Speaker 1: Summertime and Georgia. I'm not I've been in Georgia since
Speaker 1: I was twelve, and I'll tell you the two things
Speaker 1: I like least in this world are humidity and boiled peanuts.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what I'm doing here for so long.
Speaker 2: The first one is, you know, every man for himself,
Speaker 2: but boiled peanuts are good. You need to get your
Speaker 2: shit together.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll say I will say this for boiled peanuts
Speaker 1: and the people who love them out there. I can
Speaker 1: totally understand if you like boiled peanuts. If you're someone
Speaker 1: who would take, you know, a box from Amazon, soak
Speaker 1: it in some hot water, add a little bit of
Speaker 1: sea water for that salt. Actually not seawater, because that's
Speaker 1: too much flavor. Just salty, just salty, soggy cardboard.
Speaker 2: Whatever. Man, how you have the cage in style like
Speaker 2: there's flavored a boiled peanut.
Speaker 1: Sure, but your base is still something that is known
Speaker 1: for its crunchiness. You know what, We're made soggy?
Speaker 2: Where can we fight? Everyone?
Speaker 1: Give it the first big ridiculous romance fight to have
Speaker 1: a fight about on air right here. I'm ready. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give in on this one.
Speaker 2: Well, at least it's something that doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: Well, some would say that it does. There's certain circles
Speaker 1: in which I will not express that opinion.
Speaker 2: Very true, you could get harmed physically.
Speaker 1: It's tough, you know.
Speaker 2: I think the boiled peanuts were a natural evolution of
Speaker 2: the humidity problem. Everything is just a little wet, so
Speaker 2: you have to get used to liking it that way
Speaker 2: and in fact make it a virtue.
Speaker 1: Let's lean into the fact that everything's a little hot
Speaker 1: and soggy around here and do it with nuts.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's better than complaining about it. Twenty four
Speaker 2: to seven, which make it? Are you talking about hot
Speaker 2: and wet?
Speaker 1: Who would do that? Well, summertime in Georgia, you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're making it. It's all right. We've got a
Speaker 1: roof over our heads, our air conditioning kind of works,
Speaker 1: and we've we've we've been in a worse situations, so
Speaker 1: we're doing all right. We're just sweating a little.
Speaker 2: Bit, hopefully same to y'all. Just a little sweat, but nothing,
Speaker 2: nothing too bad.
Speaker 1: The problem is when we start recording, obviously we have
Speaker 1: to turn off all the fans and the AC and
Speaker 1: everything for sound purposes. So you know, being a podcaster,
Speaker 1: it's a tough life. It's pretty that the conditions in
Speaker 1: which we work, I would say, not far off from
Speaker 1: like miners, oh wow, or.
Speaker 2: Soldiers yeah, very trench like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh very much. So I would say.
Speaker 2: They're going to write an ode to us any day.
Speaker 1: Now, hang on, the third pillow under my ass is
Speaker 1: a little crooked, so let me just okay, I've got it.
Speaker 2: That third pillows really giving me that trench.
Speaker 1: But just like coal miners, it's my point. So hey everybody, Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. So excited to have you
Speaker 1: as always. Yeah, yeah, you're right as I am always
Speaker 1: excited to have you.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: It's not like specific to this episode.
Speaker 2: No, it's just very exciting. Yeah, people listening to any
Speaker 2: word you say.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. If you told anytime she told sixteen
Speaker 1: year old me that people are just going to shut
Speaker 1: up and listen to you talk for an hour, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'd be like, yeah, but do I have
Speaker 1: to share the mic with anybody?
Speaker 2: Wow? Sixteen year old you?
Speaker 1: You'd be like yeah, but yeah. He'd be like yeah,
Speaker 1: but she's hot. Oh and he'd be like all right.
Speaker 2: So we're ringing endorsement sixteen year old.
Speaker 1: He didn't understand. He didn't know it works out.
Speaker 2: He didn't know me yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, he did not. He was dreaming of you.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm your dream girl.
Speaker 1: Look there's you know that. My dreams have a lot
Speaker 1: of girls, but you are the standout character.
Speaker 2: Oh. Thanks, I guess I'll take that. Speaking of a
Speaker 2: lot of girls.
Speaker 1: Speaking a lot of girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got we got our subject today also dreamed
Speaker 2: of many women. Yeah, we're finally getting to this. We
Speaker 2: got real sidetracked off this topic right to tell you
Speaker 2: about Isaac Singer and his multiple families in New York,
Speaker 2: his like four or five families, then million children.
Speaker 1: We were gonna tell the Winneretta Singer story, and then
Speaker 1: you found her father, Isaac Singer, the creator of the
Speaker 1: Singer Sewing Machine. Check that episode out if you hadn't
Speaker 1: heard it yet, because it's a great predecessor.
Speaker 2: Who really is. But now it is time to get
Speaker 2: to our listener. Suggestion from Seth bats at Seth Sculptures
Speaker 2: on ig of Winoretta Singer. This was Isaac's twentieth child
Speaker 2: that he had with his second actual real wife that
Speaker 2: he actually married, Isabella boy year and Whinneretta had two
Speaker 2: case marriages and multiple lesbian love affairs, besides using her
Speaker 2: fortune to fund and commission work from like now iconic musicians, painters,
Speaker 2: and writers. Wow, they wouldn't have been anything without her.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, so let's get.
Speaker 2: Into Winnaretta singer who is also known as the Princess.
Speaker 1: Let's go hey, their friends come listen.
Speaker 3: Well, Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's
Speaker 3: no matchmaking, a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relations ship,
Speaker 3: a love. There might be any type of person at all,
Speaker 3: an abstract concept or a concrete wall. But if there's
Speaker 3: a story where the second glance ridiculous romance.
Speaker 1: A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Before we get into this, I think this is relevant.
Speaker 2: There's just this conversation on in like the theater world
Speaker 2: about whether or not because somebody just got an Egot designation, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is the Emmy, Grammy Oscar designation. They won the
Speaker 2: Tony just because they funded a Broadway show. We're not
Speaker 2: in it or designed it in any way or creatively
Speaker 2: in control at all. Right, they just funded it. So
Speaker 2: people are questioning whether or not that counts because they're
Speaker 2: like Oh, you did was pay for it, so.
Speaker 1: You didn't really you're not a creator.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, if there's no money, there's no project, right,
Speaker 2: So there was kind of a big debate about that,
Speaker 2: and I think that's very relevant to Winneretta's story.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this funder had any input during
Speaker 1: the show, but they at least had the mind an
Speaker 1: impulse to say this is the one, this will work.
Speaker 1: I'm choosing this show over others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if there is something to be said for
Speaker 2: the eye of that's good, even if nobody else sees it.
Speaker 2: There's something there that I think will hit with people
Speaker 2: whatever reason. So I don't know. That's just something I've
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about a lot since researching Wineretta.
Speaker 1: Since she is a money person for the arts. I
Speaker 1: will say that if we really want to dig into
Speaker 1: this debate, I am willing for a wealthy producer to
Speaker 1: come in and fund some of our projects and we
Speaker 1: will come back to you all and give a full
Speaker 1: report as to whether or not they deserve, you know,
Speaker 1: any sort of recognition for that, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: right now they do. So if you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of money and want some recognition for anything we do.
Speaker 1: You know, shoot us an email. That's right, We're ready
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: At gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks to iHeartRadio for this one so far.
Speaker 2: Huh. But we're open to other sponsors.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot more projects ready to go and
Speaker 1: the only thing we're missing is the money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need a win Aretta of our own. So
Speaker 2: win Aretta Singer was born in Yonkers, New York in
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty five. Now, after the Civil War ended, the
Speaker 2: Singer family moved to Paris until the outbreak of the
Speaker 2: Franco Prussian War in eighteen seventy and then they moved
Speaker 2: to Devonshire and Isaac bought the giant Old Way mansion
Speaker 2: and he built the Wigwam on that estate. That's that
Speaker 2: building with like the fully equipped theater where he had
Speaker 2: the full circus come through and all that stuff that
Speaker 2: we kind of talked about in the Isaac Singer episode.
Speaker 2: But that is where Winneretta kind of grew up for
Speaker 2: the first part of her life. Okay, pretty dope place
Speaker 2: for a kid to grow up. Then, in eighteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: Isaac Singer died and we told you then too that
Speaker 2: his second wife Isabella Boyere remarried to a Dutch virtuoso
Speaker 2: violinist named Victor Rupsat in eighteen seventy nine. Okay, now,
Speaker 2: this guy was the son of a shoemaker, but he
Speaker 2: pretended to be nobility to help him get gigs, basically
Speaker 2: a con man for music gigs. But his fake nobility
Speaker 2: became real in eighteen eighty one when he was gifted
Speaker 2: the title of Duc.
Speaker 1: De Campos els Now using Isabella's money, which of course
Speaker 1: she inherited when Isaac died. All that singer sower money.
