A first edition of one of Charlotte Brontë’s most famous novels has taken pride of place at a new exhibition in Leeds.Broadway World's Sound Off interviews Josh Young who talks about what happened to the Lucy Simon & Marsha Norman musical Heathcliff:
The copy of Shirley will be the centrepiece of the exhibition, which looks at how the stunning Yorkshire landscape has been inspiration for some of the country’s most famous writers.
The exhibition entitled Writing Britain is now on show at the library off The Headrow and includes a collection of writing, imagery and poetical film inspired by Yorkshire.
Items from the Leeds library collections have been boosted by works on loan from the British Library, including the Brontë first edition.
The display has been brought together by Leeds City Council’s library and information service and the British Library, following on from the London exhibition Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands.
PC: What can you tell me about the Lucy Simon material on Still Dreaming of Paradise?The Washington Post considers Dizzy Miss Lizzie's The Brontës one of the best theatre shows seen in 2012:
JY: That song was actually written for a project called Heathcliff that Christopher Jackson and I did a workshop of - it was basically Wuthering Heights: The Musical. I think it was the last show that Lucy and Marsha Norman wrote together - but, I guess nothing came of it. There is some really great music in it in addition to that one, though - it’s really a great score. The song on my album isn’t a song my character sang in it, actually. I played the role of Heathcliff’s brother and Chris Jackson played Heathcliff - in the first workshop, my role was workshopped by Brian D’Arcy James and Adam Pascal played Heathcliff, I think, and then a couple workshops down the line it was me and Chris Jackson. It’s an interesting relationship between the two characters - there’s this flashback to them as children and that’s where the song takes place in the show.
PC: What a shame the show has yet to find a life - it seems to have a lot of promise.
JY: I know! It is a really interesting project, I think, but it’s only been workshopped as far as I know. Other people have recorded songs from it, though - I know Brian and Adam recorded some stuff live, but we didn’t get to do anything in the studio or live. I don’t know why it fell apart and never happened - I did the workshop like six years ago now. Hopefully I’ll be working with Lucy again sometime soon, though, because I really enjoy working with her. (Pat Cerasaro)
Best theater: “The Brontes”The Guardian and The Australian review Havisham by Ronald Frame:
The scrappy D.C. merrymakers of Dizzy Miss Lizzie’s Roadside Revue unveiled “The Brontës,” their saucy, raucous and witty rock concert-as-literary satire.
The tradition of the literary prequel or sequel has a long and chequered history. A few, like Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, have gone on to become classics in their own right. (...)
As for Bertha Mason, the "clothed hyena" in Jane Eyre, she is a shadowy figure with neither voice nor history, as hidden from view in the text as she is in the attic at Thornfield. "She seemed such a poor ghost," Rhys was later to say. "I thought I'd like to write her a life." In Antoinette Cosway, Rhys not only brings the "Vampyre" Bertha shatteringly to life, she forces a dizzying shift of balance, creating a new vantage point from which to look at Brontë's original novel. As Antoinette tells us: "There is always the other side, always." (Clare Clark)
The impulse behind this process varies. Sometimes - as in Lev Grossman's inspired reworking of the Narnia series, The Magicians, or Jean Rhys's brilliant reimagining of the back story of Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea - it is revisionist. (James Bradley)The Telegraph & Argus reports that
Despite a summer that many described as a washout, the number of people visiting Yorkshire and spending money here rose this year compared to previous years.Regrettably the Brontë Parsonage does not share in those numbers:
Some tourist attractions in the Bradford district say they too saw a boost in visitors, but others actually saw a fall.
