Marianne Oswald
Encyclopedia
Marianne Oswald was the stage name of Sarah Alice Bloch, a French singer and actress born in Sarreguemines
in Alsace-Lorraine
. She took this stage name from a character she much admired, the unhappy Oswald in the Ibsen play Ghosts
. She was noted for her hoarse voice, heavy half-Lorraine, half-German accent, and for singing about unrequited love, despair, sadness, and death. She sang the songs of Kurt Weill
and Bertolt Brecht
. She was friends with Jean Cocteau
, Jacques Prévert
, François Mauriac
, and Albert Camus
. In fact, the text for one of her album covers was written by Camus.She was an inspiration for the composers Francis Poulenc
and Arthur Honegger
In 1931, with the rise of the Nazi party, and the threat it posed—Oswald was after all Jewish—she was forced her to emigrate to Paris where she forged a unique new style of French singing incorporating the techniques of German expressionism. She sang at the cabaret Le Boeuf sur le Toit
(the ox on the roof), a tavern which had long welcomed the songs of the French avant-garde. She was one of the first to interpret The Threepenny Opera
by Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill, with lyrics adapted into French by André Mauprey, for instance singing The Complainte de Mackie (a song English speakers know as Mack the Knife
) and Pirate Jenny
.
It was said that she had no voice, that she had an accent you could cut with a knife, that she was too skinny, that she was not beautiful, that her voice—by turns raw and tender—was bizarre and even shocking. It was all true. Moreover she sang about depressing subjects—unrequited love, despair, death, and even suicide. And yet, her red hair, her intensity, and the uniqueness of her singing with its peculiar diction and spoken-sung style—in those days an innovation—earned her the nickname "magnifique de Marianne la Rouge" (the magnificent redheaded Marianne). Many years later, the French singer Barbara records in her memoirs her amazement when a friend introduced her to this artist "fierce, modern, desperate, staggering".
In June of 1932 she made her first two recordings—with the recording company Salabert: En m'en foutant (In did not care) and Pour m'avoir dit je t'aime (I love you for telling me). She attracted the attention of Jean Bérard, president of Columbia Records
France, and this led to her recording two songs written by Jean Tranchant, La Complainte de Kesoubah and Le Grand Étang. (Tranchant would later write the songs Appel and Sans repentir especially for her.) Then in 1934 Jean Cocteau wrote for her Anna la bonne, a "spoken song" inspired by the sensationala news story of the Papin sisters, two servants, who in 1933 senselessly massacred their employers, mother and daughter. Anna la bonne would later be the basis for a 1959 short film of the same name starring Oswald and directed by Claude Jutra
. In March of 1934 she recorded Le Jeu de massacre, with lyrics by Henri-Georges Clouzot
and music by Maurice Yvain. In 1936 she recorded another Cocteau composition, La Dame de Monte-Carlo.
In 1934, when Oswald sang Jean Tranchant's composition appel (the summons), with its pacifist theme, she was booed off the stage by anti-semites in the audience. The poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert immediately came to her defense, and this encounter was the beginning of a long and fertile collaboration between the poet and the singer.
Later in the summer of 1934, another shocking news story captured the attention of Jacques Prévert. Thirty children had escaped from a prison in Belle-Ile-en-Mer where they had been tormented by sadistic guards. A reward of twenty francs per child was offered to help recapture the miscreants, and ordinary citizens actually joined in the hunt! Prévert responded by writing a poem, La chasse à l'enfant (The hunt for the child), which was set to music by Joseph Kosma
, and recorded by Marianne Oswald in October of 1936. Prévert also intended to make the story into a movie, but this never came to pass.
In 1935 Oswald married a Monsieur Colin, a Catholic-born Frenchman. But their union did not survive the war and the racist laws characteristic of the period.
In December 1937, the exclusive contract with Columbia ended with Oswald recording one final song written by Prévert and Kosma, The sounds of the night.
