So I found this score in the JAM Project loot, it’s 23 pages long and, obviously, it’s what we know as “Czaritza” from Maytime. As with most of Jeanette’s personal music, it’s stamped with her blue name stamp, but unlike other pieces we have, this one doesn’t have any of her “work” on the inside. No writing, no breath marks, no evidence of being worked over with Grace, so I’m assuming this was a backup copy. Nevertheless, a cool find.
In reading the score, I have learned more about the Czaritza opera story itself (particularly apt in some of the art-imitating-life stuff that seemed to be a running theme with Maytime), which I think you will find interesting:
The Czarina is newly widowed. The Czar was murdered, and she’s being given a hard time because she isn’t sorry that he is dead. He was an evil, cruel man, a terrible ruler and she didn’t love him. This is part of the beginning, sung by her: “No shadow in my heart enshrouds the lordly but unloved departed one, God forgive me! Dead! May the thief who stole his life ever live! Oh, wicked wife, have you no sorrow? How black of soul you are. Your love betrays your Czar!”
So they caught the guy who killed the Czar and they bring him on in. Turns out it’s Petroff, with whom our sinful Czarina has been having a big fat steamy love affair (Welp. Hot Petroffs are hot, leave her alone.). She pleads with him to lie and say he didn’t do it. He argues that he did it to set Russia free from his tyranny…and also a little bit for Mr. Czar’s hot wife. He’s at peace about the whole thing “I lose but a life, and a nation is free”, the worst part is leaving Hotpants Czarina. She wishes she was going to be the one to die. She then tells everybody to get out, she wants a word with him. The Captain protests, “Your Majesty!”
Queenie gets real tall and corrects him: “Your Czar!” (That’s one of my favorite moments in the whole thing, not that anyone asked.)
So the minions beat it and we get to the duet and they sing powerful, powerful stuff:
How memory clings, my beloved, to dreams of yore
O, pitiless fate that our meeting means parting at death’s very door
There is no parting!
There is no ending!
Your heart is blended with mine
What fear you, I shall be near you, ever attending
Oh, beloved, my heart will not fail
There is no lasting farewell
Ever these vows shall prevail
Whether in Heaven or Hell
I love you
*Heart! Beat with joy, for ecstasy is yours
Love alone endures
Love alone is yours, and it’s mine
Love is mine, O love is mine forever
O Soul! Soul! Sing a new refrain!
Dear one, oh! Hold me close
Beloved, Beloved!
Two wildly beating hearts are one
And now death [Petroff sings ‘Give me death’]
Do what you will!
Our love will live beyond the deepest grave
We face you bravely
O Father of us all, His/My time has come, dear God!
Petroff: God be with you, Heaven keep my dearest one from harm and care
Czarina: Heaven rest the soul of my beloved one, Lord, hear the pray’r of my heart
Lord, hear my pray’r
Petroff: Dear one, I go to die, God be with you
Both: Love, goodbye
Anyone else around here completely cooked? Holy mackerel. Seems legit that he’d actually shed tears while singing this with his complicated lady love who is resolutely going to marry somebody else because she’s convinced that there are too many problems with the two of them, no matter how crazy they are about each other. The situation was just so hopeless. I mean, I get why she didn’t marry him then. I really do. I wouldn’t have married him either, in the thirties. But gosh, it’s just all so heartbreaking. And by the time he’d become marriage material, it was too late and too hopelessly muddled for all concerned and yeah, there were great moments, but the whole thing ended in devastation for everyone.
*screenshot of Nelson’s tear obtained by Kitty.
The infinite rightness of those two gorgeous beings in each other’s arms is just kiiiiiinda staggering. Look at ’em.
Oh! And here’s a bonus!Mac. Being really, really extra cute on the set. This photo is from her personal collection and was tucked into one of her embossed still boxes. ❤
She’s just sittin’ there on the floor in her Czarina suit hopin’ something happens soon.
The Case for Jeanette and Nelson 