Figures released yesterday by the Great British Travel Survey show that Trips to Yorkshire were up 16.3 per cent for the period between September 2011 to August 2012. They also reveal that the amount tourists spent in the area increased by 13.5 per cent, and overnight stays were up 11.5 per cent during the same period. (Chris Young)
However, the Brontë Parsonage museum, one of Yorkshire’s biggest attractions, saw a three per cent fall in visitor numbers during the same period, with no apparent Olympic boost. (Chris Young)SFX reviews the comic Doctor Who: The Child of Time.The Brontë mention is quite obscure:
“The Child of Time”, the final story, with Martin Geraghty returning on art, is the moment that Morris really pulls the rabbit out of the hat. Every story that’s gone before is shown in a different light as the Doctor and Amy race to stop a godlike being picking apart reality. Which, let’s face it, is a good premise by itself, but as the story goes on Morris keeps adding more to it. A full-scale war with a race of aliens called the Galataeans takes centre-stage, followed in short order by Alan Turing, the Brontë sisters toting futuristic weaponry and the death and rebirth of humanity. (Alasdair Stuart)Not the only Doctor Who-Brontë connection. According to the Wall Street Journal the Doctor Who Christmas special (The Snowmen) contains Jane Eyre references:
This year’s plays tribute to another series Moffat has his hands in, “Sherlock,” as more than one character fills the role of the Great Detective, as well as a hodge-podge of elements from “Jane Eyre,” “Mary Poppins” and “Game of Thrones.” (Amanda Harris Falls)A Brontë mention in a Botswana website? We have it...through Stephanie Meyer's Twilight though:
She says that she has written in her quartet about life, love and free will using inspirations from Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Emily Brontë. (Sasa Majuma in Mmegi)The Atlantic Wire talks about the upcoming book by Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl:
Her pop-culture touchstones are familiar.Publishers Weekly recommends Christmas Romance novels:
She mentions Holly Hunter in Broadcast News. Claire Danes in Little Women. Jane Eyre. She knows her audience, and they're likely to respond to the characters she brings up in her talk of "love," "sex," and the "big picture." (Esther Zuckerman)
Snowy Night with a Stranger by Jane Feather, Sabrina Jeffries, Julia London - I enjoyed all three stories in Snowy Night with a Stranger, a Victorian-set anthology in which snowstorms and the resulting confinement lead to love. Julia London’s “Snowy Night with a Highlander” brought back pleasant memories of a semester abroad in Scotland and reminded me a little of a favorite classic, Jane Eyre. (Anne Browning Walker)
Wuthering Heights was recently given the Bollywood treatment. Apparently, "the repressive, corseted Victorian culture of the novel found a perfect foil in the rigid caste strictures of Indian society". A 17th-century Spanish family where virginity is prized and women regarded as chattel? A generic 21st-century Asian family will do – as it will do for the Yorkshire moors of the 19th century.It is not the first time that Wuthering Heights has been transposed into the Indian culture, as it has into many more cultures. If anything, Wuthering Heights is both timeless and spaceless (or better: the story itself bears easily other climates and places, as well as formats, despite the prominence of the 'wuthering' Yorkshire moors in the original novel). Film adaptations of the story set in the 1930s French country or the Mexican plains to name but two examples have arguably had more convincing results than many a 'faithful' adaptation set at home in Yorkshire.
In 2006, she composed the music for a musical theatre setting of the Russian novel Dr. Zhivago, and has also penned the music for a musical re-telling of Wuthering Heights along with Secret Garden collaborator, Marsha Norman.A little bit of Web 2.0: ...is five posts about Jane Eyre and Poem of the Day - after yesterday's Haworth Churchyard by Matthew Arnold - picks Emily Dickinson's All overgrown by cunning moss on the same topic. Reinap has uploaded to Flickr a few old Haworth postcards and a75 shares some atmospheric stills from Jane Eyre 1944.
Oh, how I love coming across a classic film that turns out to be classic only in the sense that it's old and everyone knows it.We don't understand where she gets that from. Differences from the book, etc left aside, the film is excellent and more than deserves to be called a classic, and certainly not just because it's 'old'.
What makes the story so insufferable is that we've got two characters who continually mistreat one another in between brief moments of moony expressions of undying love. It got me thinking: I don't like these people, and I don't care who dies and who suffers and who haunts the moors.Oh well. Some get it, some don't. Fortunately the people at DVDFile do get it and their review of the new Fox edition of Jane Eyre 1944 - another classic - is worth reading.
Heathcliff: Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest so long as I live on! I killed you. Haunt me, then! Haunt your murderer! I know that ghosts have wandered on the Earth. Be with me always. Take any form, drive me mad, only do not leave me in this dark alone where I cannot find you. I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul.
