Word: countess
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...strangely tentative manner in which Beethoven composed, starting with ideas so trivial they look like a student's and rewriting virtually each bar a dozen times. Thayer's study of Beethoven's correspondence disproved not only the composer's supposed grand love affair with the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi but also alliances with many of the ladies with whom the sentimental 19th century liked to link his name. Factually, Thayer was rarely wrong (although he assumed the Beethoven family had come from Holland, whereas later research indicates it came from Belgium). Incredibly, a whole generation of biographers...
...assumed, on the evidence of Josephine's two children by her first marriage, that he was responsible for the fact that his own marriage had been childless. In 1806, however, he became the father of an illegitimate son, and in 1809 his mistress of the moment, Polish Countess Maria Walewska, revealed that she was pregnant. Several months later, Bonaparte announced his decision to divorce Josephine for the good of the state. Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria gave him the legitimate son he wanted; Josephine retired on a handsome pension to Malmaison. When she died...
...story traces the acrobatics of an oh so eighteenth century count with a weakness for a winsom lady-in-waiting. Matters are confused considerably by the marked maid's dashing fiancee, Figaro, and inevitably by the lascivious count's peppery countess. When the bedclothes settle, the audience finds the proper pairs in the proper places, and a host of villagers send the couples merrily on their connubial ways...
...play. The time is now, although the count and keeper of an 18th century chateau is rehearsing his costumed entourage in an 18th century comedy by Marivaux. The bulk of his cast is a very aristocratic, very French menage a quatre: the count (Keith Mitchell) and his mistress, the countess (Coral Browne) and her lover. Another actor is the count's longtime friend (Alan Badel), a professional womanizer sardonically named Hero. According to the code of this set, the only liaison dangereuse is with a person outside one's own class...
...countess retaliates by suggesting that Hero seduce the governess. The seduction scene is the brilliant apex of the play, and as Alan Badel masterfully shades his performance from dueling banter to abashed tenderness, his acting moves beyond skill into the permanently and poignantly memorable. The next morning the governess flees the chateau, and the others seem ready to go on playacting at life as if it were still another comedy by Marivaux. All except Hero. He has seen himself for what he is and the world for what it is, and he taunts the countess' lover into challenging...