Until 1939 Marianne Oswald could be heard at the Le Boeuf sur le Toit, at the Alcazar
, at Théâtre des Deux Ânes, and at Bobino
. In 1939, she went into exile in the United States where she performed in nightclubs and on radio, and was sponsored by men such as Malcolm Cowley
, John Erskine
, and Langston Hughes
. While in the United States, she published a memoir in English, One small voice, in 1945. Altogether, she remained in America for almost seven years.
In 1946 she returned to France. During her six years of exile in America, the taste of the Parisian audience had changed. Marianne Oswald's outré style was no longer welcome in the cabarets. She turned to radio and was the subject of a series of programs presented by Cocteau, Camus, Seghers
, Ribemont-Dessaignes
, Gaston Bonheur, and television producer/director Jean Nohain. Titled The Return of Marianne Oswald, she sang and recited the works of Apollinaire
, Paul Éluard
, and, of course, Prévert.
In 1948 she published an expanded version of her memoirs in French under the title Je n'ai pas appris a` vivre (I have not learned to live), with a preface by Jacques Prevert.
In 1938 Marianne Oswald began her acting career with Le petit chose (The Little Thing) directed by Maurice Cloche
. Altogether she appeared in seven films between 1938 and 1958. She was especially noted for her performance in the 1949 film Les amants de Vérone
(The Lovers of Verona), directed by André Cayatte
and written by Cayatte and Jacques Prévert. She was a sometimes screenwriter, writing the screenplay for La première nuit in 1958, and a television short, Bouquet de femmes in 1960. Working with Remo Forlani, she also produced television programs for children, in particular, Terre des Enfants (Children of Earth)
For over thirty years Marianne Oswald lived in a room at the famous Hôtel Lutetia
on the Left Bank in Paris, a hotel which ironically had served as the headquarters of the Gestapo during the war. When she died in 1985 at the age of 84, at the hospital in Limeil-Brevannes
in the Val-de-Marne
, few people attended the funeral. Six years later, in June 1991, her remains were returned to her hometown of Sarreguemines. A plaque with her name was affixed to the corner of Church Street and Rue de Verdun, at the very spot occupied by the building in which she had been born, and which had been destroyed during the war.
Sarreguemines
Sarreguemines is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.It is the seat of an arrondissement.-Geography:...
in Alsace-Lorraine
Alsace-Lorraine
The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...
. She took this stage name from a character she much admired, the unhappy Oswald in the Ibsen play Ghosts
Ghosts (play)
Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882.Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th century morality....
. She was noted for her hoarse voice, heavy half-Lorraine, half-German accent, and for singing about unrequited love, despair, sadness, and death. She sang the songs of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
and Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
. She was friends with Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert
Jacques Prévert was a French poet and screenwriter. His poems became and remain very popular in the French-speaking world, particularly in schools. Some of the movies he wrote are extremely well regarded, with Les Enfants du Paradis considered one of the greatest films of all time.-Life and...
, François Mauriac
François Mauriac
François Mauriac was a French author; member of the Académie française ; laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature . He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur .-Biography:...
, and Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
. In fact, the text for one of her album covers was written by Camus.She was an inspiration for the composers Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
and Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger
Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...
Biography
Marianne Oswald's parents were Jewish immigrants, exiles from Poland. Both parents died young and she became an orphan in 1917 at the age of 16. Initially she was sent to a boarding school in Munich, but by 1920 she found her way to Berlin where she began singing in the thriving cabarets of the period. During this time, an operation to remove a goiter—she called it "having my throat cut"—left her with a permanent hoarse voice which would have a major, and not entirely negative, effect on her singing career.In 1931, with the rise of the Nazi party, and the threat it posed—Oswald was after all Jewish—she was forced her to emigrate to Paris where she forged a unique new style of French singing incorporating the techniques of German expressionism. She sang at the cabaret Le Boeuf sur le Toit
Le Boeuf sur le Toit (cabaret)
Le Boeuf sur le Toit is the name of a celebrated Parisian cabaret-bar in Paris, founded in 1921 by Louis Moysés which was originally located at 28, rue Boissy d'Anglas in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It was notably the gathering place for the avant garde arts scene during the period between...