Dana: Yeah, fine, but will you please roll the end credits?
Then I headed over to the Avram Theatre to sit in on a rehearsal of Marsha Norman's new musical Heathcliff, a wonderful and breathtaking adaptation of one of my favorite novels, Wuthering Heights. Before rehearsal began, I met the very sweet Lucy Simon (Carly's sister) who wrote the gorgeous music for Heathcliff. She collaborated with Marsha once before on The Secret Garden. The rehearsal was inspiring to say the least. Marsha was directing and I was amazed to watch her work. I felt honored just to be sitting in the theatre. [...]Curiously enough, Free Times has an article on the same composers' The secret Garden. The article includes - appropriately enough - a reference to Jane Eyre.
Later that evening, I attended the sneak preview of the play. The crowd seemed to love the show. I'm sure Heathcliff will be a huge success for all involved. The sneak preview of the musical featured Broadway star Jill Paice in the role of Cathy. Jill is incredibly talented and was brilliant in the role.
There are strong strains of Jane Eyre here with Archibald as a kind of Rochester figure. (Addison Dewitt)The Guardian has an article on Muriel Spark's future monument in Edinburgh as we reported a couple of days ago.
Two popular menu items are the Louisa May Alcott panini (chicken breast with pesto and provolone cheese on a tomato focaccia bun, $5.49) and the Charlotte Bronte Orange Salad (romaine lettuce, raspberry vinaigrette, oranges, chopped walnuts, feta cheese, red onion and grilled chicken breast, $6). (Anne Kapler)We don't know about Charlotte but the salad sounds quite good. It now joins the gastronomic Brontë tour, which up until now included the Brontë cheeseburguer and the Charlotte (Brontë) cake.
Look to the StarsAccording to Cape Cod Times:
An Evening of Celestial Music
With Christopher Sidoli and John Thomas
Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown, MA
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
An evening of incredible music featuring Christopher Sidoli (tenor) and John Thomas (piano). Together we bring you a concert sure to take you on a lovely mid summer evening journey. Classical, Opera, novelty, Broadway, pop. Also featured on the bill for the evening Sidoli's favorite composer Lucy Simon has lended several recently written compositions that will receive their premier in Provincetown in addition to other works from unpublished musicals as well as her most recent musical Dr. Zhivago!
Other work includes musical adaptations of "Wuthering Heights," which hasn't had a full production (its "Caro Mio" will be in the concert), and "Dr. Zhivago," which has played in San Diego and Australia. (Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll)
The 2007 Southampton Writers Conference, held at Stony Brook's Southampton campus, 239 Montauk Hwy., is opening its doors to the public for a couple of exclusive events. On Monday, July 23, at 8 p.m., Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, co-authors of "The Secret Garden," will stage a reading of their new musical, "Heathcliff," based on Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights." (Cameron Bird)Heathcliff was also the name of a previous 1995 musical by John Farrar and Tim Rice for Cliff Richard.
Originally exhibited at London's prestigious White Cube, Sam Taylor-Wood's Ghosts photographic series is here resized to find its remote cultural home amid the Brontë paraphernalia of west Yorkshire's Haworth. Shot on the bleak moorlands near Top Withens, the setting for Emily Brontë's wonderfully moody novel Wuthering Heights, Taylor-Wood's landscapes are deceptively simple and direct. While avoiding over-emphasising the moody romanticism, they achieve a rare atmospheric resonance. There are few artworks in any medium that are as grounded in a particular landscape as Wuthering Heights, and Taylor-Wood's series here pays fitting on-site homage to the fact. (Robert Clark)The Globe and Mail recommends summer reads. Aislinn Hunter has a very original and Brontëite proposal:
My favourite books of letters are Letters: Summer 1926, by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva and Rainer Maria Rilke; Paula Modersohn-Becker: The Letters and Journals, by German Expressionist Modersohn-Becker, edited by Günter Busch and Liselotte Von Reinken; The Gonne-Yeats Letters, 1893-1938, by Maud Gonne and William Butler Yeats, edited by Anna MacBride White; and the three-volume (epic) set of Charlotte Brontë's correspondence, which brings Haworth and the family's day-to-day habits to life.Heather Vogel Frederick writes in The Christian Science Monitor about her literary trip searching for Jane Austen. It mentions Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West by Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon
a “book-lover’s Baedeker,” full of detailed travel advice, commentary, and anecdotes about the authors profiled.The New York Times revies Lilian Pizzichini's The Blue Hour:
Co-author Schmidt clued me on the fact that that what I was doing – a writer tailing another writer – was actually nothing new.
