Musician Alison Cotton talks to our Editor-in-Chief, Richard Beck about Engelchen (Little Angels), a multimedia production inspired by the heroic lives of local residents and opera fans in Balham, Ida and Louise Cook, who used their love of music to help 29 Jews escape Nazi Germany.
I don’t think that much has changed with regards to our treatment of refugees as a country
Before we come to Engelchen itself can you say something about your background and how you arrived at the piece?
I’m primarily a viola player and singer but use lots of instruments and sounds in my music (harmonium, percussion, omnichord etc). Having played in numerous bands over the years, I’ve been playing solo since 2018. I’ve released 4 albums in that time, toured throughout the UK & Europe and played some high profile festivals. My music receives regular airplay on BBC Radio 3 and BBC 6 Music.
In 2022, I was one of three participants selected for the Composer Curator programme for Sound and Music to work in Sunderland (where I’m from) on a project. My music until then had nearly all been inspired by landscape, either real or imagined. I wanted to try a new way of working and had heard of Ida & Louise Cook, who were born there. There's a blue plaque at the end of Croft Terrace, Sunderland, where they spent their early years. The more I read about their fascinating story, the more I was inspired for this to be my subject. A year of research, composing music inspired by them and developing an event followed. As refugees are an integral part of their story, I worked with refugees in the local area who were part of the event.
As the event in March 2023 was a great success, I felt I wanted to repeat it in the area where they lived for over 60 years. The poet Hilaire told me about Wandsworth Arts Fringe. I was successful in my application for a grant with Wandsworth Arts Fringe and so it will take place at The Bedford, Balham, not far from Morella Road, their family home.
What do we know about these two ladies?
Ida & Louise were opera fanatics, travelling the world to see opera. They became close friends with their favourite opera stars (the equivalent of A list celebrities at the time). Both were secretaries for the Civil Service then later, Ida became a very successful romantic novelist for Mills & Boon under the pen name Mary Burchell. A long story but it was through travelling to attend the opera in the years leading up to the war that they began to help Jews escape Nazi Germany. First it was people with connections to opera, and then their names became known in Jewish communities and they’d start receiving letters and later, when things became even more desperate for people, telegrams. They’d travel to Germany every Friday night after work to meet and interview people requesting their help. Their friend, the conductor Clemens Kraus, was the head of Munich Opera House at the time and he’d ask them to choose an opera they wanted to see each time they travelled. He’d programme this opera for the date they were in Germany. They’d travel from Croydon Airport after work on a Friday, arrive in Cologne and take a night train to Frankfurt, where they’d spend Saturday interviewing people needing their help. They’d go to the opera in Munich then on Sunday they’d travel back by boat from Holland to Harwich as it was safer to go in one frontier and out the other. Then they’d get a train to London and be in work on Monday morning.
As Jews weren’t allowed to bring money out of Germany, Ida and Louise would bring their valuable belongings over. They’d wear their expensive fur coats (with German labels ripped out) and jewellery and fill their suitcases with it too. These would be sold in England and the money given to the refugees when they arrived.
In her memoir Ida says, “We came into Croydon Airport each Friday evening with practically empty suitcases, shivering in our tweed suits and we went across the Dutch border on Sunday wearing furs, sparkling with jewellery and scarcely able to drag our bags. We were smuggling people's lives”.
They clearly had no idea that their opera travels would lead them into the many refugee journeys they made and the lives they would save. That was not part of a plan they so did they just drift into saving people?
Yes. It was something they drifted into. In 1935 when attending Strauss Opera Week in Amsterdam, their friend the opera singer Viorica Ursuleac introduced them to a lady called Mitia Mayer-Lisman, the official lecturer of the Salzburg Festival and asked Ida and Louise to look after her as she was travelling to London. She said to Mayer-Lisman, “Now you will be alright”. At this time, it was confusing to Ida and Louise, they hadn’t realised she was Jewish and unknowingly, the first refugee had been entrusted into their care. Eventually, their name became known and letters started arriving in droves from people needing their help.
The sisters went on many trips to pursue their love of opera. What names can we put to the celebrities they met?
