Jacqueline du Pré as 'The Cellist' (2020)

Abstract

Few musicians of the twentieth century are as recognisable as Jacqueline du Pré. Her dazzling and distinctive talent, said to have enraptured audiences the world over, was overcome by a tragic diagnosis of MS. This sense of tragedy was all the more heightened by Du Pré’s famed physicality on the stage, leading critics to use all manner of analogies in describing her playing as a physical (and even sexual) experience. Her status as a musical celebrity, further intensified as she became one half of a classical music power couple, has led to numerous dramatic retellings and reimaginings of her biography, played out in film and TV, and now on stage. The most recent example of this fascination with Du Pré is the ballet The Cellist, Cathy Marston’s new work for the Royal Ballet, premiered in February 2020 to much critical acclaim. Its score, composed by Philip Feeney, features a cello soloist and interweaved repertoire extracts that have become so associated with Du Pré. Along with the characters of Barenboim, Du Pré, and her family, her 1673 Stradivarius cello is given a starring role in the form of Marcelino Sambé, a new take that makes this a distinctive contribution to media representations of Du Pré. This article examines the interactions across this complex web of musical representations of musical personae engrained in the cultural consciousness. It considers acts of musical performance, the musical instrument as living companion, and the representation of classical musical culture of the 1960s and 1970s, drawing attention to key features of Du Pré’s narrative re-presented in a new artistic form.