Teresa on Broadway

Among the most extraordinary of stories that I have come across in researching the astonishing legacy of St Teresa is that of an opera called Four Saints in Three Acts.  This arose out of Jewish American writer Gertrude Stein’s fondness for Teresa.  Stein (1874-1946) wrote the libretto, and the music was composed by American Virgil Thomson (1896-1989 – from a Protestant family).  It featured St Ignatius alongside St Teresa, but it had no real plot because it was all what we would now call fantasy.  It was first performed in 1934 in Hartford, Connecticut from where it transferred to Broadway, becoming the talk of the town.  The choreography was by a young Sir Frederick Ashton, who went on to become an international legend in his field.  Stein loved visiting churches and shrines with her companion Alice B Toklas (she had become well-known as a writer not long before the opera had been put on through the success of The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas.)  Toklas (1877-1967) became a Catholic after Stein died, and she apparently asked their friend the legendary painter Picasso if he thought Stein would have approved of this.  Picasso’s response was ‘She got there before you’.  He did not mean that Stein had actually converted but that she was a Catholic at heart.  I am certain that this could be said of many down the years who could not bring themselves formally to convert.     

Intercessions:

Brian Davis – cancer

Marie, Bernard (and wife Angela caring for him) - cancer

Siena, Elara – sick children

Wojtek – massive heart attack leaving him incapacitated

David - housebound

Sophia – blind infant

Joy Smith OCDS – seriously ill