Speaker 1: Victor collected rare stringed instruments, including this one called Vitomps
Speaker 1: Guarini Jasu, which is built in seventeen forty one and
Speaker 1: it's considered to be one of the finest violins ever made.
Speaker 1: I'm so fascinated by these individual instruments having names. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like fantasy character swords. Yeah, you know, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is Sting, this is gleam Dring, this is the
Speaker 1: sar Jess. That's so cool that this one thing, you know,
Speaker 1: you could track its movements around the world. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you ever seen the red violin?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, but I remember that I.
Speaker 2: Think it's about a stratavarius. It it's also like it's
Speaker 2: the other best instrument ever is that one violin? But
Speaker 2: it's so funny to think about how these fine instruments
Speaker 2: they're so good that you can't play them, Like you're
Speaker 2: not supposed to ever touch that.
Speaker 1: I ever play that.
Speaker 2: But they are apparently like sound amazing.
Speaker 1: So I'm like like putting plastic on your furniture, like exactly,
Speaker 1: if you keep it, you're you're eliminating its purpose by
Speaker 1: keeping it pristine, you.
Speaker 2: Keep all your action figures in the box. Come on,
Speaker 2: I gotta play game.
Speaker 1: Well, this particular violin is now also one of the
Speaker 1: most expensive instruments in the world. It was last sold
Speaker 1: to an anonymous bidder for sixteen million dollars. I gotta
Speaker 1: say it's smart to say anonymous, because I got a
Speaker 1: problem with you if you dropped sixteen million on one
Speaker 1: violin but you can't even touch Come.
Speaker 2: On, apparently it's gifted to like this top violin player
Speaker 2: for her use for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, why they bought it?
Speaker 2: I guess I would be like, damn, I must be
Speaker 2: a violinist. They want me to play this or at
Speaker 2: least hold onto it, because I don't think she's allowed
Speaker 2: to play it.
Speaker 1: Victor and Isabella they turned the grand salon of their
Speaker 1: Parisian mansion into a musical salon, and some of the
Speaker 1: best musicians of the day would come over and put
Speaker 1: on concerts right there and there. They used to have
Speaker 1: those living room concerts, you know, sixteen to thirty people
Speaker 1: would come in and sit down with their little fans
Speaker 1: and golf clap for the most beautiful music probably anyone's
Speaker 1: ever heard in Western culture. Now. Winneretta, of course, Isabella's daughter,
Speaker 1: the last daughter of Isabella and Isaac Singer. She never
Speaker 1: received a formal music education, but she was passionate about music,
Speaker 1: and she attended most of the concerts that her mom
Speaker 1: and stepdad held in this musical salon. And for her
Speaker 1: thirteenth birthday, she requested a performance of Beethoven's Opus one
Speaker 1: thirty one string Quartet as a gift. And that, my friends,
Speaker 1: is the gift of a child of privilege. Okay, I
Speaker 1: was like thirteen, Like when I was thirteen, I wanted
Speaker 1: a forty five dollars Lego set, and that was asked
Speaker 1: a you.
Speaker 2: Know, well, she already had a pony.
Speaker 1: So yeah.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people point this out as like
Speaker 2: showing like what a musical mind she really had, because
Speaker 2: I guess the Opus one thirty one, or all of
Speaker 2: Beethoven's later work at the time was considered kind of incomprehensible.
Speaker 2: So like the average listener like they were like, this
Speaker 2: is complicated and artistic. Oh wow, So it was like
Speaker 2: a sign of what a great year she had that
Speaker 2: she liked. This was her favorite quartet and I really
Speaker 2: liked it.
Speaker 1: Or she was a show off and with music nerd
Speaker 1: and she's like, actually I like Beethoven's later's Probably she's
Speaker 1: like a lot of people think it's too complicated, but
Speaker 1: I prefer it.
Speaker 2: Oh you like O to joya cute So a fair
Speaker 2: weather fan, that's what.
Speaker 1: I'm hearing, fair Weather Beethoven.
Speaker 2: Hey, they all had their heyday, but all was not
Speaker 2: well in the roops at home. Oh no, Because many
Speaker 2: sources refer to Victor's quote unquote violent behavior. Oh though
Speaker 2: not many details are given, so unclear if you just
Speaker 2: was like someone who shouted a lot, if he actually
Speaker 2: hit people, if there was any kind of sexual element, no, no,
Speaker 2: no details, just that he was kind of a violent man.
Speaker 2: But it seems safe to say that Winneretta suffered some
Speaker 2: kind of abuse in this household, because as soon as
Speaker 2: she came of age at twenty one years old and
Speaker 2: was able to control her inheritance, she took her money
Speaker 2: and ran. Yeah, she got the buck out of there. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: she could run as far as she wanted because Isaac
Speaker 2: Singer left her a little over nine hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: which is hers from here twenty four point eight million
Speaker 2: dollars today. Geez, she couldn't really go anywhere she wanted.
Speaker 1: I'd be happy enough if I had nine hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars already, but it's actually work twenty five times that.
Speaker 2: Seriously, Manipulation's a bitch, let me tell you.
Speaker 1: Well, look these rich teenage girls with their Beethoven quartets
Speaker 1: on their birthdays and then just oh, here's twenty five
Speaker 1: million dollars. Geez.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, but even a woman of privilege had
Speaker 2: a limited life at this time. Whenneretta went to Paris,
Speaker 2: she set herself up. She bought this large hotel to
Speaker 2: live in, but she knew there was not really a
Speaker 2: place in society for an unmarried woman. Okay, she's just
Speaker 2: the maid, right, nobody wants her around, right, right.
Speaker 1: And she also.
Speaker 2: Didn't want just any old place in society. We're talking
Speaker 2: about a privileged woman here. She wanted to be part
Speaker 2: of the aristocratic society of arts. And that's kind of
Speaker 2: one thing that your money cannot buy you unless you,
Speaker 2: you know, give a large sum to the king or
Speaker 2: something like that. But you know, that's kind of an
Speaker 2: inherited thing. So she said, what do I gotta do?
Speaker 2: What do I get it? Marriage boom, the solution to
Speaker 2: so many problems in the ridiculous Romance universe. And so
Speaker 2: Whenneretta accepted the very first man to ask her to
Speaker 2: marry him, and that was a prince named Louis Vilfred
Speaker 2: d'escay mont Belliard.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, lot of name. Yeah, he's got enough names
Speaker 1: that you.
Speaker 2: Know he's can borrow one of these.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But on their wedding night, according to Sylvia Kahan's
Speaker 1: biography of Winneretta, which is called Music's Modern Muse, this
Speaker 1: guy entered his bride's bedroom only to find Winneretta perched
Speaker 1: on top of the bureau swinging an umbrella, yelling quote,
Speaker 1: if you touch me, I'll kill you, damn, which I'd
Speaker 1: be like, well, okay, I'm sorry. I thought we were
Speaker 1: getting married here. I didn't realize I was under violent.
Speaker 2: Threat sad I do earlier?
Speaker 1: Huh, I guess you do not.
Speaker 2: I'm picturing him in like a frog, you know, dressing
Speaker 2: gown sure, feeling himself. Yeah, now he's got a fight
Speaker 2: on his hand.
Speaker 1: Married this beautiful woman. She said yes so quickly when I.
Speaker 2: Proposed to her, I thought she was in love with me.
Speaker 1: So, you know, kind of an inauspicious start to this
Speaker 1: blissful married life. But Winneretta wasn't kidding here. She was
Speaker 1: a lesbian and she had zero interest in, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever Louis had going on under those dressing gowns. There's
Speaker 1: not really a lot of detail out there about Louis himself,
Speaker 1: but it's likely that the two of them led just
Speaker 1: completely separate lives. Yeah, total marriage of what he called
Speaker 1: marriage of convenience.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But as she was now the Princess de guy mont Balliard,
Speaker 1: she established her own first musical salon, and she hosted
Speaker 1: orchestral concerts ell as well as chamber music and composers
Speaker 1: like Forret or Chabrier or Dandee and Moore performed there
Speaker 1: at her own salon, and this helped them find fans
Speaker 1: and patrons. She also rented a palazzo in Venice, and
Speaker 1: she sent Forret there for a vacation, and that's where
Speaker 1: he started composing. Sank Melodi de Venice now Whinneretta also
Speaker 1: studied painting, and she was very accomplished. She studied with
Speaker 1: Felix Baret and spent time in Eduard Manet's studio. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the greats.
Speaker 2: Apparently he never really took students, he only had one
Speaker 2: like formal student. But I guess she went to his
Speaker 2: studio and yeahs you know, but it wasn't anything like
Speaker 2: he took her under his winger.
Speaker 1: You can watch it, no questions.
Speaker 2: You are lucky to be in my prison.
Speaker 1: Can I audit that class.
