With oppressive candor and eloquence, Alice James, born on August 7, 1848, in New York City as the fifth child of Henry and Mary James, grappled with her own death in her diary. Influenced by the international success of her older brothers—Henry as an author, William as a philosopher and psychologist—Alice was constantly confronted with the limited opportunities for girls and women of her time to develop. In contrast to the broad education her brothers received, she was denied access to an education, in line with her father’s conviction that education could only harm the natural dignity and destiny of women.
From her looming social marginalization in forced uselessness, she developed a death wish. Unable to bring herself to commit suicide, she eked out an existence in a kind of revenant state, always preparing for death.
She began writing her diary in 1889 and continued until two days before her death on March 6, 1892, dictating her final entries to her long-time friend Katherine Peabody Loring, who was caring for her at the time.
Giulia Guarneri-Giovanelli (soprano, director), Emmanuel Michaud (lighting design), Emre Şener (composition), and Stefan Kägi (piano, concept, sound design) developed a scenic-installative song recital based on James’s diary, in which contemporary songs and piano solo works were performed.
“I wonder, whether, if I had had any education, I should have been more, or less, of a fool than I am. It would have deprived me surely of those exquisite moments of mental flatulence which every now and then inflate the cerebral vacuum with a delicious sense of latent possibilities – of stretching oneself to cosmic limits, and who would ever give up the reality of dreams for relative knowledge?”
Alice James
Giulia Guarneri-Giovanelli: vocals, direction
Stefan Kägi: piano, concept, sound design
Dong Zhou: composition
Dahae Boo: composition
Emre Şener: composition
Julia Schwartz: composition
Emmanuel Michaud: lighting, film production
This project was made possible by:
Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich
Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung
Elisabeth Weber-Stiftung