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a berlin blog |
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Wednesday, May 17, 2006 Lola Montez and King Ludwig I "One of the most beautiful and notorious women of her time," according to an old book called The San Francisco Stage, "made her debut at the American [Theatre, in 1853] as Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal." Not even a day had passed after her west-coast debut before Lola Montez was giving Californians her famous Spider Dance, a scandalous burlesque routine that apparently got the men hollering and the local moralists in a twist. "To slow but provocative music -- based upon a mixture of the polka, waltz, mazurka, and jig -- Lola dramatized the plight of a woman attacked by spiders. Sometimes property spiders made of cork, whalebone, and rubber were used; at other times they were left to the imagination of the audience. Then again, Lola would herself impersonate a spider and bound grotesquely about the stage. The stage business that seemed particularly outré to the moral-minded took place when the dancer, with mingled horror and loathing, tried to locate a spider that had invaded her petticoats and was crawling somewhere about her person." Legend had it Lola was an illegitimate daughter of Lord Byron. (She wasn't.) She was an Irishwoman who grew up in England and India, but then -- after a divorce -- moved to Spain and learned to dance. She took a Spanish stage name and returned to London to make a career as a Spanish dancer, "with no success." Franz Liszt had an affair with her, though. So did "a brilliant Parisian journalist called Dujarier, who unfortunately was killed in a duel." And: "Her supreme triumph took place in Munich, where her dancing brought her to the notice of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, who installed her in a palatial villa and created her Countess of Landsfeld. Lola's sympathy with liberal and anticlerical elements involved her in the Revolution of 1848, and she was forced to flee to England, where in 1849 she contracted a second and equally brief marriage. Seeking fortune and adventure in America she arrived in New York in 1851, where her dancing was not too well received. The following year she appeared as herself in a supposedly autobiographical play, Lola Montes in Bavaria." At last she moved to San Francisco, and hit it big. As far as I know she never lived in Berlin, so any connections to Lola Lola are tenuous. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:00 PM
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Not a favorite of the people, but well provided for here in Munich. Her portrait remains in the Gallery of Beauties in Schloss Nymphenburg; one among dozens, but in a place of honor.
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