royal wedding celebration

When the famous Australian opera singer was visiting New York on one occasion, she was invited to lunch with the singer, Yvette Giblert. She sneered at the idea, saying that Gilbert might be invited to sing one of her couplets during dessert for a fee.
Gilbert replied that she understood. "I am only of humble birth", she said, "but Madame Melba is, of course, a member of the French royal family!"

This l'esprit d'escalier referred to Nellie Melba's long-ago affair with Louis-Phillipe d'Orleans, the son of the Pretender to the French throne. The lovers met in 1890. Melba and the Duc were mad about each other, even though there were many obstacles in their path. The Duc was ten years younger than the 31-year old Melba and engaged to a European aristocrat. Melba was married, but separated from her wild aristocratic husband, Charlie Armstrong. She also had a young son. The Duke was Catholic and Melba was Protestant. Even if Melba divorced, it would be impossible for them to marry.

The lovers rode through the Vienna woods and waltzed to Strauss music. The Duke had followed her to St. Petersburg, Brussels and London where they were glimpsed sharing a box at the Opera. Unfortunately, Melba's teacher's daughter, Blanche, hated her and told a journalist about the affair. The scandal broke and created an uproar. Charlie threatened to sue for divorce and Melba was told that as a divorced woman she would be banned from singing at Covent Garden. Luckily, Charlie was eventually calmed down somehow, and he obtained a quiet divorce from Texas years later.

The Duke went on safari to Africa for a few years after he and Melba separated. He eventually married an Austrian Arch-Duchess, but the marriage was unhappy. He and Melba stayed in contact during the rest of their lives. Although Melba had a few lovers, perhaps including the artist, Rupert Bunny. The Duke was the great love of her life.

What makes a 'classic'? Is it something that is timeless - a book, a work of art, a piece of music - that has eternal appeal because it speaks to the soul? Or is it something that appeals to nostalgia? Or is it something that is decided on the spur of the moment by one critic, or a group of critics according to their view of the world at that time?

For the past several decades, some songs have been viewed as classics and whether it be for the power of the lyrics and music or simple for the era they evoke remains unclear. Some of them are so powerful to me still (Ultravox's fabulous 'Vienna', for example, or Kate Bush's incredible 'Wuthering Heights') even though the lyrics of some of them seem quite senseless to me now and nothing more than a perfect expression of self-indulgent angst. Perhaps there is room for a little angst in all of us and classics allow us that escape.

Literature is the same. Some books (like 'Moby Dick' and most of the works of Jane Austen - which I found terribly tedious) are regarded as 'classics'. Who decided this? Was it some stuffy don who picked his way through the language in much the same way as a butcher picks his way through the carcass of an animal and then decides to describe what kind of animal it is? Was it a general consensus that at one time people decided this or that was good and so everyone (for fear of being out of step) agreed?

Poetry, too. Poetry, which once to me sounded so harmonious like the beautiful music of Beethoven or the brilliant passion of Tchaikovsky, then became labelled as 'obscure' and trivia, or worse, violent nonsense with cacophonous words and lines of expletives replaced what appears to me as beautiful and 'classic'. We live in such a throw away society that it seems we are deprived of creating what is truly classical and instead is replaced by shallow self-seeking in the name of art. Perhaps it was ever thus.

I suppose what it boils down to, is the wonderfully simple quotation from (I think!) Jean Anouilh: "Things are beautiful if you love them."

Perhaps 'classics' are things which raise us to our true nobility and leave us more aware of that dignity than we were before. No one needs to tell us that...we decide for ourselves.