(the ox on the roof), a tavern which had long welcomed the songs of the French avant-garde. She was one of the first to interpret The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
by Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill, with lyrics adapted into French by André Mauprey, for instance singing The Complainte de Mackie (a song English speakers know as Mack the Knife
Mack the Knife
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the...
) and Pirate Jenny
Pirate Jenny
"Pirate Jenny" is a well-known song from The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht. The English lyrics are by Marc Blitzstein...
.
It was said that she had no voice, that she had an accent you could cut with a knife, that she was too skinny, that she was not beautiful, that her voice—by turns raw and tender—was bizarre and even shocking. It was all true. Moreover she sang about depressing subjects—unrequited love, despair, death, and even suicide. And yet, her red hair, her intensity, and the uniqueness of her singing with its peculiar diction and spoken-sung style—in those days an innovation—earned her the nickname "magnifique de Marianne la Rouge" (the magnificent redheaded Marianne). Many years later, the French singer Barbara records in her memoirs her amazement when a friend introduced her to this artist "fierce, modern, desperate, staggering".
In June of 1932 she made her first two recordings—with the recording company Salabert: En m'en foutant (In did not care) and Pour m'avoir dit je t'aime (I love you for telling me). She attracted the attention of Jean Bérard, president of Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
France, and this led to her recording two songs written by Jean Tranchant, La Complainte de Kesoubah and Le Grand Étang. (Tranchant would later write the songs Appel and Sans repentir especially for her.) Then in 1934 Jean Cocteau wrote for her Anna la bonne, a "spoken song" inspired by the sensationala news story of the Papin sisters, two servants, who in 1933 senselessly massacred their employers, mother and daughter. Anna la bonne would later be the basis for a 1959 short film of the same name starring Oswald and directed by Claude Jutra
Claude Jutra
Claude Jutra was a Canadian actor, film director and writer. The Prix Jutra are named in his honor because of his importance in Quebec cinema history. He was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec....
. In March of 1934 she recorded Le Jeu de massacre, with lyrics by Henri-Georges Clouzot
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Henri-Georges Clouzot was a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, having directed The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques, which are critically recognized to be among the greatest films from the 1950s...
and music by Maurice Yvain. In 1936 she recorded another Cocteau composition, La Dame de Monte-Carlo.
In 1934, when Oswald sang Jean Tranchant's composition appel (the summons), with its pacifist theme, she was booed off the stage by anti-semites in the audience. The poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert immediately came to her defense, and this encounter was the beginning of a long and fertile collaboration between the poet and the singer.
Later in the summer of 1934, another shocking news story captured the attention of Jacques Prévert. Thirty children had escaped from a prison in Belle-Ile-en-Mer where they had been tormented by sadistic guards. A reward of twenty francs per child was offered to help recapture the miscreants, and ordinary citizens actually joined in the hunt! Prévert responded by writing a poem, La chasse à l'enfant (The hunt for the child), which was set to music by Joseph Kosma
Joseph Kosma
Joseph Kosma was a Hungarian-French composer, of Jewish background.-Biography:Kosma was born József Kozma in Budapest, where his parents taught stenography and typing. He had a brother, Akos. A maternal relative was the photographer László Moholy-Nagy, and another relative was the conductor Georg...
, and recorded by Marianne Oswald in October of 1936. Prévert also intended to make the story into a movie, but this never came to pass.
In 1935 Oswald married a Monsieur Colin, a Catholic-born Frenchman. But their union did not survive the war and the racist laws characteristic of the period.
In December 1937, the exclusive contract with Columbia ended with Oswald recording one final song written by Prévert and Kosma, The sounds of the night.
