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Love at first sight: Alma's men
Paulus Manker
Alma was able to scrutinize ambition and creativity, and to
pick up geniuses even before the men themselves knew that
they were capable of being a world famous author as Werfel,
for instance, was. Or when she met Gropius he was nothing
at all, and Kokoschka was a wild, furios guy, but not even
accepted by his collegues in Vienna. And Mahler was accepted
and famous as a conductor, and as the director of the Royal
opera house, but not yet as a composer.
Joshua Sobol
When she met Werfel he was an inspiring poet. People like
Karl Kraus believed at that time, that he was going to be
the most important German modern poet. But he was making his
first steps at that time, he was not yet an established author,
not at all. The interesting thing is that Alma probably made
of Werfel an author of novels, and later a playwright, and
a filmscriptwriter. I think that she pushed him in that direction,
because she felt that a novel is going to be or is already
the expression of our time, more than lyric poetry.
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left: Oskar Kokoschka: Alma Mahler
and Oskar Kokoschka (1913)
right: Oskar Kokoschka: The Pure Face (1913) |
It is interesting that Alma fell in love probably on first
sight with people. She didn´t have to make a very long
and deep acquaintance with someone in order to realize that
a person was potentially a great artist like Kokoschka. We
know that there was a meeting between them, and on that evening
when they met, there was the "click", and it happened
between the two of them. And he could not take his eyes of
her, and she already was also fixed on him. And probably the
next day or the next two or three days they were already making
love, and became lovers to one another. It did not take more
than two or three days. It´s obvious that at that moment
she couldn´t resist, although she did not know much
about Kokoschka. But she had this flair, she felt that here
is one of the "monsters". The same thing happened
to her when she saw Gropius probably. Again the feeling that
this is one of the "monsters" of our time, and the
same thing with Werfel. With Mahler it´s obvious. But
he was already established when she met him. So she could
not ignore him.
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Alma and Gustav Mahler stroll
the hills near their summer home in Toblach (1909) |
< Alma's relation to Judaism
> Alma's sacrifice for Mahler
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