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Ethel Smyth: Composer, Feminist, Suffragette

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Ethel Smyth: Composer, Feminist, Suffragette fashion shows, Cumming makes a pronouncement about fash- was a guest. Eddie said to her that having his picture taken with ionistas—that the industry attracts followers and practitioners her “would be my dream.” Her response: “You gotta get bigger who “[believe] that they are more likely to succeed and be pop- dreams”—which could be interpreted either as a put-down or ular if they are mean.” From his front row perch, he concludes: as self-deprecation. She did pose with the friend, and Cumming “Actually, and thankfully, people who are most successful, on captured it. It’s hard to imagine Cumming attaining bigger the whole, tend to be quite nice.” dreams in light of all that he has accomplished so far. But, upon As for the book’s title, it originated with Oprah Winfrey. reading this book, we admire him all the more for wanting not Cumming took his best friend Eddie to a party at which Oprah only fame, but also respect. ART MEMO Ethel Smyth: Composer, Feminist, Suffragette IRENE JAVORS piano pieces, chamber music, vocal music, nessed Smyth conducting “The March of orchestral works, and of course, operas. the Women” from her jail cell, and marking N LATE SPRING OF 2015, I received a On March 12, 1903, New York’s Metro- time with a toothbrush while a chorus of flyer from Bard College advertising politan Opera presented Smyth’s one-act suffragists sang outside Holloway Prison. Itheir SummerScape opera production of opera Die Wald (lyrics by Henry Brewster). Smyth managed to attract influential and The Wreckers (1904), by the British com- Until last fall, when the Met presented Kaija wealthy female patrons, including the Em- poser Ethel Smyth, with a libretto by Harry Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin, Smyth’s opera press Eugenie and the Princesse Edmonde Brewster. It took a moment for me to notice Die Wald was the only opera composed by a de Polignac (née Winnaretta Singer, that the opera had been composed by a woman ever performed there. That 113 heiress to the Singer sewing machine for- woman. Two thoughts occurred to me si- years elapsed between these two perform- tune), who was also her lover. She was in- multaneously: I had to see this opera, and ances attests to Smyth’s worst suspicions volved with many other women, notably: who was Ethel Smyth? Despite growing up about the tyranny of the “male machine.” Edith Craig, daughter of the actress Ellen in a family that listened to opera as back- Smyth was a committed suffragist who Terry; author Christabel Marshall; and ground music, I had never heard of her. joined the Women’s Social and Political harpsichordist Violet Gordon-Woodhouse. Thus began my research into Smyth’s life Union to fight for the right to vote. She At the age of 71 Smyth fell in love with and work, starting with attending a perform- composed the group’s anthem, “The March Virginia Woolf, who was in her fifties. ance of The Wreckers at Bard in upstate of the Women,” in 1911. Smyth became They wrote each other daily. Their rela- New York. The opera knocked me out. The tionship reportedly remained platonic, but music was dramatic and sweeping. The this is unclear. Smyth wrote about Woolf: story was set along the Cornish coast of “I don’t think that I have ever cared for England and involved illicit love, religious anyone more profoundly.” fanaticism, and an upside-down world In 1922, Smyth was made a Dame Com- where impoverished coastal inhabitants in- mander of the Order of the British Empire tentionally lured ships onto the rocks to (DBE). She was the first woman composer murder their crews and plunder their to be made a dame. She also was awarded goods—all in the name of their God. Smyth honorary degrees from Oxford and the Uni- and Brewster’s opera is a condemnation of versity of Durham. By her later years, religious fundamentalism—a critique of fa- Smyth started going deaf. Undaunted, she naticism that seems most timely today. turned her attention from music to other Who, then, was Ethel Smyth? Born in pursuits, such as writing and golf. In 1934, 1858, in England, she was destined to live in celebration of her 75th birthday, Sir large and aim high. A feisty child, she began Thomas Beecham conducted a royal com- studying music as a teenager and, despite mand performance of her work at Albert her military father’s disapproval of this ca- Hall in London. By this time, she was com- reer path, forged ahead in her musical stud- pletely deaf and unable to hear a note. ies, attending the Leipzig Conservatory in Ethel Smyth died in 1944 at age 86. She Germany, where she met Brahms, was remembered by Judy Chicago in The Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, and Clara Schumann Dinner Party (1979), a permanent art instal- John Singer Sargent, , 1901 (husband Robert). Ethel Smyth lation at the Brooklyn Museum. Smyth was Smyth was not your average “Victorian very close to one of the foremost leaders of a heroic woman who can serve as a model woman.” She was a lesbian, a sports lover, a the women’s suffrage movement, Emmeline of perseverance and courage. In 1901, the suffragist, and a composer. She was deter- Pankhurst, with whom she may have been painter John Singer Sargent sketched Smyth mined to be taken seriously by Europe’s lovers. In 1912, along with other suffragists, as a strong woman gazing off into the dis- music establishment or what she called “the Smyth took up the call by Pankhurst to tance, perhaps pondering her destiny. She male machine.” which she regarded as con- break the windows of conservative politi- became an indomitable spirit whose life and servative and sexist, dismissing the very cians who opposed women’s right to vote, work continue to resonate with us today. possibility that women could compose seri- and they proceeded to do so with hammers ous music. Despite this obstacle, Smyth and stones. Smyth and Pankhurst were Irene Javors, a psychotherapist in private managed to get her work published. She among those arrested. The conductor Sir practice in New York City, is the author of was a prolific composer of choral works, Thomas Beecham reported that he wit- Culture Notes: Essays on Sane Living. 44 The Gay & Lesbian Review / WORLDWIDE.
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