A queer play on Imogen Holst

The Swedes are outing one of Benjamin Britten’s closest allies.

Press release:

“The Secret Life of Imogen Holst” – a play about the life and music of the British composer gets world premiere in Sweden in the 40th anniversary year of her death.

The concert theatre piece “The Secret Life of Imogen Holst” tells the story of the brilliant yet neglected composer, conductor and writer, inspired by Holst’s own words, with her own music.

Swedish playwright and music journalist Hanna Höglund has been digging deep into Holst’s personal files, manuscripts and scrap books from the 1920s and onwards while researching for the play: ‘There is a certain glint in people’s eyes when they talk about Imogen, as I was to discover on my first visit to Aldeburgh in 2013. It was here, on the Suffolk coast, where she lived a large part of her life and created a professional, and queer, sanctuary for herself, that I had the pleasure of meeting several who had known her personally. I immediately felt a deep connection and the stories I heard – from musicians such as Steven Isserlis and composer Colin Matthews – became the starting point for several years of research which have resulted in “The Secret Life of Imogen Holst”.’

Actress and dancer Sofia Södergård will portray the intellectual side of Imogen Holst, the professional woman who loves both women and men, but most of all music. An immensely talented composer, conductor, writer and dancer – a woman in a man’s world – struggling until late in life with the feeling of not being good enough. With the strong urge to not take centre stage, to be “discreet”.

Violinist and cellist Malin Broman will portray the purely musical side of Imogen through Holst’s solo work for cello “The fall of the leaf”. She will also lead Musica Vitae, one of Sweden’s most prominent chamber orchestras, in Holst’s chamber music for strings.

Colin Matthews: “I worked with Imogen Holst from 1972 until her death in 1984. Our focus was on her father’s music, and it was never easy to get her to talk about her own music, about which she was often dismissive. I was very happy when she accepted a commission for a String Quintet in 1982, and even happier that Faber Music agreed to publish it – ‘I feel like a real composer’, she said in reaction. But she was a real composer, and her list of works is long and varied.”

“The Secret Life of Imogen Holst” will be premiered on 22 March at Nygatan 6, Växjö, Sweden and will then go on tour to Helsingborgs Konserthus (23 March) and to Kulturkvarteret Kristianstad (24 March). The performance lasts approximately 75 minutes with no interval.

 
photo: BP Arts/Photographer unknown, 1954