“A lot of writers were literary travelers,” she informed me. “Nathaniel Hawthorne visited Sir Walter Scott’s castle in Scotland, and Louisa May Alcott toured Dickensian sites when she went to London.” Edith Wharton and Henry James toured literary landmarks as well and once “visited George Sand’s chateau together.”
An avid aficionado of this brand of travel herself, Schmidt’s favorite destination is Bronte country. “I loved Wuthering Heights, and for me, the moors were as much a part of the story as the characters,” she says.
“Wide Sargasso Sea,” a prequel to “Jane Eyre” that brought Jean Rhys fame in her late 70s, was the product of hard-won wisdom about how a fragile psyche can be crushed by the habits of dominance and submission between men and women, and between Europe and its colonies. As with Rhys’s four other novels, it was written during snatches of diligence amid episodes of paralyzing depression and alcoholic rage. (Mick Sussman)The Times reviews the TV series True Blood:
Obviously and understandably, at this point, many people will be having an automatic embarrassment-reaction to the subject of vampires. Even the superlative work done on Buffy the Vampire Slayer has failed to quell many people’s default Vampire Alarm. “Vampires are strictly for overweight teenage girls, into gallimaufry with capes,” they will tut. “It’s all just Wuthering Heights with silly teeth. It’s not proper drama. Proper drama is about corrupt cops shouting at each other in parked cars, or divorcing couples shouting at each other in hallways. Vampires are just the default metaphor of the over-excited.” (Caitlin Moran)The Elk River Star News revies a local production of the musical The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon:
“The Secret Garden” is a daunting musical, one few community theaters are willing to tackle.The Guardian explores some of the activities that the National Trust offers. Including visiting Belton House which was Gateshead Hall in Jane Eyre 2006:
Elk River Community Theatre (ERCT) loves a challenge, and will present this tale of mystery, misery, dreams, lost love and redemption, set in a spooky mansion on the Yorkshire moors in the early 1900s, beginning Friday at Zabee Theater.
“This play does not get done often. The vocals and theatrics are demanding and the sets are complex,” said Eileen Bowersox, who’s both directing and playing a role,
Bowersox and fellow actors viewed this play in another metro area theater and left “totally confused,” but she is confident the ERCT can pull it together.
“This play has some light moments but also some very intense scenes,” she said. “This is not fluff. We want to showcase our acting and singing talents.”
Noting the ghostly figures and moving sets, she quips: “This is like Harry Potter meets Wuthering Heights.” (Bruce Strand)
At Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal in North Yorkshire, the It's a Monk's Life guided tour invites you to dress up in robes and learn about the daily life of a monk, while at Belton House in Lincolnshire children and parents can dress up like Victorians to explore the house, which has seen filming for Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and Tom Jones within its walls.The couple Ryan Gosling-Rachel McAdams is qualified by the National Post as
Canada's answer to Heathcliff and Catherine swooshed off to differing orbits. (Shinan Govani)The Book Reporter interviews author Stephen L. Carter, whose latest book is Jericho's Fall:
Q: Jericho's house, Stone Heights, is itself a character in this novel, one with its own secrets and surprises. It harks back to such stories as WUTHERING HEIGHTS or REBECCA or an Agatha Christie mystery where the physical setting is as much a character as the people. Did you have any of those stories in mind as you wrote this?Pakistan Views interviews actress and director Savera Nadeem:
SLC: Oh, yes. I remember reading Thomas Hardy as a teenager, and being fascinated by the way that the house or the pond or the moor was always brooding over the action. Here, I had in effect two "physical" characters, the house itself, and the mountains that surround both Stone Heights and the town of Bethel. By the way, the town of Bethel is fictitious, but of course bears a biblical relation to Jericho.
