A suite in one movement based on characters from G.W.Pabst's infamous 1929 silent film Pandora’s Box, an updating to 1920s Berlin of Frank Wedekind’s scandalous Lulu plays. The music is drawn from my 2007 orchestral score to the film. The Reluctant Heroines are three women who suffer heroically as a result of Lulu’s wayward lifestyle, including Lulu herself who pays the ultimate price for her peccadillos.
THE MISTRESS: Lulu as played in the film by Louise Brooks no mere Jazz Age flapper but goddess incarnate, naively innocent yet ever ready to use her seductive charms to her own ends. She is the mistress of Dr.Schon, a wealthy industrialist.
THE FIANCEE: Charlotte is the fiancee of Dr. Schon. Pale and beautiful, she is but a shadow beside Lulu's vibrant sensuality and is trapped between Schon's insatiable desire for his mistress and his desperate need for a socially acceptable marriage. She is publicly humiliated by Lulu who promptly marries Schon herself.
THE SUITOR: Countess Geschwitz is Lulu's lesbian suitor. They dance a sensual waltz at Lulu’s wedding in full view of the other guests and after Lulu shoots her husband dead on their wedding night Geschwitz follows as she flees abroad to escape execution. Lulu is recognised and pursued to a French gambling ship where she loses everything. The infatuated Geschwitz attempts to settle Lulu's debts and prevent her being turned over to the law but in the process suffers a violent heterosexual assault which sends her into raving insanity.
THE VICTIM: Lulu is her own final victim. Destitute and living in secret in a shabby London garrett she resorts to the streets to earn enough money for a meagre Christmas meal. She meets a disconsolate Jack the Ripper and takes him to her garrett, where for a while it seems that the love she offers may be the antidote to his murderous ways, but during a tender moment Jack sees a knife blade glint in the candlelight. He is powerless to control his demons and stabs Lulu to death, slipping away into the London fog.
Though the storyline is lurid to a degree, the music I have used for this suite is of a gentle nature that reflects my compassion for the characters. The solo violin is the voice of Lulu and her music dances with wayward capriciousness since I believe her to be incapable of malice in spite of the trail of ruined lives she leaves behind her. Paul Lewis
Score and parts for Violin and Harp included.
Duration 9½ minutes
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