Here is a piece composed and performed by Elena Kats-Chernin. It is 'Eliza's Aria' from "Wild Swans" - Kats-Chernin's collaboration for the Australian Ballet with choreographer Meryl Tankard, based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen.
Page 125 of Grandpa's book:
"Crush the nettles with your feet and you will have flax, which you must spin and weave into eleven shirts of mail with long sleeves. Once you throw these over the eleven wild swans, the spell over them is broken. But keep this in mind! From the moment you undertake this task until it is done, even though it lasts for years, you must not speak. The first word you say will strike your brothers' hearts like a deadly knife. Their lives are at the mercy of your tongue. Now, remember what I told you!"
5 comments:
I can never decide if I adore Anderson because his stories are so REAL, or hate him because they NEVER end happily EVER. But those pics are divine.
I get all possessive about this particular fairy tale and feel like it's the emotional real-estate of those of us who have a child missing part of an arm. With, perhaps, an exception made to those who have children born with an actual *wing*...
Such wonderful music - and a wonderful book..
I adore that book jacket and the tale!
As a kid this was the line that always slayed me
"Poor little Eliza was alone in her room playing with a green leaf, for she had no other playthings, and she pierced a hole through the leaf, and looked through it at the sun, and it was as if she saw her brothers’ clear eyes, and when the warm sun shone on her cheeks, she thought of all the kisses they had given her. "
I love the honesty of it. Such loss and yet so much beauty and hope...
We had a compendium of traditional fairy tales when I was young. The stories were always so bloodthirsty and yet somehow always satisfying to read. That had fabulous colour plates I seem to remember.
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