stage Actress * Sarah Bernhardt plays Duke Reichstadt’s monologues from Edmond Rostand’s L’Aiglon Louis Lumière, 35, French, Engineer, Industrialist, Inventor of the Cinematograph * 10 short films by Lumiere are screened accompanied by Scott Joplin’s ragtime piano music played by Arthur Rubinstein, who continues with a recital by Chopin, Brahms, Mendelssohn Theodor Herzl, 39, Austrian Jewish Journalist, Playwright, Writer, Father of Political Zionism 2 José Echegaray, 67, Spanish, Civil Engineer, Mathematician, Statesman, Playwright Gustave Eiffel, 67, French, Civil Engineer Jules Chéret, 63, French, Painter and Lithographer * Photos & films of Paris around 1899 are screened, as well as Jules Cheret’s posters, with a performance of a Moulin Rouge can-can show and scenes from famous French operettes Marcel Proust, 28, French, Author Marie Curie, 32, Polish/French, Physicist and Chemist Ragnar Sohlman, 29, Swedish, Chemical Engineer, Manager, Creator of Nobel Foundation Wilhelm Röntgen, 54, German, Mechanical Engineer, Physicist Sigmund Freud, 43, Austrian, Neurologist and Founder of Psychoanalysis Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), 64, American, Author and Humorist Yvette Guilbert, 34, French, Cabaret Singer and Actress * Yvette Guilbert sings 10 French Belle Epoque’s songs, as well as traditional songs Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 35, French, Painter, Printmaker and Caricaturist W.S. (William Schwenck) Gilbert, 63, English, Dramatist, Librettist, collaborated with composer Arthur Sullivan * 4 actors play famous scenes from The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore… Jules Verne, 71, French, Author and Futurist Isadora Duncan, 22, American, Dancer, Mother of Modern Dance * Isadora Duncan dances, accompanied by the piano music of Reynaldo Hahn Eça de Queirós, 54, Portuguese, Author and Diplomat Richard Strauss, 35, German, Composer and Conductor Camille Saint-Saens, 64, French, Composer, Conductor, Organist, Pianist, Writer, Critic * Armand Silvestre recites his poem Les fils de Promethee, accompanied alternately by piano extracts from Le feu celeste by Camille Saint-Saens, performed by him & Arthur Rubinstein Joseph Joachim, 68, Hungarian, Violinist, Conductor, Composer and Teacher. * Joseph Joachim & Edvard Grieg play a recital of piano and violin compositions by Chopin, Saint-Saens, Grieg, Fauré, Brahms, Liszt, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann & Mendelssohn Georges Feydeau, 37, French, Playwright * Potpourri of 1899 Georges Melies films, including a film on the Dreyfus Affair. Accompanied by Bronislaw Huberman on the violin in a classical, sacred and popular recital 3 Auguste Rodin, 59, French, Sculptor Dmitri Mendeleev, 65, Russian, Chemist Emile Durkheim, 41, French, Sociologist Ernesta Stern * Jeanne Hugo recites a poem from La Legende des Siecles by Victor Hugo, her grandfather * Jose-Maria de Heredia recites poems by the Spanish poet Pedro Antonio de Alarcon * Olga Knipper plays Tatiana writing to Eugene Onegin by Pushkin and Tchaikovsky’s opera * A concert of compositions by composers who died recently, with Orchestre Lamoureux ensemble and soloists Pablo Casals, Bronislaw Huberman, Lionel Tertis and Maurice Ravel * Arias & ballets with Garnier Opera group and Adelina Patti, Antonio Paoli, Karl Mantzius, Luisa Tetrazzini, Leon Rothir, Edyth Walker, Francesco Tamagno, Clara Butt * Isaac Albeniz, Francisco Tarrega an Pablo de Sarasate give a recital of their compositions * Standing ovation to Giuseppe Verdi, while singing a cappella Va Pensiero from Nabucco. The opera singers sing arias from Verdi’s operas, ending with Triumphal March from Aida * The actors, musicians and guests sing and play the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, while the Parisian New Century fireworks outside the windows are seen & heard Jacque Corot * Screening of the 1900 Paris World Exposition’s new buildings/monuments, John Philip Sousa enters with his March Band performing American, English & French military marches Others - Guests, actors, musicians, et al: Gabriele d’Annunzio, Anton Chekhov, Konstantin Stanislavski, Olga Knipper, Arthur Schnitzler, Henry James, Machado de Assis, Arturo Toscanini, Constant Coquelin, Rosemonde Gerard, Arthur Rubinstein, John Philip Sousa, Charles