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are my favourite books of all time. They are works of the highest order,” Savera fondly reveals.ClicRBS (Brazil) selects Wuthering Heights 1939 as a 'crying' film:
O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes (Wuthering Heighs) – o magnífico William Wyler dirige com maestria esta história de amor, ódio e vingança, baseado no romance de Emily Brontë. Clássico obrigatório para os amantes de cinema. O filme conta a trágica histórica de Heathclif, um jovem pobre que enriquece e decide se vingar de todos os que o humilharam. Será que sua sede de vingança é tanta que nem mesmo o amor pela bela donzela Cathy será capaz de apagar seu ódio? O final....? Quem anda não sabe, que vá assistir. Mas por favor, o clássico de 39. (Ju Lessa) (Google translation)El Diario Vasco (Spain) interviews author Claudia Casanova:
Ella se crió leyendo a «Walter Scott, Dumas, Flaubert, las Brontë. Los clásicos y los románticos. Más que por mi trabajo de editora, que ayuda, escribo como lo hago por mis lecturas de siempre», asegura. (Elena Sierra) (Google translation)Lourdes Ortiz talks in El Diario Montañés (Spain) about Simone de Beauvoir and her Brontëiteness:
La escritora también recordó lo dura que fue la parisina con sus contemporáneas, a las que acusaba de seguir siendo «dependientes» aunque escribieran o pintaran. «No le interesaban sus colegas, a las que en general despreciaba. Sólo salvaba a Virginia Wolf y a Brönte (sic)». (Violeta Santiago) (Google translation)A couple more of German papers contain articles about the Annelies Štrba exhibition at the Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem in Troisdorf, Germany:
Das Licht ist diffus, die Farben entstammen einem Reich, das nicht von dieser Welt zu sein scheint, das irgendwo unter Wasser oder mitten in einem wunderlichen Dschungel liegt.
Die Stimmung lässt sich am ehesten als märchenhaft bis schaurig beschreiben. So wie die Schweizer Fotografin Annelies ?trba ihre ätherischen Mädchen im Märchenwald inszeniert, so stellt man sich die Fantasiewelt der Brontë-Schwestern im Heidemoor von Yorkshire vor. Erst recht die zwischen Idylle und Albtraum oszillierende Stimmung in Emily Brontës Klassiker "Wuthering Heights" ("Sturmhöhe", 1847) findet in trbas opulenten Farbfotografien ihren kongenialen Gegenpart.
Service Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem, Troisdorf; bis 6. September. Di-So 11-17 Uhr.
Mit dem Foto-Projekt "My Life Dreams" ist die Schweizerin im Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem zu Gast, das beim Komplex "Rotkäppchen und der böse Wolf" um die Ecke die wundersame Welt der Brontës zelebriert. Den Anfang machen Fotos und Dokumente aus der Sammlung des Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. Porträts zeigen die zarten Gesichter von Charlotte und Emily, die mit geschicktem Strich 1829 eine Ringdrossel zeichnete oder den Hund "Keeper" im Aquarell verewigte.
Eine hübsche Landschaft mit Kirche erscheint auf einem Blatt der jüngsten Brontë-Schwester Anne, ein winziges Büchlein, über dessen Inhalt nur Spekulationen möglich sind, war einst im Besitz von Charlotte. Und wenn es um die Interpretation geht, muss der Name Balthus fallen, der mit einem Schuss Lolita-Erotik 1933 "Wuthering Heights" illustrierte. Tatsächlich findet sich in der Ausstellung ein Druck des großen Balthus.
So ganz unberührt von einer latent erotischen Aufladung sind auch Annelies ?trbas Bilder nicht, auch die Darstellung der jungen Mädchen als somnambule, in einem Zwischenzustand zwischen Traum und Tod treibende Wesen erinnert an Balthus. Den Plot zu ?trbas Bildessays aber hat Emily Brontë selbst in ihrem Roman geschrieben: "Ich habe in meinem Leben schon Träume gehabt, die mich immer wieder verfolgt und meine Ansichten verändert haben. Sie haben mich durchdrungen, wie man Wasser mit Wein mischt, und meinem Denken eine andere Farbe gegeben."
