The very first feminist and the most well-written character ever

Bernard Herrmann would be proud to see that more news outlets celebrating his centenary are mentioning his Wuthering Heights opera. Such as NPR's Deceptive Cadence:

Still, Herrmann seemed bitter that he was never taken seriously enough as both a composer and conductor of serious, non-film music. Both his opera, based on Wuthering Heights, and his cantata, Moby Dick, never won the support he desired. Perhaps that contributed to his reputation as hot-tempered and abrasive. (Tom Huizenga)

Or Legacy.com:

Herrmann would also work with Welles on The Magnificent Ambersons, an experience that both men would regret. Welles didn’t get final cut and RKO trimmed over 40 minutes from the film and reshot the ending. They also edited Herrmann’s score so heavily he insisted his name be removed from the credits. Parts of the excised music were later repurposed in the score for an opera version of Wuthering Heights.

And from birthdays unfortunately to deaths. Variety reports that child star Edith Fellows passed away on June 26th:

[She] also appeared in popular feature films including 1931's "Huckleberry Finn," staring Junior Durkin and Jackie Coogan; the 1934 version of "Jane Eyre"; and 1935 Claudette Colbert-Melvyn Douglas farce "She Married Her Boss." (Carmel Dagan)

She played Adèle. EDIT: Another obituary in the New York Times, The Independent.

And yet another obituary: The Telegraph mourns the death of actress Margaret Tyzack who died on June 25th.

She went into repertory in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, making her first stage appearance as a bystander in Shaw's Pygmalion in 1951. For the next two years she performed as a "character juvenile" in a play a week for 48 weeks a year. She regarded this apprenticeship as the foundation of her later career, though she could remember being so exhausted that in Wuthering Heights she found herself momentarily too tired to speak.

The New York Times features a house in Nantucket:

At school, back home in Philadelphia, Ms. Lefevre was immersed in the literature of the 19th century — Hardy, Brontë, Melville. In this house, it was easy to believe she was part of that world. She imagined stories from the house’s past, that the back staircase led to “an insane wife, hidden away, her meals smuggled up the stairs,” as she writes in a book she hopes to publish. (Joyce Wadler)

The Yorkshire Evening Post finds a Brontëite in the grandmother behind the charity Kidz in Kampz.

[Favourite] Book: Jane Eyre. In my opinion Charlotte Brontë was the very first feminist. (Madge Davey)

And In This Week (Utah) has a profile of a local 'Cocktail Server/Bartender':

Who do you think is sexy? [...] Oh, and Heathcliff, the most well-written character ever. (Autumn Thatcher)

Both The New York Times and The Prague Post confirm that Judi Dench will be at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival tomorrow (July 1st) introducing the first screening of Jane Eyre 2011.

The film is also recommended by The Saratogian and the high school journal Pirate Press. Condemnedmovies also posts about it. Páginas com Memória writes in Portuguese about the novel and -Veni Vidi Vici- writes ion Spanish about Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Opera, Wuthering Heights