Speaker 2: One auditing of Mane studio people?
Speaker 1: Well? In fact, when Aeretta did so well, she exhibited
Speaker 1: her work at the Chicago World's Fair in eighteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: but according to Palazzo Contorini Polgna dot com, her paintings
Speaker 1: were even mistaken for mayonnaise creation. She really must have
Speaker 1: learned quite a bit from watching him. A funny story.
Speaker 1: Some of my paintings have been misconstrued for mayonnaise.
Speaker 2: Oh wait a minute, in the past, hang on.
Speaker 1: Blaba, white paint. Gross, it's deep, it's tangy.
Speaker 2: Well, of course this marriage could not last, all right,
Speaker 2: I'm sure Old Louis from the moment she started trying
Speaker 2: to swing an umbrella at him, trying to get out
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in eighteen ninety two, the Vatican annulled the scay
Speaker 2: Montbelliard marriage since it had never been consummated. But you know,
Speaker 2: we all know by now that society, especially at that point,
Speaker 2: hates a divorcee. Right, So when Aretta kind of lost
Speaker 2: her place in society that she had been building so much,
Speaker 2: particularly in the elevated circles that she'd been moving in,
Speaker 2: she was sort of a persona and on grad it
Speaker 2: was very scandalous, interesting forced. So near the end of
Speaker 2: the year, her friends Count Robert de Montesquieu, who is
Speaker 2: like a well known dandy and es fete. He was
Speaker 2: one hundred percent the model for Marcel Proust's dandy Baron
Speaker 2: de Charlis. In this book In Search of Lost Time,
Speaker 2: the remembrance of things passed depending on which translation. You see,
Speaker 2: he might even have inspired Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde story
Speaker 2: and Gray, oh kidding, butte that's how well known of
Speaker 2: like a dandy he was. Everybody was like, this guy's
Speaker 2: really handsome, very effeminate, kind of mean perfect, this is
Speaker 2: my guy?
Speaker 1: Did he did he inspire Dorian Gray because he was
Speaker 1: like Paul Rudd and he just never seemed to age,
Speaker 1: never aged, And so Oscar Wilde is like, man, this
Speaker 1: guy year after year was going on Oscar wild like,
Speaker 1: I bet there's a painting in the basement somewhere.
Speaker 2: Hella pakmarks ravage well. Count Robert Demontesque and his cousin,
Speaker 2: the Countess Elizabeth Grefeu, approached her, urging Winneretta to remarry.
Speaker 2: They were like, girl, all you got to do to
Speaker 2: get yourself re established is to find you a good man, right,
Speaker 2: And they even had the guy in mind. It was
Speaker 2: a friend of theirs name Prince Edmund de Paulaignac. Now
Speaker 2: he's twenty years older than Winneretta, but he had a
Speaker 2: lot to recommend himself as a husband. Okay, first of all,
Speaker 2: he's a prince, so Winneretta could have that title. She's
Speaker 2: looking a princess. Secondly, he was broke. He had lost
Speaker 2: a lot of money on some get rich quick schemes,
Speaker 2: so he really needed a rich wife. Okay, so he'd
Speaker 2: be yeah, he'd be open to it. Thirdly, and best
Speaker 2: of all, Edmund de Paulaignac was gay.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Count Robert.
Speaker 2: May even has been a former lover of his.
Speaker 1: Oh, the perfect husband, The perfect husband. Winneretta's perfect husband
Speaker 1: is a lot different than most people. She's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's a prince, A lot of people are good with that.
Speaker 1: And he's broke, and he's gay. That's the the all
Speaker 1: three boxes I was looking for. Check check, check.
Speaker 2: A rich lesbian woman has a different checklist than most
Speaker 2: of us, I suppose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Winneretto could just put her umbrella away and.
Speaker 1: Relax, you know. Yeah, he was not coming after her.
Speaker 1: So Winneretta and Edmund were married in eighteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: and she became the Princess da Polignac, and these two
Speaker 1: actually had an amazing marriage. Edmund was a talented composer.
Speaker 1: He'd actually won several prizes, and he was also very
Speaker 1: passionate about music and art and literature, just like Winneretta.
Speaker 1: So they found really a kindred spirit. Like you know,
Speaker 1: you like art, I like art, You like music, I
Speaker 1: like music. You like people of your same sex, I
Speaker 1: like people like this.
Speaker 2: Was great, This is all working out so well.
Speaker 1: So they ended up really kind of loving each other
Speaker 1: in that way, and they support or to each other constantly.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you got to say, that's a really
Speaker 1: good partnership.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, if you can call it a bond of true love.
Speaker 2: Even though it's fully platonic, they were truly in love
Speaker 2: with one another. They got each other really well. So
Speaker 2: this was kind of a masterpiece in matchmaking from Robert
Speaker 2: de montesque. Great job, Robert.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's something there where, let's say they're
Speaker 1: out having their little flings, their little same sex flings
Speaker 1: on the side or whatever, is there still a little
Speaker 1: bit of jealousy. It's like, even though we're not sexually bonded,
Speaker 1: I just don't like you spending intimate time with someone else.
Speaker 1: You and I are right thing.
Speaker 2: Right, listen. I don't think with these two, but yes,
Speaker 2: it definitely happens. There's a few of her lovers that
Speaker 2: were married to gay men as well. In like Mariage
Speaker 2: blanc or lavender marriages halls a lot because they were
Speaker 2: each other's beards essentially. Where Yeah, they would get jealous
Speaker 2: of one another all the time, even though I'm not
Speaker 2: interested in what you got, but that's my wife or
Speaker 2: that's my husband. Yeah, you know, I still feel a
Speaker 2: sense of possession. Very interesting people.
Speaker 1: I mean, jealousy is really complicated.
Speaker 2: We'll get into that a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So Winneretta produced Edmund's concerts multiple times. All
Speaker 1: of his compositions got to be heard. But the first
Speaker 1: thing they did was set up one of those, of course,
Speaker 1: incredible artistic salons in their Parisian music room and they
Speaker 1: would debut performances of works for musicians like Debussy, Ravel,
Speaker 1: Fouret and Chabrier, just huge names in French composition. Beautiful
Speaker 1: little concerts.
Speaker 2: I would totally go to one of these nights.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. They also would have authors like Marcel Proust
Speaker 1: and crossover alert Oscar Wilde and Collette would come by
Speaker 1: all the time and give little readings of their works. Amazing.
Speaker 1: Also additional crossover alert, the Polignacs hosted our friend BDSM
Speaker 1: connoisseur Percy Granger, who dedicated some of his folk song
Speaker 1: compositions to winner Retta.
Speaker 2: How crazy is this?
Speaker 1: I mean, like, go figure that all the same names
Speaker 1: are the ones that got written down and recorded and
Speaker 1: were rich. It was a small circle.
Speaker 2: Belle Epoch Paris is up insane. Like the amount of
Speaker 2: people American, British and English and French that were all
Speaker 2: in these salons ended up being amazing together. Pretty crazy.
Speaker 2: Apparently Marcel Proust came to the salon because of Robert
Speaker 2: Montesquieu introduced him, and Marcel got a lot of his
Speaker 2: like observations of society that he became famous for writing
Speaker 2: in those salons. So kind of Winneretta salon was sort
Speaker 2: of his, like what he was writing about.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: In fact, Marcel Proust wrote that before they had ever
Speaker 2: met in person, Winneretta and Edmund de Paulagnac had bid
Speaker 2: against one another at an art auction trying to win
Speaker 2: a Monet Claude Monet's Champe de tulip Wow, full painting
Speaker 2: of Julip.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, if you want a beautiful painting of tulips,
Speaker 1: you call Claude Monette. I tell you that.
Speaker 2: Well, of course, you know we already know Edmund was
Speaker 2: having money troubles, so of course Winneretta won this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and at the time, Edmund was apparently enraged to have
Speaker 2: been outbid by an American woman. Oh real snobby about it.
Speaker 2: But then he later joked, quote, I married the American
Speaker 2: and could look at the painting as often as I like.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was like the cinch for him
Speaker 1: in this marriage. She's like, oh, it's a woman. I'm
Speaker 1: not into that. She likes music. Okay, she's rich, that's good.
Speaker 1: She's got my painting.
Speaker 2: That's probably. Robert was apparently like, hey, man, you should
Speaker 2: marry Winnetta singer. Dude, like, you'll solve all your problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Probably say she's got that monet, you can hang it
Speaker 2: right in your room.
Speaker 1: I said, whatever I have to do to get that painting,
Speaker 1: I will, I will marry a woman.
Speaker 2: In fact, also Monette himself would hang out at the
Speaker 2: Polyniac salon all the time. He also became friends with
Speaker 2: actual pain Oh my god, pretty dope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's better than just buying the painting.
Speaker 2: He could be like, drum me another tulip?
