Faculty Tuesdays (2020)

Program notes

The complete ballet score for Claudel was commissioned by Columbus Dance Theatre (Columbus, Ohio) and was composed between October and November 2013. The ballet was a multimedia production about the life and work of Camille Claudel. Carpe Diem String Quartet and Columbus Dance Theatre first launched this work in February 2014.

The Suite from “Claudel” consists of a selection of chosen movements from the larger ballet, many of them inspired by Claudel’s sculptures and photos of Claudel captured at various periods throughout her career. It also follows the story of her very tragic life. Of her immediate family, only her father supported her artistic creativity in a field normally reserved for men.

Her mother and sister despised Claudel, thinking that her digging around in the clay and working with stone was no proper lifestyle for a woman. Claudel had a close relationship with her brother, who was also a struggling poet, but he later became involved with the church and distanced himself emotionally from Claudel. Camille’s relationship with Rodin has been romanticized to reflect how the student/teacher relationship accelerated to muse/lover, and that Rodin recognized Claudel’s superior talent. His own art was influenced by the beauty of her artistic gifts.

In today’s world Rodin’s advances would likely be seen as predatory, creating an inappropriate relationship where the balance of power of teacher over student is wrought with problems. Camille, on the other hand, became increasingly frustrated that her reputation as an artist was always linked to and compared to Rodin’s, and found it impossible to separate herself from him professionally. I feel that had Claudel been born in the current time, she would have had the opportunities, resources and support she so richly deserved and needed. Camille’s sculptures are stunningly beautiful, and she is finally receiving the recognition now she deserved when she was living.

1. Claudel Alone: (in the asylum) looking back on her life. Inspired by a 1929 photo taken by Wm. Elborne of Claudel sitting alone in a chair at the asylum in Montdevergues.

2. The Family: A portrait of the Claudel family, illustrated in Rondo form. The family together, her father, Louis-Prosper Claudel, her mother and her sister Louise, her brother Paul and finally, Camille herself. Inspired by an 1886 photo of the Claudel family on their balcony on the day of her sister Louise’s engagement.

3. The Women’s Studio: Inspired by a photo of Camille and fellow sculptress Jessie Lipscomb working together in a Paris flat, a period of creative joy and freedom, unencumbered by society’s gender-specific expectations.

4. Rodin, Camille, Sakuntala: Based on the relationship between Rodin and Claudel as it evolved from teacher/student, artist/artist’s assistant, muse to muse, lovers and co-workers, artistic equals, and illustrated by Claudel’s sculpture Sakuntala.

5. The Waltz: Inspired by Claudel’s sculpture of the same name, The Waltz illustrates the passionate and tumultuous relationship between Claudel and Rodin.

6. Rose: Inspired by Claudel’s sculpture of Rose Beuret, Rodin’s long-term companion with whom he shared a son.

7. Collage: As Rodin chooses to remain with Rose, Claudel enters into one of her most productive creative periods as a sculptor, but her bitterness and paranoia begin to consume her.

8. The Age of Maturity: Inspired by Claudel’s sculpture of the same name, portraying an embracing couple and a female on her knees imploringly reaching to them. Seen as autobiographical in nature and as an allusion to her perspective of the relationship between Rodin, Rose Beuret and Claudel.

9. The Internment: In a period of paranoia, self-destruction and despair augmented by the death of her father and the end of her pregnancy with Rodin’s child, Claudel began to destroy her sculptures.  Her mother and her brother had her admitted to an asylum. After the doctors declared her fit to be released, they pleaded with her family to release her.  Her mother and brother refused to let her out, and she spent the rest of her life in the asylum.

10. Liquidambar: An imagined scene of Claudel holding a fallen golden leaf of the sweet gum tree while in the asylum. Liquid Amber: a metaphor of her creative life, the fluidity of her sculptures captured forever in stone while she is trapped in one moment, as an insect is forever frozen on its journey in amber.

11. Finale. Clotho/Destiny: After two sculptures.  Clotho depicts an elderly woman, her tangled hair twisted around her. Destiny at first glance appears to be similar to The Age of Maturity, but closer examination reveals instead the caped figure of Destiny whispering into the ear of the standing man who is unable to escape her grasp. Representing the enduring beauty of her sculptures that continue to inspire all those who see them.