Annelies trba setzt solche Texte in fließende, atmosphärische Bilder um, ähnlich wie bei den Studien aus ihrem engsten Familienkreis, den Porträts und Städtebildern, die sie schon auf der ganzen Welt ausgestellt hat, und die eine Autorin einmal als "Innenaugenbilder" bezeichnete. "My Life Dreams" verwischt die Grenzen zwischen Fotografie und Malerei im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes und reizt sämtliche Möglichkeiten und Tricks digitaler Bildbearbeitung aus. Ein schaurig-schönes Fantasy-Abenteuer. (Thomas Kliemann in General-Anzeiger) (Google translation)
Winzig wie eine Babyhand ist das Buch, das in einer Vitrine liegt. Die kleine Häkelschrift ist nicht zu entziffern. Wird hier vielleicht von den Königreichen Angria und Gondal erzählt? In diesen imaginierten Rückzugsort nämlich flüchteten die Geschwister Brontë als Kinder. Ihre Erzählungen hielten sie in selbst gemachten „Zeitungen“ fest; vielleicht auch in jenem Büchlein, das sie aus Zuckerpapier bastelten.Martin Stannard, who has spent 15 years researching Muriel Spark's authorised biography, publishes an interesting article in The Guardian. A couple of passing mentions to Muriel Spark's book about Emily Brontë (Emily Brontë. Her Life and Work, published in 1953 with Derek Stanford) appear. Vandalism in St Mary's churchyard (Scarborough), home to Anne Bronte's grave, is reported in Scarborough Evening News. Fortunately, Anne's tomb has not been affected, The Weekly Standard reviews Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers. American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. DotGolf (in Italy) traces bizarre comparisons between Wuthering Heights and Tom Watson 1977 Open Championship victory.
Heute ist es eine bibliophile Kostbarkeit, zu bewundern in der Schau „My Life Dreams“ im Bilderbuchmuseum auf Burg Wissem - mit Zeichnungen und literarischen Zeugnissen von Anne, Charlotte und Emily. Direktorin Maria Linsmann konnte diese kleine Auswahl aus dem Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth ausleihen. Und musste dafür eine Pilgerreise nach Yorkshire antreten. Denn das Institut verleiht seine Schätze nur ungern, gilt es doch, die Aura des Brontë-Pfarrhauses zu hüten, die Fans aus aller Welt heilig ist.
Alles ist an seinem Platz: die Möbel, der Stickrahmen und auch die Peitsche, mit der die Kinder von ihrem Vater geschlagen worden sind. Landschaftsskizzen, eine Zeichnung des Haushundes, Manuskripte und Porträts der Geschwister gewähren einen intimen Einblick in das Drama der begabten Kinder, mit dem sich vor allem ein Name verbindet: „Wuthering Heights“, Emilys düsteres Werk um Liebe, Demütigung, Eifersucht und Rache.
In den Bann dieses viktorianischen Seelenromans ließ sich auch die Fotografin Annelies "trba (Jg. 1947) ziehen, die den größten Teil der Schau bestreitet. Ätherische Frauen- und vor allem Mädchenfiguren inszeniert sie in Landschaften von tranceartiger, surrealer Farbigkeit. Türkisblau wallt der Nebel einer Alice im Wunderland entgegen, die im weißen Rüschenkleid durch einen violetten Tannenwald wandelt. Doch oft liegen die Heldinnen mit geschlossenen Augen da, eingebettet ins Moos der nordenglischen Nebellandschaft oder wie Schneewittchen eingesargt in die Gletscher von Annelies "trbas Schweizer Heimat. Ihre eigenen Töchter und Enkelinnen haben vor der Kamera posiert. Durch Vergrößerung, malerische Unschärfe und handwerkliche Manipulation werden die Lichtbilder in eine Sphäre jenseits des Privaten gerückt, die zwischen bedrohtem Idyll und sanftem Horror changiert.