Speaker 1: Why well, yeah, why why buy the milk you can
Speaker 1: get for free?
Speaker 2: For free for dinner the price of dinner.
Speaker 1: Why by the tulips when you can just befriend Claude Monette.
Speaker 1: That's the other version of that saying.
Speaker 2: For real, uh Whinneretta also introduced Edmund to Polignac, to
Speaker 2: Venice because remember she already like going there, Oh sure,
Speaker 2: and it soon became one of his favorite places. He
Speaker 2: particularly loved this palace on the Grand Canal. It was
Speaker 2: called the Palazzo Contari ni dal Zaffo. And one day
Speaker 2: in nineteen hundred, they're having dinner with some rich friends
Speaker 2: and he kind of saw it, you know, the corner
Speaker 2: of his eye, and he spontaneously exclaimed, quote, ah, that
Speaker 2: is the place to live in. We must manage to
Speaker 2: get it, one way or another. And apparently this kind
Speaker 2: of amazed Whineretta because Edmund rarely asked for anything for himself,
Speaker 2: like he didn't really take advantage of this rich white
Speaker 2: he had. So when Iaretta decided, you know what, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna buy him that palazzo, thanks so much. And it
Speaker 2: took her a few months of like real estate wrangling.
Speaker 2: We all know it takes a while to close on
Speaker 2: a house, but she got it and it became the
Speaker 2: Palazzo Contarini Polignac.
Speaker 1: What I will say, I just looked it up at
Speaker 1: the Palazzo Contorini dal Zafo aka Contorni Polignac. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It is beautiful, beautiful. I would totally buy it if
Speaker 1: I had the money'sta it's It's a private residence today
Speaker 1: still apparently for the Polignac family, and they do a
Speaker 1: frequent art events.
Speaker 2: The foundation that she sets up inherited it, so they
Speaker 2: do a lot of concerts. Let's go, ready, go. We
Speaker 2: haven't been to Venis though, No, we'll record an episode.
Speaker 1: Well, I've been to visits on my study abroad and
Speaker 1: wasn't my favorite. Damn sorry, Well, sadly for a big
Speaker 1: tone shift here. Her husband, Edmund, had never really been
Speaker 1: in great health. I remember he was twenty years older
Speaker 1: than her as well, and he died just seven months
Speaker 1: after she bought him the palazzo, shortly after his sixty
Speaker 1: seventh birthday, and Winneretta basically spent the rest of her
Speaker 1: life honoring him in the best way that she knew.
Speaker 1: How artistic patronage leading to some of the most beloved
Speaker 1: artistic works of our time, and we have barely even
Speaker 1: scratched the surface on all of her lesbian love affairs.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about that right after this break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody, now.
Speaker 2: Winneretta and Edmund both had affairs during their marriage. That
Speaker 2: was sort of part of the the deal, right, Neil, Right,
Speaker 2: was that we get to each do our own thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but most of Winneretta's most famous relationships seemed to have
Speaker 2: started after Edmund died. Okay, So I don't know why,
Speaker 2: speculation station. Maybe she felt like she could be more
Speaker 2: out and proud as a widow than as a married woman.
Speaker 1: Oh sure.
Speaker 2: Maybe she's just a little more private about who and what.
Speaker 2: Or maybe they both just kind of went for people
Speaker 2: that weren't names, or.
Speaker 1: They're just like they seem to really enjoy spending time together.
Speaker 1: Maybe they just devoted a lot of their time together
Speaker 1: and she wasn't that often out there looking you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: or she was just so busy with her art she
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of time for those flings.
Speaker 2: Right, Very true. That sounds like or maybe like he's
Speaker 2: you know, such a shield in a way that like
Speaker 2: her female friendships weren't as remarked on. Sure, and then
Speaker 2: after he's gone, everyone's like, well, she's spent ten years
Speaker 2: with this one, lady. Oh you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't know for sure, but just saying. And you guys,
Speaker 2: Winneretta picked some amazing women to have affairs with, like
Speaker 2: of course, because her circle is incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, just scratching.
Speaker 2: The surface here. One of her lovers was Olga Demeyer,
Speaker 2: who was an artist, muse and model. She was a
Speaker 2: champion fencer, and she was an opium addict. They were
Speaker 2: together from nineteen oh one to nineteen oh five.
Speaker 1: Quite a comboat, uh huh.
Speaker 2: She also had a relationship with the composer Ethel Smith
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh three, Big Suffragists. She wrote like the
Speaker 2: Suffragette Anthem and was this amazing composer she fell deeply
Speaker 2: in love with, Winneretta started writing an opera about her.
Speaker 2: Winneretta also had an affair with the painter Romaine Brooks
Speaker 2: starting in nineteen oh five, and fans of our Collette
Speaker 2: series might remember Romaine Brooks. We've brought her up before
Speaker 2: because she had a fifty year menage with Natalie Clifford Barney,
Speaker 2: who was another famed Parisian lesbian. She was actually an
Speaker 2: American expat like Winneretta. She was a big proponent of
Speaker 2: non monogamy. And apparently Winneretta did not like Natalie Clifford. Oh,
Speaker 2: I thought they would have been total broski too similar.
Speaker 2: Winneretta was like acted like she didn't even know her
Speaker 2: something like she were like, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2: That so I think I think Wheneretta was a little
Speaker 2: more conservative than Natalie Clifd Barney, Natalie Clifford Barney's like
Speaker 2: non monogamy just set her apart. I think because she
Speaker 2: was just like, there's no reason to tie yourself down
Speaker 2: or whatever, even though Winneretta's totally got a lot of
Speaker 2: overlap too, right. Winneretta also had a playing with the
Speaker 2: pianist and singer Renata Burgatti in the early nineteen twenties,
Speaker 2: the socialite Violet Trifuses for ten years from nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: three to nineteen thirty three, and the landscape expert and
Speaker 2: garden designer al Veiled Chaplain from nineteen thirty eight to
Speaker 2: nineteen forty three. It's a big name, a lot of
Speaker 2: big names and kind of long relationships. A lot of them.
Speaker 2: They were together for a while, and.
Speaker 1: Some people even say that she had an affair with
Speaker 1: author Virginia Wolf, although some people think that they were
Speaker 1: just friends, and in fact, Virginia Wolf did throw some
Speaker 1: shade on Winneretta. At one point, she wrote to a friend, quote,
Speaker 1: to look at her, You'd never think she ravished half
Speaker 1: the virgins in Paris. Yeah, it's like she's not. I
Speaker 1: don't know for all that, damn Virginia Wolf noted for
Speaker 1: her wicked burns.
Speaker 2: Virginia Wolf almost be roasted by Virginia Wolf.
Speaker 1: But look, I know, we just rattled off a lot
Speaker 1: of like and she did this, she did that, And
Speaker 1: you're like, but what tell me more? I know, But
Speaker 1: all these women were so accomplished and talented, with so
Speaker 1: much story of their own, that were actually going to
Speaker 1: do a whole separate episode dedicated just to the lesbian
Speaker 1: lovers of Winneretta Singer.
Speaker 2: Every one of them is so cool, you guys, right
Speaker 2: there really are.
Speaker 1: There's a ton of crossover. Some of these lesbians had
Speaker 1: affair with each other, some of their gay husbands were
Speaker 1: having affairs with each other as well. Just a real,
Speaker 1: real spider web of relationships and stories. So so stay tuned.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got a lot more to talk about
Speaker 1: with Winnaretta right here. But then next episode we're going
Speaker 1: to go through all.
Speaker 2: These individuals lovers and all their lovers.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's gonna be chaos, but we will talk
Speaker 1: about one well known story about Winneretta. She was in
Speaker 1: Venice at one point and she invited a married woman
Speaker 1: that she had a crush on to dinner. The husband
Speaker 1: of this woman, who had not been invited himself, got
Speaker 1: super jealous and drunk, and he came in. He pushed
Speaker 1: his way past the servants and he was in the
Speaker 1: dining room and he yelled at Winneretta quote.
Speaker 4: If you're half the man you pretend to be, come
Speaker 4: and fight a duel tomorrow at the lead o the
Speaker 4: fighting bit for the honor of my wife.
Speaker 1: Then he threw a bunch of place settings and candlesticks
Speaker 1: into the grand canal. Then he got escorted out. All
Speaker 1: the items were recovered. Feel sorry for those divers because
Speaker 1: the Venice Grand Canal is not one i'd want to
Speaker 1: swim in. That's sure, in a.
Speaker 2: Gondola with like a net, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Scooping out of man.
Speaker 2: But they had to be heavy, right, they must have dove.
Speaker 1: To the ball. It was. Yeah, that was a lot
Speaker 1: of work for this. Oh of course, of course, so
Speaker 1: you know, damage undone. But surely a lot of gossip
Speaker 1: going around this story for months. Seriously, did you hear
Speaker 1: what this Beauci did?