Until 1939 Marianne Oswald could be heard at the Le Boeuf sur le Toit, at the Alcazar
Alcazar (Paris)
The Alcazar was a Café-concert which opened in 1858, located at 10 Rue du Faubourg Poissonière in Paris, and closed in 1902....
, at Théâtre des Deux Ânes, and at Bobino
Bobino
Bobino at 20 rue de la Gaîté, in the Montparnasse area of Paris , France, is a music hall theatre that has seen most of the biggest names of 20th century French music perform there....
. In 1939, she went into exile in the United States where she performed in nightclubs and on radio, and was sponsored by men such as Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley
Malcolm Cowley was an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and journalist.-Early life:...
, John Erskine
John Erskine (educator)
John Erskine was a U.S. educator and author, born in New York City and raised in Weehawken, New Jersey. He graduated from Columbia University ....
, and Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
. While in the United States, she published a memoir in English, One small voice, in 1945. Altogether, she remained in America for almost seven years.
In 1946 she returned to France. During her six years of exile in America, the taste of the Parisian audience had changed. Marianne Oswald's outré style was no longer welcome in the cabarets. She turned to radio and was the subject of a series of programs presented by Cocteau, Camus, Seghers
Pierre Seghers
Pierre Seghers was a French poet and editor. During the Second World War he took part in the French Resistance movement....
, Ribemont-Dessaignes
Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes
Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes was a French writer and artist associated with the Dada movement. He was born in Montpellier....
, Gaston Bonheur, and television producer/director Jean Nohain. Titled The Return of Marianne Oswald, she sang and recited the works of Apollinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire
Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
, Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
, and, of course, Prévert.
In 1948 she published an expanded version of her memoirs in French under the title Je n'ai pas appris a` vivre (I have not learned to live), with a preface by Jacques Prevert.
In 1938 Marianne Oswald began her acting career with Le petit chose (The Little Thing) directed by Maurice Cloche
Maurice Cloche
Maurice Cloche was a French film director, screenwriter and film producer. His movie Monsieur Vincent won a 1948 Special Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-External links:...
. Altogether she appeared in seven films between 1938 and 1958. She was especially noted for her performance in the 1949 film Les amants de Vérone
Les amants de Vérone
Les amants de Vérone is a 1949 French film directed by André Cayatte and loosely based on the William Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet. The film was a joint project of...
(The Lovers of Verona), directed by André Cayatte
André Cayatte
André Cayatte was a French New Wave filmmaker and lawyer, who became known for his films centering on themes of crime, justice, and moral responsibility, themes which Cayatte persisted in affirming regardless of changing contemporary attitudes.Some of Cayatte's earlier films that covered these...
and written by Cayatte and Jacques Prévert. She was a sometimes screenwriter, writing the screenplay for La première nuit in 1958, and a television short, Bouquet de femmes in 1960. Working with Remo Forlani, she also produced television programs for children, in particular, Terre des Enfants (Children of Earth)
For over thirty years Marianne Oswald lived in a room at the famous Hôtel Lutetia
Hôtel Lutetia
The Hôtel Lutetia, located at 45 Boulevard Raspail, in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area of the 6th Arrondissement of Paris, is one of the best-known hotels on the Left Bank...
on the Left Bank in Paris, a hotel which ironically had served as the headquarters of the Gestapo during the war. When she died in 1985 at the age of 84, at the hospital in Limeil-Brevannes
Limeil-Brévannes
Limeil-Brévannes is a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Transport:Limeil-Brévannes is served by no station of the Paris Métro, RER, or suburban rail network. The closest station to Limeil-Brévannes is Boissy-Saint-Léger station on Paris...
in the Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne is a French department, named after the Marne River, located in the Île-de-France region. The department is situated to the southeast of the city of Paris.- Geography :...
, few people attended the funeral. Six years later, in June 1991, her remains were returned to her hometown of Sarreguemines. A plaque with her name was affixed to the corner of Church Street and Rue de Verdun, at the very spot occupied by the building in which she had been born, and which had been destroyed during the war.
