The Height of Madness? Top F in Donizetti’s ‘Mad Scene’

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Donizetti – Ardon gl’incensi

I’m a little bit obsessed by this aria. It’s one of the arias in the so-called ‘Mad Scene’ in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. It was the popular showpiece of a soprano whom I’m currently researching, and she performed it numerous times within just a few years, in the late 1920s. She never sang it in an operatic context, just in concerts, and she didn’t record it – but several women did. I wanted to know what it was like, and why she might have been drawn to it. I was keen to hear an earlier recording, to get chronologically closer to ‘my’ singer. This one goes too far the other way, dating from 1907 – it’s Luisa Tetrazzini on a Gramophone recording:-

The aria has been analysed and written about. There’s much about female madness and female agency. (The heroine has been deceived into marrying someone else, to keep her from marrying the man whom she wants to marry, and of course the ‘jilted’ lover is furious that she appears to have done the dirty on him. So, realising she’s been tricked, she murders her new, unwanted spouse. Then goes downstairs and tells the guests …)

It’s based on Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor. I got very excited about this, thinking that ‘my’ soprano must have been drawn to it for its Scottish content. However, so many people were singing it, that I am forced, pragmatically, to conclude that she probably just thought it was a great showpiece aria which would suit her high soprano coloratura voice. Moreover, when the opera was premiered in the UK in 1838, there were comments that it couldn’t be much less ‘Scottish’, with just a couple of characters in Scottish costume and nothing more to hint at the origin of the story.

Oh, all right! You’d like to hear it in a better recording than the 1907 one? No offence to Tetrazzini, it’s not her fault that recording techniques were quite primitive in 1907! Here you are, have a listen to Joan Sutherland in 1959. No-one would blame you if you played this several times over – I think it’s fantastic!

The question of glass harmonica or flute as obbligato instrument is another entirely. Donizetti’s glass harmonicist walked out, so he used a flautist – as in the Sutherland recording. There’s a very nice recording of Jessica Pratt singing it with glass harmonica, which is a longer version than in the Sutherland performance:-

I’m not going to delve any further into the history of the aria. It’s fascinating, but not really part of my research!

Now, what do I do with these observations? Ah, well, I have a piece of writing to do. I do tend to sweep the net wide when I’m researching a topic, because it helps me to see the central subject in context. Whether I start writing this side of Christmas is another question entirely. It may turn out to be the writing blitz that tends to overcome me somewhere between the fourth and twelfth days of Christmas!

Buja, Maureen, ‘Who’s the Maddest of them All? Lucia di Lammermoor’, Interlude, April 2nd, 2023. https://interlude.hk/whos-the-maddest-of-them-all-best-performances-donizetti-lucia-di-lammermoor/

Metropolitan Opera, ‘Madly in love’

https://www.metopera.org/discover/education/educator-guides/lucia-di-lammermoor/madly-in-love/

Parker, Roger, ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’s mad tragedy in Donizetti’s mad life’, The Guardian, Jan 28th, 2010. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jan/28/lucia-di-lammermoor-donizetti

Smart, Mary Ann, ‘The Silencing of Lucia’, Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Jul., 1992), pp. 119-141

Main image from Pixabay

The Research Plan

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I attended a meeting about grant applications, today. There was lots of good advice, including the development of a five-year career plan. A very sound suggestion. However, most early career researchers are really at the start of their research career, whilst I? I’ve done less research in my research career than a full-time researcher – obviously, as I got my PhD aged 51, and since then I’ve mostly been a 0.3 researcher – and my research development has thus been spread over a longer period. Similarly, I do have some teaching experience, but not an enormous amount. So …

In planning the next five years, young researchers have different parameters (making a good start, developing their strengths, possibly more able to relocate geographically, possibly without family responsibilities), whilst old ones are trusting they’ll still be fit and well in five years’ time; might not be able to relocate; and might well have family or caring responsibilities. (Should the plan also have the equivalent of a runaway truck ramp or escape lane, in case personal circumstances change unexpectedly?!)

Over the Hill? Which Hill?!

Maybe over one hill, but there are other hills to climb!

Five years at the start of a working life are  different from five years somewhere nearer the end. I want to go on forever!  Realistically, that’s impossible.  (I might live another three decades, but who can say if I’ll still be researching at 96?!) 

However, I read a posting the other day about the use of metaphors in health care, and I can see a parallel for scholars here; they talk about a journey with an illness, whilst we use metaphor to talk about our research journey.