Speaker 2: That's Beaucci.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what his name was.
Speaker 2: No one does. The woman is not named, so yeah.
Speaker 1: She was like you keeping my name out of the
Speaker 1: history books for these ones.
Speaker 2: But yeah. One of the gossips that was probably dining
Speaker 2: out in this story for a long time was Winneretta's matchmaker,
Speaker 2: Count Robert de Montesquieu, because after their marriage, Robert felt
Speaker 2: like he had done Edmond and Winneretta a huge favorite
Speaker 2: getting them together, and he didn't think they showed enough
Speaker 2: gratitude for it. Oh well, they should be bound and
Speaker 2: scrape a little more.
Speaker 1: We're my finder's feet exactly, maybe a.
Speaker 2: Hand for some ship that they don't want to pay for.
Speaker 2: He also claimed he was not invited to the wedding.
Speaker 2: Edmund de Polignac always said that was not true. He's like,
Speaker 2: none of that is true. But Robert basically broke off
Speaker 2: their friendship, and then he spent as much time as
Speaker 2: he could spreading rumors about the couple, and he would
Speaker 2: rag on Winneretta for her neu veau riche background, so
Speaker 2: just being kind of a bitch. So he probably loved
Speaker 2: this story and talked about it everywhere he went, like, Oh,
Speaker 2: did you hear the one about Winneretta. She's probably still
Speaker 2: getting her candlesticks out of the canal.
Speaker 1: Damn.
Speaker 2: Also, this is something of a tangent, but it's such
Speaker 2: a fun story. Conspiracy lovers might be interested.
Speaker 1: Oh do you mean here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is where I wanted to across there with
Speaker 2: stuff they don't want you to know. Yes, But in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh one, there were two women named Charlotte Anne
Speaker 2: Moberly and Eleanor Jordaine, and they went to visit the Petit,
Speaker 2: which is three Antoinette's palace rights.
Speaker 1: Yeah, her own separate little quarters, right.
Speaker 2: And so they're wandering around in nineteen oh one, and
Speaker 2: they claim that they actually traveled back in time or
Speaker 2: experienced a haunting because they said they saw Marie Antoinette
Speaker 2: and members of her court and servants like doing stuff
Speaker 2: in the and they said they described kind of a
Speaker 2: spooky vibe. So they published an account of this incident
Speaker 2: in nineteen eleven. It's now called the Moberly Jordaine Incident,
Speaker 2: and it caused a huge sensation. It was like the
Speaker 2: Bigfoot of its time, right, it was a big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's like captured imaginations allway.
Speaker 1: Sure. Sure, But in the nineteen.
Speaker 2: Sixties it was suggested that these two women had actually
Speaker 2: stumbled on one of Count Robert de Montesque's party where
Speaker 2: his avant garde friends dressed up and performed tableaux vivant
Speaker 2: or living pictures in period costume, and then Marie Antoinette
Speaker 2: they saw may even have been a cross dress all,
Speaker 2: oh my god. And so they're like these Edwardian spinsters
Speaker 2: seeing an avant garde party would have probably seemed very
Speaker 2: spooky and so real to them. So they actually saw
Speaker 2: some gay party and oh my godd thought they traveled
Speaker 2: back in time.
Speaker 1: They're probably tripping on mushrooms too. I mean, that's like
Speaker 1: me walking into Dragon Con and being like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: the ghosts from the future have come back. It's just
Speaker 1: like Star Trek exactly, posing for pictures with each other.
Speaker 2: So that account was accepted, and there was no no
Speaker 2: more publications here. Their story was allowed to be printed
Speaker 2: after that.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. They put a stamp on it and said no,
Speaker 1: this was one of his parties.
Speaker 2: They're pretty sure that that's incredible.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. They were tripping so hard they thought they
Speaker 1: were in that they were being surrounded by ghosts. You
Speaker 1: wonder if they're like poking party guests and being like,
Speaker 1: are you real poking my face a ghost?
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be posing right now? Kind of ruining it.
Speaker 2: I do love too. They saw a man in address
Speaker 2: and they were like.
Speaker 1: Haunting. Well, anyway, let's get back to a Winnaretta singer.
Speaker 1: She is a widow now. She chose to show her
Speaker 1: love for Edmund to Polignac by supporting the artists and
Speaker 1: musicians that they had loved together. My poor long lost husband,
Speaker 1: let me preserve his legacy here through art.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: She created a fund for a yearly Wagner concert, because
Speaker 1: Wagner had been Edmund's favorite composer, and in fact, for
Speaker 1: Edmund's funeral. She rented out this palazzo in Venice, where
Speaker 1: the composer Wagner had frequently stayed, and she had musicians
Speaker 1: playing Wagner in his honor, and all the palazzo owners
Speaker 1: along the Grand Canal hung these banners in tribute to Edmund.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's nice.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful.
Speaker 2: It kind of shows to that Edmund. You know, it's
Speaker 2: really easy to kind of write off Edmund is like
Speaker 2: Winneretta's husband or whatever. But he was clearly a very
Speaker 2: important member of this team, Like be brought in as
Speaker 2: many artists as she did, you know, to their salon.
Speaker 2: He was as much of a connection point for all
Speaker 2: these iconic people as she was. So right, it's just
Speaker 2: easy to forget that. But he actually had a lot
Speaker 2: of these contacts as well.
Speaker 1: And I'll say, and I'm the half joking but half
Speaker 1: serious here, if you're someone with money looking to invest
Speaker 1: it somewhere and you throw it into the next tech
Speaker 1: trend fad, you know that can fizzle out, yep, business,
Speaker 1: startup whatever, Like you're trying to make a lot of
Speaker 1: money and maybe works. But if you want your name
Speaker 1: celebrated in the streets long after you're dead and one
Speaker 1: day people you know, give a podcast talking about how
Speaker 1: great you were, you throw your money to artists, that's right, right,
Speaker 1: And you support culture absolutely in your area, and you
Speaker 1: know people are going to celebrate you when you're alive
Speaker 1: and after your death, right.
Speaker 2: Because you're literally bankrolling beauty and expression and some things
Speaker 2: that people can't do without.
Speaker 1: Things that there last.
Speaker 2: You can do without things that last that last. Exactly.
Speaker 2: Not every artist is going to hit every time, but
Speaker 2: it's still worth your money.
Speaker 1: Yep. No, every artist hits, you know, so give them money.
Speaker 1: Don't think about that. It's not about well and kind
Speaker 1: of seriously, it's not about whether or not it's successful.
Speaker 1: You're not investing like an investor, like, let me take
Speaker 1: a gamble in this artist and hope I make a
Speaker 1: ton of money, like you're just That's the thing with
Speaker 1: art is that it doesn't operate on the same commercial
Speaker 1: spectrum as every other business. Its value is different than dollars,
Speaker 1: and it has tremendous value. That's not wi wu, it's
Speaker 1: not hippie dippy, it's not ignorable. It's actually super important
Speaker 1: literally every culture through history. Anyway, get your minds out
Speaker 1: of the bank for one minute to please everybody. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, there'll be time for that later anyway. Winneretta
Speaker 1: also created the Edmund de Polignac Prize for Writing, which
Speaker 1: was awarded annually to British authors. And she was a
Speaker 1: patron of people like Collette and Marcel Proust, and Jean Cocteaux,
Speaker 1: who is one of the leaders of the Surrealist and
Speaker 1: Dadaist movements, and poets like Anna de Noilli and Paul Valeri.
Speaker 2: That's right, and names. Knowing that she knew Marcel Proust
Speaker 2: and Jean Cocteau. I can imagine this is never written anywhere,
Speaker 2: but I can't imagine that she probably crossed paths at
Speaker 2: some point with Claude Cahoun and Marcel Moore. I really
Speaker 2: hope so.
Speaker 1: I hope so right.
Speaker 2: But she might have been a little too They might
Speaker 2: have been too out there for her, because again we
Speaker 2: found out she is a little more conservative than maybe
Speaker 2: her Her life seems to be taxed now. But I
Speaker 2: hope so. I think that would be cool, that's cool
Speaker 2: if she if Claude was at one of the salons.
Speaker 2: Of course, Winderette is still bankrolling musicians as her favorite.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: She was honoring Edmund to Polognac's memory by commissioning several
Speaker 2: compositions that are still well loved today, including the opera
Speaker 2: Renard by Igor Stravinski, Concerto's by Poulan kurt Vile's Second Symphony,
Speaker 2: and Eric Satis Socrates. She actually even intervened to keep
Speaker 2: Eric Setti out of jail while he was writing Socrates,
Speaker 2: like a libel suit was brought against him or something.
Speaker 2: She's like, hang on, let him finish this shit that
Speaker 2: I paid for already.