Tributes
- She sings neither well nor ill. Let specialists define her talent. The important thing is that she sings as a torch burns. She is alternately the geranium of the suburbs, the scar of crime, the lantern of the brothel and the whistle of the police. —Jean Cocteau
- She sings of reality, however it goes beyond reality, she does not pretend to translate, she torments the human soul, and it cuts like a knife. (Elle chante des chansons réalistes, cependant elle dépasse le réalisme, elle ne fait pas semblant, elle transpose, elle taraude l'âme humaine, elle dessine au burin.) —Louis Leon Martin
- I suppose that it is this mighty crimson fire, this flare, this lighthouse, a beacon which infuses this ember fury, this dispenser of acetylene gas and magnesium flame, which explains the effectiveness of this singer, this mime that repels many, but who is nonetheless much needed. (Je suppose que c'est cette puissance rouge d'incendie, de mégot, de torche, de phare, de fanal, qui l'habite, cet acharnement de braise, cette haleur de gaz d'acétylène, de magnésium et de lampe à souder, qui forment l'efficacité de cette chanteuse, de cette mime que bien des esprits repoussent, mais qui s'impose malgré tout.) —Jean Cocteau
Filmography
- 1958: Les Amants de MontparnasseLes Amants de MontparnasseThe Lovers of Montparnasse , also known as Montparnasse 19, is a 1958 French-Italian drama film chronicling the last year of the life of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani who worked and died in abject poverty in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France.It was originally directed by Max Ophüls,...
(directed by Jacques BeckerJacques BeckerJacques Becker was a French screenwriter and film director.Becker was born in Paris, in an upper class background. During the 1930s he worked as an assistant to director Jean Renoir during his peak period, which produced such cinematic masterpieces as Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game...
& Max OphülsMax OphülsMaximillian Oppenheimer — known as Max Ophüls — was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany , France , the United States , and France again...
) - 1956: The Hunchback of Notre DameThe Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956 film)The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1956 French film version of Victor Hugo's novel of the same name, directed by Jean Delannoy and produced by Raymond Hakim and Robert Hakim. The film is the first version of the novel to be made in color.It stars Mexican actor Anthony Quinn as Quasimodo and Gina...
(directed by Jean DelannoyJean DelannoyJean Delannoy was a French actor, film editor, screenwriter and film director.Although Delannoy was born in a Paris suburb, his family is from Haute-Normandie in the north of France...
) - 1958 The Adventures of Remi (directed by André MichelAndré MichelAndré Michel was a French film director and screenwriter. He directed 15 films between 1947 and 1983. He is the father of novelist Natacha Michel who is also a political activist and militant...
)---Mrs. Emily Driscoll - 1958 Anna la bonne (short) (directed by Harry Kümel) ---Anna
- 1953 Le guérisseur (directed by Yves CiampiYves CiampiYves Ciampi was a French director, born 1921, died 1982. He was married to Japanese actress Kishi Keiko from 1957 to 1975.-Filmography:*1950 : Suzanne et les brigands*1950 : Un certain monsieur*1951 : Un grand patron...
) ---La guérisseuse Lucie - 1949 Les amants de Vérone (directed by André CayatteAndré CayatteAndré Cayatte was a French New Wave filmmaker and lawyer, who became known for his films centering on themes of crime, justice, and moral responsibility, themes which Cayatte persisted in affirming regardless of changing contemporary attitudes.Some of Cayatte's earlier films that covered these...
) ---Laetitia - 1938 The Little Thing (directed by Maurice ClocheMaurice ClocheMaurice Cloche was a French film director, screenwriter and film producer. His movie Monsieur Vincent won a 1948 Special Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-External links:...
) ---La camarade
Discography
- L’Art de Marianne Oswald [1932-1937], EPM 982272 (1991)
- Kurt Weill in Paris, Assai, 2000