To continue with the journeying, travelling metaphor: I climbed the librarianship hill as far as I could get.  I didn’t reach the top, but I made reasonable progress.  Looking around, I saw other hills I’d like to climb. You could say I’ve used the state retirement age as an opportunity to come down from the library hill, so I can spend more time climbing elsewhere.

I’d like to write another book. But I’ve only just published my second; I need at least three or four more years to do enough research into a new topic to merit a book. And I haven’t decided what exactly it will be about yet, though this might well become apparent in the next year or so.

Despite all this, a five-year research plan does seem desirable.  I must apply myself to devising it!

Semi-Retirement: an Unfamiliar Concept

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Wooden figurine of old lady in woolly scarf, holding a sheet of paper

‘How’s semi-retirement?’, you ask.

The truth of the matter is, I’ve had five months of it, and I still haven’t got the hang of it! What have I done? Revised my second book, and had a book-launch when it was published. Written and submitted a very long article. Done some of the research for another, which won’t be quite as long. Mulled over yet another idea, still to be fleshed out. Peer-reviewed a research proposal. Done some maternity-cover teaching on campus. Given a research exchange talk at RCS, and been a keynote speaker in Birmingham. Visited my aged parent, twice.

And I’m now gearing-up to my IASH Heritage Collections fellowship at the University of Edinburgh from January to June next year.

I haven’t yet had a suitably semi-retirement-related holiday, although I’m sure I should have done something to mark my change in status! The truth of the matter is, I retired from librarianship, but I’ve no intention of retiring from research for a good long while yet. I got a new contract as research fellow, two days after I retired from the library. (I did have ONE day of not being employed!) So, I don’t feel retired, except when I wake up and think, Oh good, I don’t have to dash out for a bus at 7.45 am today! I seem to be constitutionally incapable of restricting my research activities to 1.5 days a week – it’s what I like to do.

If one thing is certain, I have watched not a minute more daytime TV than the lunch-hour watching that has been our custom since the pandemic forced me to work from home. And I’m getting better at not checking my work emails…

‘She’s living her best life’, as my former line-manager observed at the awarding of my honorary RCS fellowship.

Perhaps I’ll have a holiday in 2025 …

The Mervyn Heard Award

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’m honoured to have been awarded the Mervyn Heard Award by the Magic Lantern Society (UK) in recognition of my research into Scottish publishers Bayley and Ferguson’s Services of Song for magic lantern shows in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Their booklet, Wee Davie, containing a script for a reader, and suitably religious songs, was possibly the first thing they published – or certainly one of the first.

The Mervyn Heard Award is awarded for any written work, archival research or smaller-scale digitisation project.

I’ve talked about these service books in research lectures as honorary Ketelbey Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews in 2023, and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Exchange Talks series. The discovery of these wee books certainly inspired me to delve deeper into the social history around amateur music-making, other entertainments and educational or religious events, so I owe a debt to the original author Revd. Norman Macleod and his moralistic story, Wee Davie, for starting me off on this particular research strand.

In due course, I’ll be writing more about this topic, most particularly for the Magic Lantern Society itself.

Book Review: Gun Sireadh, Gun Irraidh: The Tolmie Collection

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Never let it be said that I’ve ‘only’ published a monograph this year!

Now, in the Folk Music Journal Vol.12 no.5, pp.127-9, my review of a new edition of the Tolmie Collection, a significant Gaelic song anthology.

Kenna Campbell and Ainsley Hamill (eds). Stornoway: Acair Books, 2023. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index of titles in English and Gaelic. ISBN: 978-1-78907-109-2 (hbk). 978-1-78907-142-9 (spiral-bound). ww.acairbooks.com

I begin my review:-


Frances Tolmie (1840–1926) grew up and spent her final years on the Isle of Skye. She lived briefly in Edinburgh as a governess, later as a lady’s companion in the Lake District, and for a while in Oban on the Scottish mainland. Her collection preserved a rapidly dying repertoire of Skye women’s communal songs …

(Not yet readable online unless you’re a member of EFDSS, or your library has a subscription to the journal. It will appear in JSTOR in a couple of years from now.)

15 Years a PhD

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Facebook has just reminded me it’s 15 years since my doctoral graduation.  Heavens, where did the time go?

Two Knees and a PhD

Summer 2009 was quite a summer!  I submitted my thesis. He had two knee replacements, three months apart. He walked comfortably at my graduation ceremony.

Baking is not really one of my strengths!

Since then? Too much to enumerate. The thesis became a book.  I contributed chapters to others’ essay collections. I published another book last month.