Speaker 1: He's busy. You don't have time for jail. He's busy
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: He was like, okay, here's the commission fee, and here's
Speaker 2: for your bail. And she kept up her weekly concerts
Speaker 2: at her house. She was hosting the first performances of
Speaker 2: many of these pieces, in addition to performances from names
Speaker 2: like the dancer Isidora Duncan, the composer Nadia boulangeres Armand
Speaker 2: de Paulagnac, cole porter Darius Milhoude. She also bankrolledge Diagilev's
Speaker 2: Ballet Rouss on several occasions, and apparently got very jealous
Speaker 2: of the money that she spent on Stravinsky. He said,
Speaker 2: quote Renard is just some scraps he found in his
Speaker 2: dresser drawer.
Speaker 1: Wow, man, artists are so petty, they're so Petty.
Speaker 2: Ay, this is another reason why I would be so
Speaker 2: fun to go, because you just like listen to these
Speaker 2: bitches complain about each other. Apparently also went to another
Speaker 2: of his great supporters, who was Coco Chanel.
Speaker 1: Oh famed Nazi.
Speaker 2: Famed Nazi sympathizer col Kerschannel, and he told her that
Speaker 2: Winneretta had given him seventy five thousand francs, but he
Speaker 2: was still broke and the Belly Roost needed some support
Speaker 2: or whatever. And Chanelle, speaking of Petty, grabbed her check
Speaker 2: book and replied, quote, the Princess de Polagnak is a
Speaker 2: grand American lady. I am only a steamstress. Here is
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand. Wow, what a bitch?
Speaker 1: Well, I who am I? I'm just a poor seamstress.
Speaker 1: Here's okay, here's more than double what she gave you.
Speaker 2: Rescribe the aglae though, because he knew exactly what to say,
Speaker 2: like you knew he said that, I'll put huh. Definitely,
Speaker 2: I didn't get enough from Winneretta. Who can I.
Speaker 1: I know, see, he's Petty knows Petty, Petty knows, he
Speaker 1: sees it, he knows it, he sees it, and he
Speaker 1: uses it.
Speaker 2: Let me fan the spite from Coker channel to fund
Speaker 2: my ballet.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Well, also, if y'all like Vivaldi, oh
Speaker 1: the four Seasons you're hearing now. In Winneretta's time, Vivaldi
Speaker 1: was well known to classical music connoisseurs. It was a
Speaker 1: very particular, you know, it was the Vivaldi was the
Speaker 1: punk rock of his dad. You only knew if you
Speaker 1: were really in.
Speaker 2: It, if you were like music, you got it.
Speaker 1: But he actually might have faded into obscurity over time
Speaker 1: if it weren't for Winnaeretta and her friend Olga Rudge.
Speaker 1: Olga Rudge was a violinist and actually Ezra Pounds long
Speaker 1: term mistress, speakingism and and Olga was also a frequent
Speaker 1: collaborator with the pianist and singer Renata Borgatti, who we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. Renata Borgotti had a fling with Winneretta. More
Speaker 1: spiderweb here, Yeah, exactly right now. According to the Lotsa
Speaker 1: Contorni Polignac dot com, Olga was researching early music in
Speaker 1: Dresden in the nineteen thirties and she found a pile
Speaker 1: of Vivaldi manuscripts, mostly a violin concerti, and she transcribed
Speaker 1: these manuscripts. She brought them back to Venice. I think
Speaker 1: there's something here. It's Vivaldi violin hello, and Winneretta like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this looks good to me, opened up her pocketbook for
Speaker 1: Olga and Ezra pound to fund a publication of these works. Now,
Speaker 1: most of the work Olga discovered hadn't been played in
Speaker 1: the public for over two hundred years, so Winneretta started
Speaker 1: to include them in her concerts, and of course this
Speaker 1: just contributed to this overall revival of appreciation for Vivaldi.
Speaker 1: And now every time a fancy rich people seen comes
Speaker 1: on a TV show, you're going to hear this right exactly.
Speaker 1: It is synonymous with high culture, right.
Speaker 2: And how funny is it that Vivaldi needed a patron
Speaker 2: in his time and then two hundred years later it
Speaker 2: required another wealthy person to keep his music relevant. I'm like, like,
Speaker 2: just to back to our conversation about egots or whatever.
Speaker 2: The money really does matter.
Speaker 1: It does? It does, It does, and again.
Speaker 2: It's frustrating, but it does.
Speaker 1: If you right now want to contribute to art, we
Speaker 1: will take your contributions. And if you are listening to
Speaker 1: this episode two hundred years from its publication day. You
Speaker 1: can still fund our work, that's right, you know, revive it,
Speaker 1: bring it back, and then find us. Use your future
Speaker 1: life phrase to bring us back. If it's a good future.
Speaker 1: If it's not, y'all, y'all, y'all can have it. But
Speaker 1: if we fixed all these problems, I'd love to see.
Speaker 2: It, uh huh, Yeah, back these our brains or whatever.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and we'll can upload us or we'll bring
Speaker 1: you more ancient art from the twenty first century.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's vintage, thank you.
Speaker 1: Ye. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But Winneretta did not just spend her money on music
Speaker 2: and painting. Sure, however important that is. When the Great
Speaker 2: War broke out in nineteen fourteen, when pretty much every
Speaker 2: nation was plunged into an economic depression after it, and
Speaker 2: during the Second World War, Winneretta spent her money where
Speaker 2: she thought it was needed the most, on the poor.
Speaker 2: Imagine that, and we'll hear all about her public service
Speaker 2: right after this break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker 2: So Winneretta singer Paula yak knew that a lot of
Speaker 2: people were not as lucky as she was in her
Speaker 2: financial situation, but instead of turning her back on them,
Speaker 2: she chose to help.
Speaker 1: Look, there's a lesson in somebody who knows how to
Speaker 1: use their money, right, all right, And I tell you
Speaker 1: what she helped. She funded a ton of arts, she
Speaker 1: funded a ton of poor people. And you know what,
Speaker 1: she was still rich, Hella rich, You can still do
Speaker 1: it rich.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she had no second mortgage on her palazzo.
Speaker 1: She was doing all right, you can fund the arts
Speaker 1: and feed the poor and still be rich.
Speaker 2: You can still be Hella comfortable. So in nineteen eleven,
Speaker 2: Winneretta funded the building of a housing project for the
Speaker 2: working poor, and it actually became a model for future
Speaker 2: affordable public housing projects because when Auretta included things like
Speaker 2: modern appliances indoor plumbing, she made sure the building had
Speaker 2: a lot of natural light and safety features for children.
Speaker 2: Like she was thinking about human beings living there, yeah,
Speaker 2: instead of just like, let's make the most uncomfortable prison
Speaker 2: cell looking place dang and dark that we can. Now.
Speaker 2: During the Great War, she went to all her rich
Speaker 2: friends and she's like, you ain't driving it, And she
Speaker 2: amassed a fleet of limousines, oh that they all had,
Speaker 2: and she funded their conversion into ambulances and mobile radiology
Speaker 2: units and the guidance of none other than Madam Marie Kirie.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: So these limos end up rumbling to the front lines
Speaker 2: to help wounded soldiers.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Cool. Well, after the war, Winneretta collaborated
Speaker 1: with another wealthy American expat, Consuela Vanderbilt, the Duchess of Marlborough.
Speaker 1: They constructed a three hundred and sixty bed hospital in
Speaker 1: a suburb of Paris, specifically to treat middle class workers.
Speaker 1: It's called the Fush Hospital, and it is still in
Speaker 1: operation today. In fact, it's rated the top hospital in France,
Speaker 1: especially if you need a kidney transplant. So maybe one
Speaker 1: day I'll be swinging by there, I.
Speaker 2: Know, right, I hope not. I was thinking to you though, Look.
Speaker 1: I just get kidney stones a lot. It's true, probably
Speaker 1: partly because a particular period of my life where I
Speaker 1: almost exclusively drank energy drinks. So please PSA for the day,
Speaker 1: get away from that poison.
Speaker 2: It's not good for you.
Speaker 1: The worst.
Speaker 2: I are you back.
Speaker 1: I think they're sponsors that I didn't say any names.
Speaker 1: You didn't. Well, this hospital also includes a nursing school,
Speaker 1: so a bunch of really great stuff happening here because
Speaker 1: of Winneretta and Consuelo. She was also a patron of
Speaker 1: the scientist Eduard Branlee, who was the first to invent
Speaker 1: a wireless telegraph. Winneretta also kept up her public housing projects.
Speaker 1: She commissioned the modern architect Le Corbusier to build or
Speaker 1: reconstruct several shelters for the homeless, as well as shelters
Speaker 1: for battered or abandoned women and children for Paris's Salvation Army. So,
Speaker 1: just a lot of really good She's just like, I
Speaker 1: need to do good things. I mean, I've been leaning
Speaker 1: good life. I got a lot of money and just
Speaker 1: handed to me and kind of because my dad made
Speaker 1: a sewing machine. Okay, uh, time to start doing some
Speaker 1: good in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that she didn't turn her back on
Speaker 2: people like that, right, she really she was like, I
Speaker 2: have all this money and no one to spend it on.