Mag zuweilen die Grenze zum arg Gefälligen gestreift werden, so fasziniert doch das Gespür Annelies "trbas für Stimmungsräume. Wie giftgelbe Fanale leuchten die Narzissen auf dem nächtlichen Friedhof von Haworth; und im geisterhaften Pfarrhaus stellen wir uns die Dichterin Emily Brontë vor: „sitzt allein an ihrem Fenster / wo der Abend sich verlor / böiger Winde böse Ahnung / flitzt durch grauen Wolkenflor“. (Annette Schroeder in Kölnische Rundschau) (Google translation)
More Wuthering Heights adaptations in progress. We have novels, operas, ballets, TV series, films, new theatre versions, musical theatre adaptations (Fabio Zuffanti's or Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon's Heathcliff)... and one more musical seems to be making its way. The clues come from Mark Ryan's MySpace blog:23 Jul 2008Well, they seem to be a little behind schedule. Today, July 25, at the San Diego Comic-Con 2008 there might be some answers:
'll also be a guest at the San Diego ComicCon to discuss my new graphic novel "The Pilgrim" with Mike Grell during a panel on Friday, the 25th. I'm really looking forward to the event and I'll be there until Monday morning. If you see me, please come up and say: "Hello!"
I'll also be talking about Wuthering Heights, a new dramatic musical adaptation we've been recording that will be launched online in August. It's got some very cool people involved and it's been really great hearing Emily Bronte's Yorkshire masterpiece of dark passion and romantic obsession come to life in the studio. We may even play a sneak preview...
18 May 2008
While in London we also did some more recording work on the musical project: Wuthering Heights, laying down and editing the Lockwood narration sections. (Who will performs Lockwood will be revealed during the summer) While in the studio we bumped into Paul Knight (RoS Producer) the man largely responsible for my addition to the cast as Nasir. It was great seeing Paul who was in fine form and full of good humor and showbiz banter, as usual!
So! The intention with Wuthering Heights is to release four tracks online during July and follow up with the entire concert version later in 09. I'm really enjoying working on Wuthering Heights and being back in the studio and musical environment once again! We'll be casting for our Catherine, Isabella and Ellen Dean during May/June.
11:00-12:00 Print The Legend: Mike Grell and Mark Ryan— Comic-Con special guest Mike Grell (Legion of Superheroes, The Warlord, Green Arrow: the Longbow Hunters, Jon Sable, Freelance) and actor-writer Mark Ryan (Robin of Sherwood, The Prestige, King Arthur, voice of Bumblebee in Transformers), swap outrageous yarns and discuss the secret world behind their new Comicmix.com project The Pilgrim with editor Mike Gold. Join Mike, Mark and Mike for a bit of insanity and Q&A session. Room 2Categories: Music, Theatre, Wuthering Heights
10. Wuthering Heights with Sir Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Oberon is the heartless Catherine who loves Olivier's Heathcliff but marries David Niven's character instead as Heathcliff is a poor stable boy. The film ends in tragedy as Catherine dies in the arms of Heathcliff and he kills himself on the moors. (Michelle Williams)BrontëBlog has never endorsed the oh-so-romantic (in the love sense) vision of Wuthering Height, but we wonder why you would write a synopsis for such a list where the movie doesn't sound at all romantic. Based on that description we don't see many couples picking this for St Valentine's night.
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (Or Not)Not the way we'd summarise the story either. Wide Sargasso Sea is on the list as well:
Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" (ETS 242)
Yep, another version. Romeo and Juliet redux. Told through flashbacks and a pretty boring writing style, the love of Catherine and Heathcliff is thwarted by those snobby English aristocrats. Don't worry though; Heathcliff will get some sweet, sweet revenge. Also, there are ghosts.
Don't read this book unless you read Jane Eyre (and liked it)InsideBayArea and the Bay Area Reporter reminds us that Lucy Simon (Carly's sister) is still working with Marsha Norman on a Wuthering Heights musical called Heathcliff. Hopefully they will get the story right.