Why would a Librarian want a PhD?

Someone asked that, before I even started. I think I’ve demonstrated why.

Why would a Librarian want a PGCert?

Someone asked that, too. It seemed a good move at the time, and I have recently been doing a little teaching cover, proving that this wasn’t such a bad idea, either.

If one thing is certain, I wouldn’t now have a semi-retired existence as a postdoctoral research fellow, if I hadn’t found three old flute manuscripts in a cupboard that was being dismantled, a couple of years before I started the PhD.

No regrets.

Mangled! (Phew, that was a Major Undertaking)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve been working on a very long article, for quite a few weeks. Finally, today, I reached the point where I’d compared my manuscript with the style guide, and worked out how to actually submit the piece. What with Web of Science and ORCID numbers, before I could even start completing the submission form, it was quite an undertaking. But – it’s done! Hooray!

And what popped into my mind, but the most unusual gift anyone has ever given me. When I was about eight years old, my paternal grandmother proudly presented me with …

… a mangle! (Was I meant to mangle my smalls, or my dolls’ clothes? Who knows.)

Anyway, I feel somewhat mangled after the effort of getting that manuscript ‘into the system’, so now I shall go and put the kettle on for yet more tea, before I tidy my desk and start thinking about the next idea for an article! The peer review process still fills me with apprehension – no-one likes the thought that someone else might demolish your efforts with a few well-chosen epithets – but I’ve done my best, so now I just have to wait and see!

Scheduling!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This morning, I was talking to students about devising a structure for a research project – and scheduling the writing of it. Oh, I waxed lyrical. I explained how I scheduled my PhD chapters, and more recently, I scheduled my second book chapters, editing, indexing and so on. All perfectly true. It’s how I meet deadlines, ensuring I don’t overlook anything crucial. For me, this works; I do accept that not everyone likes to organise themselves this way, though.

But things have been a bit disarranged this autumn – I’ve actually been robbing myself of free time in my enthusiasm to do the scholarly things that I never felt I had enough time for before! This autumn, I had the book launch to look forward to, as well as some teaching (an unexpected bonus), and the writing of a substantial article. I had a couple of other writing ideas lined up for after I’d finished the aforementioned article, and I have been eagerly looking forward to my fellowship in Edinburgh next year – I don’t want to get started on that particular project until I have a desk in Edinburgh.

However, I’m just at the end of the substantial article, and now I need to check it meets the house style of the journal I’m hoping to submit it to. The other writing ideas? I think they’re likely to spill over into my RCS research existence in the days when I’m not in Edinburgh next year!  (For a start, I haven’t delved quite deep enough to have a clear grasp of certain nuances.)

How did December creep up on me so sneakily?! Suddenly, semi-retired or not, I find I have the usual scramble to plan Christmas music, Christmas presents and all the usual seasonal silliness. If anyone sees a little semi-retirement just roaming around looking displaced, please turn it round gently and send it back to me. I’ll have to continue working on my time management skills – I think I’m guilty of allowing part-time commitments to overflow into time that isn’t actually meant to be work!

My new year’s resolution? Still to achieve work-life balance!

Once Upon a Time (a Moral Tale)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I really should have known better. I’m making a filial pilgrimage to Norfolk. I’d call it a flying visit, if it wasn’t for the fact you can no longer fly direct from Glasgow to Norwich.

I played the organ this morning, went home to homemade soup, then headed for Norwich by train.  (It was a more appealing option than a long drive, mostly in the dark, and the prospect of icy roads later.)

So …

  • Glasgow to Edinburgh
  • Edinburgh to Peterborough (LNER buffet delivers tea and fruit cake to your seat! Kudos to LNER)
  • Peterborough to Ely
  • Ely to Norwich
  • 22.22 reach hotel.

There was only one setback. You can’t get anything to eat or drink from Peterborough to Norwich,  unless you pay a vending machine via Contactless.  I took this to mean, ‘using your phone’ – which I’ve never done.  (Only later did I wonder if card payment might also have worked…)

No buffet-car on the trains, and not really time to leave the platform in search of sustenance.

And so my Sunday dinner, at 22.22, was this:-

Better than nothing!

I had also apparently booked a hotel room with no breakfast. This has now been rectified!

I said this was a moral tale. It’s this: one should never, ever venture into East Anglia on a Sunday night without a sandwich in one’s handbag (and a drink in a flask)!

Paddington Bear and Queen Elizabeth could have told me that …