Speaker 2: She didn't have kids of her own or anything like that.
Speaker 2: She's just like, what am I supposed to do? But
Speaker 2: to make the world around me a better place.
Speaker 1: And then she's like, I ha done, snatched up all
Speaker 1: the buildings on land that I can. So she bought
Speaker 1: a barge that La Corbusierre remodeled into a floating homeless
Speaker 1: shelter in the winter. Oh so now it's like, not
Speaker 1: only can this can I house the homeless on land?
Speaker 1: I can also do it on sea.
Speaker 2: Listen, you gotta use whatever space you.
Speaker 1: Got, right, And this also became a children's camp in
Speaker 1: the summer, and it was moored on the sand river.
Speaker 2: That's right. Apparently in like twenty eighteen they were like
Speaker 2: historic rain there in France and it got brought on floodwaters.
Speaker 2: And so now that barge is at the bottom of
Speaker 2: the seind Oh, and they're trying to pull it back up.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they have or not.
Speaker 1: Sure, let's go.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting that he because he apparently look for
Speaker 2: Corbisier was like, I thought it was a really cool challenge.
Speaker 2: He was, you know, a very limited space. You can't
Speaker 2: add on a lot to a barge, so he's trying
Speaker 2: to fit as many beds and it as possible and stuff.
Speaker 2: So he probably really enjoyed that commission, which is kind
Speaker 2: of cool.
Speaker 1: See it could be fun to help people too.
Speaker 2: What a thing.
Speaker 1: It just really in a philanthropy this episode.
Speaker 2: No, right, Well, it's hard not to be inspired by
Speaker 2: winterreda if I had a lot of money, I hope
Speaker 2: I would be a winner.
Speaker 1: Retto, Yeah, yeah, let's find out. If anybody wants to
Speaker 1: give us a lot of money, we'll show you what
Speaker 1: kind of people we are.
Speaker 2: You don't want to be Winnaretta, yourself, Let me be
Speaker 2: with your money now. In nineteen thirty nine, when the
Speaker 2: Second World.
Speaker 1: War broke out, the sequel nobody wanted.
Speaker 2: Exactly, a horrible sequel. Winneretta was actually back in Devonshire
Speaker 2: because her younger brother had died, and because of travel
Speaker 2: embargoes and stuff like that, she never really got to
Speaker 2: return to her beloved parish. Sure, but you know, our
Speaker 2: girls stayed active. She organized concerts and charitable events for
Speaker 2: the Red Cross. She made friends with big British music
Speaker 2: names of the day, Palazzo Contarini. Poliniac says that she
Speaker 2: frequently considered actually going home to America, but she just
Speaker 2: could not bring herself to get on a plane. She
Speaker 2: did not have the courage to get on an airplane.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, sure, sure so.
Speaker 2: In nineteen forty three, during a bombing in London in
Speaker 2: the Blitz, Winneretta died of a heart attack at the
Speaker 2: age of seventy eight aw Man. She was buried in
Speaker 2: the family crypt in Turkey, England, and the newspaper Le
Speaker 2: Figaro in Paris published her obituary a year later, and
Speaker 2: they kind of explained the gap in coverage, writing quote,
Speaker 2: the events and subjugation of free speech in France made
Speaker 2: it impossible to speak in a manner befitting the Princess
Speaker 2: Edmond de Polignac and the homage she deserves. It is
Speaker 2: impossible to write a chronicle of the twentieth century without
Speaker 2: including the salon on Avenue Henri Martin and the Palazzo
Speaker 2: on the Grand Canal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for real, which is so true.
Speaker 2: I think we talked about that a little in Colette
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, not that she died in forty three,
Speaker 2: but that just it was nobody could say anything because
Speaker 2: it was occupied France, so you couldn't really talk about
Speaker 2: all of the amazing homosexual people that made France so
Speaker 2: incredible and unique in the twenties.
Speaker 1: It's trying not to get bogged down in it, but it's
Speaker 1: heartbreaking to me that she died in forty three. France
Speaker 1: was liberated in forty four, so she did not get
Speaker 1: to see and know that Paris was returned. You know
Speaker 1: that it didn't stay. You know, you only hope that,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what kind of foresight do
Speaker 1: you have during a war to know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen at the end of it. But yeah, true, But
Speaker 1: it is sad to me that she died while Paris
Speaker 1: was occupied by the worst people of all time, you know.
Speaker 2: So I do wonder if she thought, well, will we
Speaker 2: ever get out of this? Was never ending? Is Germany
Speaker 2: going to win? I mean, forty three is a pretty
Speaker 2: low point.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but I'm but you can't see why it
Speaker 1: took them until after forty four to be able to
Speaker 1: say anything about it. But I'm glad that they they
Speaker 1: did loudly. Yeah, you know, they really came out and
Speaker 1: were like, let me wait, we didn't drop the ball
Speaker 1: on this, y'all. We got something to say. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know that's great. Now today, Winnoretta's good work is still
Speaker 1: being carried on by the Foundation singer Paulagnac that she
Speaker 1: had in Doubt in nineteen twenty eight, which they are
Speaker 1: dedicated to funding science, literature, the arts, culture, and French
Speaker 1: philanthropy through gifts and travel scholarships and the foundation inherited
Speaker 1: Winnaretta's mansion and they still hold concerts there today. They
Speaker 1: elevate the next generation of French music. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I looked at the artists that I don't they're no
Speaker 2: one I've heard of but for a while, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they seem very cool. A lot of trios and cool
Speaker 2: like class musicians. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, look, Winneretta. This is a woman obviously who had
Speaker 1: an incredible eye and ear for the unique, you know,
Speaker 1: just stuff you hadn't really thought of much before. She
Speaker 1: wanted to put it front and center.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and the fact that she continues to shape arts
Speaker 1: and culture even after her death. It's pretty incredible, right
Speaker 1: for real. I mean that's the thing is like part
Speaker 1: of that, Like we were talking about earlier funding the arts,
Speaker 1: it's going to have an impact long beyond your time here,
Speaker 1: Like stuff you don't even It's like planting a tree
Speaker 1: that you know you're never going to see it its
Speaker 1: full height, but you also know that it one day
Speaker 1: will be at that full height. And that's something special, I.
Speaker 2: Think, and it's a special mind. Yeah, you can think
Speaker 2: of that. I think we talked about that with Olmsted,
Speaker 2: the park designer. He designed Central Park, Yeah, and also
Speaker 2: Piedmont Park here in Atlanta. Yeah, but he always talked
Speaker 2: about that. He's like, if you're a landscape architect, you're
Speaker 2: picturing a park that is full grown, but you're building
Speaker 2: a park that is new, and it don't look like
Speaker 2: your mind's eye and you might never see your mind's
Speaker 2: eye vision because it's supposed to be fifty one hundred
Speaker 2: years from now, which I think just that kind of
Speaker 2: long term vision is such a unique skill set. Like
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just a fascinating.
Speaker 1: Right, and that's a harp on it, but it's so
Speaker 1: important this idea, especially that, like I don't know, if
Speaker 1: you have any sort of inkling about whether or not
Speaker 1: you have an existence after death, you know, and then
Speaker 1: does the state of the world matter to you in
Speaker 1: that existence wherever you are, then you might want to consider, right,
Speaker 1: you know, also just consider what you know is happening
Speaker 1: to your name. Do you want to be the most
Speaker 1: hated person or a forgotten person or a person who
Speaker 1: is hundreds of years later being celebrated. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: the wonderful things they.
Speaker 2: Did and associated with so many like beautiful works of art,
Speaker 2: I mean, insanely beautiful compositions. I was listening to a
Speaker 2: lot of these. I'm not a classical music connoisseur by
Speaker 2: any means, right, so I was like, who's Poolong, Who's
Speaker 2: Eric Seti? And I listened to a lot of these
Speaker 2: while researching this, and they're all incredible, of course they are,
Speaker 2: but like, right, I don't know, It's just it's just
Speaker 2: amazing to have that kind of heart and that kind
Speaker 2: of ear for those whotch of things and know what's
Speaker 2: going to touch people insane so intensely that we are
Speaker 2: still listening to Seti and still go into the Lincoln
Speaker 2: Center and stuff to hear the string quartet opus one
Speaker 2: three or whatever, Like she knew what would stick.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the thing too, is that we
Speaker 1: talked about funding a work of art and it's the
Speaker 1: work or if you're saying, like, imagine, you know, being
Speaker 1: part of this one particular thing, but you also have
Speaker 1: to consider that art is yeah, like a string in
Speaker 1: a tapestry, right, like it is part of a larger
Speaker 1: culture and that culture we live in, like regardless, So
Speaker 1: each piece of art, right, and each conversation, each thing
Speaker 1: that happens is obviously part of a larger hole that
Speaker 1: we have to live in. How people are being influenced
Speaker 1: to what their behavior is like. You know, are you
Speaker 1: in a miserable hell hole or are you in kind
Speaker 1: of a golden age? And that often comes from people
Speaker 1: supporting art with money, And there's just it's so like
Speaker 1: winter at a show in here. It's not hard to
Speaker 1: have a lot of money and spend a lot of
Speaker 1: money on stuff. That's not a financial investment return, but
Speaker 1: it's a cultural investment return. The world you live in
Speaker 1: is better. And guess what, most of the time you
Speaker 1: still have a lot of money. There aren't a lot
Speaker 1: of wealthy donors and patrons out there who are like, well,
Speaker 1: I used to be rich, but then I funded the arts,
Speaker 1: so now it's gone. There's plenty. Uh huh, you got plenty.