Lecocq, Robert Planquette, Andre Messager, Ludovic Halevy, Aristide Bruant, Reynaldo Hahn, Armand Silvestre, Max Bruch, Edvard Grieg, Georges Méliès, Bronislaw Huberman, Jeanne Hugo, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, Isaac Albeniz, Pablo de Sarasate, Francisco Tarrega, Jane Avril, Camille Pissarro, Gustave Kahn, Alfred Jarry, Willy, Colette, Marguerite Durand, Gustav Mahler, Alexander Glazunov, Antonin Dvorak, Tomas Masaryk, Marcellus Emants, Ion Luca Caragiale, Tevfik Fikret, Ahmed Shawqi, Khalil Mutran, Giuseppe Verdi, Sholem Aleikhem, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Elia Carmona, Jacob Chemla, Kostis Palamas, Pierre de Coubertin, Henryk Sienkiewitcz, Selma Lagerlof, Georg Brandes, Johan Jacob Ahrenberg, Pablo Casals, Camille Chevillard, Lionel Tertis, Maurice Ravel, Adelina Patti, Antonio Paoli, Karl Mantzius, Luisa Tetrazzini, Edmond de Rothschild, Maurice de Rothschild, Zoe de Rothschild, Leon Lambert, Fernand Halphen, Sophie Croizette, Manuel de Falla, Carl Spitteler, Janko Veselinovic, Rabindranath Tagore, Lie Kim Hok, Koda Rohan, Maurice Maeterlinck, Antun Gustav Matos, Anna de Noailles, Leon Bonnat, Carolus-Duran, Paul Adam, Camille Flammarion, Jose-Maria de Heredia, Joseph Reinach, Jean Richepin, Henri de Regnier, Marie de Regnier, Pierre Louys, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Camille Jenatzy, et al; Moulin Rouge can-can show, 4 actors of the Gilbert show, ensemble of musicians from the Lamoureux Orchestra, ensemble of singers and dancers from the Garnier Opera in Paris. 4 New Year’s eve, 31/12/1899 at Ernesta Stern’s Parisian Salon, located at 68, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, Paris. On the tables foie gras, champagne, oysters, wines. Through the open windows of the hotel particulier one can see and hear fireworks to celebrate the new year, the new century, the new era, at the height of Parisian Belle Epoque. Ernesta Stern’s Salon is the most exclusive in Paris, where the cultural crème de la crème has gathered: authors, playwrights, actors, scientists, inventors, politicians, composers, painters, sculptors, dancers… When the name of a protagonist is mentioned we see projected on a screen photos and events. Jacque Corot sees and hears everything but cannot be seen by the other protagonists, he likes all the celebrities, understands them, envy or pity them, with hindsight of what might or will happen. A feeling of insouciance is in the air, we are on top of the world, living in the cultural world’s capital, where every important event occurs, and this Belle Epoque will last forever. To my beloved wife Ruthy Cory, my inspiration, every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear, fogata de amor y guia, razon de vivir mi vida, der du von dem Himmel bist, alles Leid und Schmerzen stillest, yet I see you, like the sun, even without looking, come Dante ti dico - l'amor che move: i sole e l'altre stelle, car vois-tu, chaque jour je t'aime davantage, aujourd'hui plus qu'hier et bien moins que demain. When the guns roar and the missiles fly over our heads, when buildings collapse and the dead pile up on all sides, when a pandemic rages and slays millions all over the world, paralyzes the economy, culture and life, when society disintegrates and the regime is in existential crisis, when incited rioters rave freely in our towns, reminding me of childhood traumas, of the vandals setting fire to entire neighborhoods, butchering and wounding without mercy, almost burning me alive, while I was reading Alice in the Wonderland, about the Queen of Hearts screaming COUPEZ LUI LA TETE – Off with his head; I find myself balm, bibliotherapy, writing catharsis, immersing in culture at its best, as the muses are not silent but speak or rather whisper to my deaf ears: get up, shake off, sail on the wings of the imagination, on the wings of time, to another reality in another place, to the most creative century in culture, innovation, spiritual life, literature, arts, music, theater, cinema, inventions, science, democracy & human rights, write about it, about the cultural paragons, the premieres of the best plays, operas and exhibitions, the fascinating and interesting salons, in order to heal my ailing soul, to cure the physical and mental pain of my beloved readers. 13/5/2021 5 Ernesta Stern