Beginning in Paris with Jacques Offenbach & in Vienna with Johann Strauss, the operetta waltzed and can-canned its way across Europe. In the same era, America stumbled upon a musical theatre of its own. The Black Crook (1866) had little plot, crappy songs & lots of spectacle. There had been American musicals before this show, but this was the first to be a great big SRO hit. It spawned 100s of musical spectaculars with fantasy themes, known as extravaganzas. American audiences made these early musicals a thriving part of what was then referred to as "the show business." The Musical Comedy Queen was born, & meanwhile, in Europe:
In 1839, German born- Karl Heinrich Ulrichs & his riding teacher began a sexual affair when Ulrichs was a youth. As a lawyer, he seemed restless, often moonlighting as a freelance writer. As a closet gay, he risked financial ruin in engaging in a relationship with a soldier, & several other men. When he was 34 Ulrichs lost his government job for being gay, & he began publishing pamphlets explaining & defending love between men. When he had just turned 42 years old, he addressed the German congress, coming out publicly & demanding they repeal their anti-gay laws. He was shouted down before he could finish his speech. His books were banned, but he continued writing about homosexuality (a term that he was the 1st to use) for the rest of his life. 100 years before Stonewall, his book- Araxes, would put forth the modern arguments for gay rights. In 1879, he published- Research on the Riddle of Man-Manly Love. In bad health & feeling he had done all he could in Germany, he went Italy, where he settled in L'Aquila, where his health improved.
Ulrichs continued to write prolifically & publish his works (in German and Latin) at his own expense. In 1895, he received an honorary diploma from the University of Naples. Shortly after he died in L'Aquila, where he had lived as the guest of a local landowner, Marquis Niccolò Persichetti, who gave the eulogy at his funeral.
Forgotten for many years, Ulrichs is now a cult figure in Europe. There are streets named for him in Munich, Bremen & Hanover. His birthday is marked every year by with a street party & poetry reading at Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz in Munich. The city of L'Aquila has restored his grave & hosts the annual pilgrimage to the cemetery.
Ulrichs: "Until my dying day I will look back with pride that I found the courage to come face to face in battle against the spectre which for time immemorial has been injecting poison into me and into men of my nature. Many have been driven to suicide because all their happiness in life was tainted. Indeed, I am proud that I found the courage to deal the initial blow to the hydra of public contempt."
I like to think that this most important of gay rights pioneers would have named CATS- now & forever, as his favorite show.
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