Jean Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea" (ETS 440)
Rhys's novel is a prequel to Charlotte Bronte's celebrated "Jane Eyre." Yes, a different author wrote this sequel. So this novel is like the postmodern equivalent of a Star Wars nerd writing fan fiction. On the other hand, "Wide Sargasso Sea" does deal with important themes, while explaining the tragic background of the first Mrs. Rochester, who in "Jane Eyre" is merely a raving lunatic.
We know there are several musical projects about Wuthering Heights out there. Without being exhaustive: Mark Ryan's Wuthering Heights, Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon's Heathcliff, Bernard J. Taylor's Wuthering Heights, Hernán Espinosa's Cumbres Borrascosas, Fabio Zuffanti's Cime Tempestose and this other Italian project:Cime Tempestose. The MusicalCategories: Music, Theatre, Wuthering Heights
A musical by Marco & Massimo Grieco (2010)
Music by Marco Grieco
Lyrics by Marco and Massimo Grieco
Producer: wanted
Director: wanted
Coreography: wanted - in talks
Casting: 2012- On stage: 2013
Listen (only music)
Hoffman told the crowd: “I became a writer because I was a reader. I had two mentors, my professor Albert Guerard and my grandmother.” She claimed to be an escapist writer who writes what she can imagine (not what she knows) and said she enjoys reading fairy tales and telling stories with a universal emotional truth. Her writing continues to be inspired by author Ray Bradbury, “Wuthering Heights” author Emily Brontë and stories of women that haven’t been told. (Marge Dodge)Joan Bakewell in The Times' Culture Fix:
I’m having a fantasy dinner party and I’ll invite these artists and authors . . .Out & About Nashville mentions Jane Eyre in a review of the Benjamin Britten opera based on The Turn of the Screw.
Aphra Behn, Barbara Hepworth, Angela Carter, Charlotte Brontë.
There’s something almost peculiarly and particularly English about a story involving a governess, a country house that may actually be permanently swathed in mist, children whose parents are dead by one circumstance or another, and in which the secrets of the house / housekeeper / master of the house provide the crux upon which the entire work revolves. Seriously… Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. One doesn’t imagine a governess, pale children, and brooding farmhouse in Iowa, for example.The Brontës as cat people on Korazym (Italy).
Not surprisingly, all three of the aforementioned works have been set to music. Paul Gordon and John Caird’s Jane Eyre played on Broadway in 2001. Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon’s The Secret Garden came before it 1991. But the progenitor of this lot came in 1954 with English composer Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, co-created with Myfanwy Piper for that year’s Venice Bienniale. And it is the Nasvhille Opera’s winter production of The Turn of the Screw that brings us to the haunted moors of the Noah Liff Opera Center on this chilled Tennessee weekend. (William Shutes)
Le sorelle Charlotte, Emily e Anne Brontë erano grandi amanti degli animali in generale e in particolare del gatto Tiger, che viene anche raffigurato da Emily in ritratto, che scrisse anche il saggio “Le Chat”, nel quale difende la natura del gatto, che da molti al tempo, e forse anche oggi, era considerata egoista e crudele, definendola persino simile o migliore, in quanto priva di ipocrisia, di quella umana. (Vik van Brantegem) (Translation)Telegraph India suggests that,
Since the Indian all-rounder, Ravichandran Ashwin, will be following in the footsteps of Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh and Cheteshwar Pujara in playing for Yorkshire County Cricket Club this season, he should perhaps make an effort to see something of England’s largest and, in some ways, most beautiful county. [...]
Whitford also suggests that Ashwin, who will be based in Headingley, could also enjoy the rich cultural life in Leeds, visit the National Railway Museum in York and the Yorkshire Moors where Emily Brontë set Wuthering Heights. (Amit Roy)
Stony Brook Southampton Writers ConferenceThe project was previously known as "The Legend of Wuthering Heights" and there exists a 2002 demo CD with some songs (Juliet Lambert sings 'I am Heathcliff')
Stony Brook's Southampton campus, 239 Montauk Hwy.
Monday, July 23
8:00 - 10:00P Special Theater Event: Staging of Marsha Norman & Lucy Simon's new musical Heathcliff.
Unless explicitly said
