Monday, October 18, 2021

THE RITA - The Princesses CD Reissue


Princess Aurora

“But the innocent impetuous girl is so charmed by the spindle that she cannot cease to play with it.  Suddenly, she pricks her finger.  Instantly, she falls to the ground.”
The king and queen rush to her... The princess herself has no idea of what has happened.  She stirs, looks into her father’s disturbed face, and shakes her head slowly, as if to say, “Don’t worry, nothing is wrong.”  Similarly she comforts her distraught mother.  To prove that everything is all right, the anxious girl rises and begins to dance again, and there is a clap of thunder.  The princess falls into her father’s arms... The princess seems to die.” - George Balanchine 

“Seizing the spindle, Aurora wields it like a scepter as she dances.  But then she pricks her finger and, in a passage reminiscent of the mad scene in Giselle (as well as Nikia’s death scene in Petipa’s La Bayadere [1877]), she dances brokenly and finally falls down, unconscious.”  - Sally Banes

Princesse de Lamballe 
“One of her murderers, brought, long years after, to some tardy justice, described her as ‘a little lady dressed in white’ - a haunting phrase - standing alone a moment above the carnage:  then, as she was dragged into the centre of the courtyard, a man struck her with his pike, thrusting it through that crowning glory of her beauty, her fair and abundant hair... At sight of it, like wild beasts mad for slaughter, all rushed and flung themselves upon her; she was thrown upon the heap of corpses by the gate, stabbed through and through, her head cut off, every scrap of clothing torn from her, exposed, ‘naked and beautiful, as god made her,’ says a French writer, her heart wrenched out, and mutilations horrible and inhuman inflicted upon her body...
Her head was carried in triumph through Paris on a pike, her heart upon another, her body dragged after: dancing crowds, shrieking ‘La Lamballe! La Lamballe!’ surrounded it... 
The shop of a famous perruquier was passed, one who had often coiffed the Princesse in happier days, and some fiends in the mob shouted that he should dress the head again, and rouge the dead lips and cheeks, for they would carry the prize to Antoinette in her prison, and it was necessary she should recognize her friend.” - B.C. Hardy 

All source sounds - a woman’s body dragged on a tile floor with the participation of Gabrielle Losoncy. 
All analog electronic processing by THE RITA 
8 Panel Digipak CD reissue of the cassette originally released by Petite Soles.
The CD and more are available in the 'Merchandise' section.