A Swiss-born female Lawrence in man-drag


While I was developing my interest in the cultural explorer, Sufi adept and libertine Isabelle Eberhardt composer Missy Mazzoli and director Gia Forakis were engaged in the far more arduous task of creating their multi-media opera on the same subject. 'Song from the Uproar: the Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt' opens at The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York on February 24. Now Gia writes to tell me that two of the five performances have already sold out following Justin Davidson's critics' pick billing in New York Magazine which previews the production as "a multimedia don’t-call-it-opera dramatizing the story of the intrepid Isabelle Eberhardt, a Swiss-born female Lawrence in man-drag". As Isabelle herself once wrote “The way I see it, there is no greater spiritual beauty than fanaticism, of a sort so sincere it can only end in martyrdom.” More on my fascination with Lawrence in man-drag here.

Graphic is sampled from the cover of the Peter Owen collection of Isabelle Eberhardt's writing 'Prisoner of Dunes'. This cover is the work of Juliet Standing and is in turn sampled from a detail of 'Algerian Women in their Apartment' by Eugène Delacroix Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk Also on Facebook and Twitter.

Comments

Pliable said…
Jane Sullivan via Facebook - Surely, if she's dressed as a boy she's in drab.
10:34 am
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