Speaker 2: And back to the foundation that she ended out, uh
Speaker 2: huh has no other funding source than her endowment. So today, wow, Wow,
Speaker 2: she had enough money that that foundation is going strong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very credible, incredible And she never suffered for cash,
Speaker 1: not at all, you know, not a once, not a once.
Speaker 1: Just incredible. Uh. The American diplomat Moral Cody said it
Speaker 1: best about Winneretta. He said, quote Winneretta Singer was the
Speaker 1: woman among us who decisively shaped and directed and nourished
Speaker 1: the social and artistic and literary life of the young. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean again, just setting up the present and the future. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's really amazing stuff. It's so absolutely vital
Speaker 1: to a healthy society. Sorry, it just is. We got
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of years of evidence to pull from.
Speaker 2: So true.
Speaker 1: So stop being dumb and der money on artists. Georgia
Speaker 1: the lowest arts funded state in the country, Throw some
Speaker 1: cash out there to make it work. I know we
Speaker 1: don't need to get you started. We don't, miss Queen
Speaker 1: of the nonprofits. Huh.
Speaker 2: But I just you know, I love to you that
Speaker 2: She never she never commissioned Stravinsky or anything thinking oh
Speaker 2: this is gonna hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She commissioned him because she liked it. Yeah, she thought
Speaker 2: it sounded good. And she's like, you know what, hey,
Speaker 2: I write something else. I'm going to give you enough
Speaker 2: money that you don't have to work or run around
Speaker 2: or worry about your rent or whatever. All you need
Speaker 2: to be doing is working on your music. The same
Speaker 2: with Faret when she gave him her palazzo in Venice
Speaker 2: for a minute, go take a load of like you're tired, man,
Speaker 2: like go, which is the other thing is so frustrating.
Speaker 2: Everyone's supposed to do art as there like hobby or
Speaker 2: second thing, and like also be supporting their life.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how many how many artists can't right now
Speaker 2: listening to this say, oh, if I just had time
Speaker 2: off where you don't have to worry about anything, not
Speaker 2: a pause because there's a pandemic going on, but like
Speaker 2: just a forced vacation where all my whole thing is
Speaker 2: to sit and create.
Speaker 1: Well, and again even that it's not really vacation, because
Speaker 1: we talk about a lot, you know, you and I
Speaker 1: talk about how when you're creating it often looks like
Speaker 1: time off and it's not. It's work, right, and it yeah,
Speaker 1: it's time off if I'm just kicking back and being like, oh,
Speaker 1: right later, I'm gonna play some video games for a while.
Speaker 1: But sitting there with the blank page in a quiet
Speaker 1: space with some music on, you know, with a window
Speaker 1: by the sea or whatever, it doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be that that's work, and it's that it's hard work,
Speaker 1: and it's frustrating work, and it's challenging work. And also
Speaker 1: I was going to say that she likely did that
Speaker 1: for lots of people whose names we don't know too
Speaker 1: about exactly, because she didn't. It wasn't like everyone I
Speaker 1: fund is a hit. She was like, I'm throwing money
Speaker 1: out to a bunch of stuff, and some of these
Speaker 1: people are gonna be really impressive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are they gonna last as long as they last
Speaker 2: like the ballet roost or something like, They're gonna do
Speaker 2: whatever they can do and whatever time they have, and
Speaker 2: that's okay, Like they don't have to be you know,
Speaker 2: still going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And a lot of artists exist within their
Speaker 1: own time with with great importance and skill and you know,
Speaker 1: incredible works and that's all they are, and that's that's great.
Speaker 1: Too much needed, And also to your point about just
Speaker 1: being able to go do your work without him a
Speaker 1: worry about it. Bob Dylan retired, he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: done making music. I'm gonna go sit in a cabin
Speaker 1: by myself fair a while. And he went there. He
Speaker 1: sat down and something like night two, he's like he
Speaker 1: didn't you And he's like, wait a second, and he
Speaker 1: wrote like a rolling stone because he was just away.
Speaker 1: He's just got to separate himself for a minute. He
Speaker 1: wrote like a rolling Stone, like one of the most
Speaker 1: epic poems. Yes, the music of all time.
Speaker 2: I really think that is what happened with Fret. I
Speaker 2: think she was really like, you are burnt out, go relax.
Speaker 2: But while he's relaxing, he's inspired and regenerated. He's like
Speaker 2: in Venice, it's beautiful, there's music and art all around him.
Speaker 2: He's got something to be inspired by. He strolls by
Speaker 2: the canal every day, sees the gondolas. He's like thinking
Speaker 2: about something that strikes a chord. Next thing you know,
Speaker 2: you're writing sonk melody, Like you know what I mean
Speaker 2: of Venice, Like he couldn't have written that Venus. So
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just something to be said about. Like,
Speaker 2: like you said, a lot of creativity and creation can
Speaker 2: look like idleness or oh you're walking around looking at
Speaker 2: the freaking stars or nature or something, and it looks
Speaker 2: like you're just indulging yourself, and in a way, you are.
Speaker 2: Because art is about taking in and reflecting and expressing.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that is what it is. So if
Speaker 2: you lived in a little cave your whole life, what
Speaker 2: kind of art could you really make you have to
Speaker 2: go out and experience and react to things around you,
Speaker 2: and exactly so, I just I just love that she's
Speaker 2: straight up like, you know, Gabriel, you look in a
Speaker 2: little worn. Let's just give you a wonderful vacation and
Speaker 2: guess what happened. You're gonna make something great. But even
Speaker 2: if he hadn't, that's not why she sensed it.
Speaker 1: Exactly Exactly what I'm trying.
Speaker 2: To say is I need a vacation and I will
Speaker 2: write sunk melody to buddies.
Speaker 1: Look, and one last point here that I think is
Speaker 1: really important to once again a massive cultural influence, a
Speaker 1: massive period of history and a surge in in just
Speaker 1: in cultural benefit that we owe all to the let's right,
Speaker 1: you know, that's right. It just keeps happening.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: They're great people and just the LGBT crowd in general.
Speaker 1: Of course, I am also very amen, very good at contributing,
Speaker 1: very true.
Speaker 2: Dioga liv also homosexual. We had plenty of homosexual affairs
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: So this one goes out to the lesbians.
Speaker 2: This one is for the lesbians of bellipowk Paris and
Speaker 2: also today.
Speaker 1: Yea, yep, yeah, oh what a great story.
Speaker 2: I Loretta.
Speaker 1: I love Winneretta, and we've got more to tell of
Speaker 1: Winneretta because we're going to get into those lesbian relationships
Speaker 1: more specifically next time.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but everyone I looked up, I was just like, what,
Speaker 2: they all have some crazy shit going on with their romances,
Speaker 2: So we're going to try to condense them all under
Speaker 2: one episode's stay tuned, It's coming back true. So got
Speaker 2: to say thanks again to Seth Bats at Seth Sculptures
Speaker 2: for this wonderful suggestion, because we got three episode actually
Speaker 2: and it's been really fun. So thank you so much
Speaker 2: to Seth. And if you have any suggestions or anything
Speaker 2: you'd like to say about Winneretta or a show or us,
Speaker 2: or just you know, I don't know. If you have
Speaker 2: some bank roll and you want to give us some
Speaker 2: money for our next amazing projects or vacation or whatever,
Speaker 2: please reach out. It's ridict Romance at.
Speaker 1: Gmail dot com, that's right, or you can find us
Speaker 1: on Instagram as well.
Speaker 2: I'm at O Great as Elive, I'm at Dianamite Boom.
Speaker 1: And follow the show at ridict Romance Great.
Speaker 2: I love hearing from y'all always, so wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in, We love you, Catch you next
Speaker 1: time Bright.
Speaker 3: So long friends, it's time to go. Thanks for listening
Speaker 3: to our show. Tell your friends names uncles, and to
Speaker 3: listen to a show Ridiculous Rollmans