Their favourite opera singers were Amelita Galli-Curci, Viorica Ursuleac, Rosa Ponselle, Ezio Pinza and Elisabeth Rethberg. They became friends with all of these opera stars when queuing to see the opera and speaking to them as they arrived and left the stage door for rehearsals. They’d take photos of them, which was really uncommon in those days; most people who would meet stars were autograph hunters. They’d arrive as early as 6am during Covent Garden Opera Season to queue for that evening’s performance. After befriending them, they’d end up staying with some of these opera stars, some would even visit their family home in Morella Road, attend parties and they became lifelong friends. It’s incredible, they were the equivalent of “A List celebrities” and Ida and Louise were these very normal and unassuming sisters.
Before and after the war, Ida and Louise hosted “Gramophone Circle Listening Parties” for their fellow opera enthusiast friends who they’d met in the queue at Covent Garden to listen to latest releases. They were all known as “gallerites” as they’d queue for seats in the gallery each night. Shortly after the war when these parties reconvened, Ida managed to get Rosa Ponselle to sing down the phone to them on the anniversary of her London debut. It’s a beautiful moment in Ida’s memoir as none of them had heard any live opera for so long and it had been such an important part of their lives.
You’ve created a multimedia presentation around the performance of Engelchen. What inspired that additional material and what are the elements you’ve incorporated to turn it into an event?
For the original project I carried out for Sound and Music, the object was to compose some music through research and curate my own event where I’d perform these compositions. However, the event just kept growing, really! Throughout my research, I was introduced to Professor Angela Smith of Sunderland University who was knowledgeable about the sisters. It was amazing to meet someone who knew about them and I really enjoyed discussing their lives with her. So, she agreed to do a talk about them at my event and I’m very pleased that she will be talking at the Balham event too. One day, when I was searching about Ida and Louise online I came across a poem by the poet Hilaire about the sisters, The Cook Sisters Contemplate A Final Journey to Nazi Germany which was from London Undercurrents, a joint poetry project with Joolz Sparkes. I managed to contact Hilaire and asked about the poem and I thought it would be lovely to have a poetry reading at the event too. I’m so pleased she and Joolz are going to read it at this event.
I’ve also included music from Ida and Louise’s favourite opera singers which will be played as the audience arrives, leaves and during the interval. Alluding to their gramophone circle parties, a gramophone is on stage under a spotlight. Also, with reference to the importance of letters in Ida and Louise’s story, and inspired by their incredible acts of kindness, blank sheets of paper and envelopes will be in the venue and I invite the audience to write a note or letter to themselves or to someone else with a promise.
Engelchen also contains contributions from current refugees in the country. Can you explain your thinking behind that element of the production?
Refugees are an integral part of this story and so I really wanted to work with some refugees and asylum seekes of today and in both venues the have been drawn from Somalia, Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia. For the Sunderland performance I worked with North East Rise and with CARAS in Wandsworth for the London event. One of their leaders thee asked the group if anyone would be interested in a writing and public speaking project. We hear so much in the media about refugees but so rarely hear from them themselves, in their own words so, in my own small way, I wanted to give them a voice. As letters are integral to Ida and Louise’s story, this has been done through them writing letters to loved ones that have turned out to be beautiful and heartfelt.
Do you think there are parallels to be drawn between the refugees at the time of the sisters and now? Is there a message for today?
I think there are huge parallels between then and now. I often think this story of Ida and Louise wouldn’t have had to exist, that they wouldn’t have had to risk their lives if it had been easier for Jews to enter the UK to find safety. At that time, a child could be brought over if a British citizen would adopt them to the age of 18. Women could sometimes come on domestic permits, but only if the job had been advertised and not already taken by someone from the UK. Men between the ages of 18-60 could only come if they could prove that they were eventually going on to another country (usually in the queue for America) and they had to have a guarantor to assume full financial responsibility for them. The help Jews received mainly relied on the kindness and generosity of individuals.
The government used so many bureaucratic barriers and unclear information to try to prevent their arrival, while newspapers created fear and resentment amongst the public, reporting that jobs would be taken etc. Very sadly, I don’t think that much has changed since then with regards to our treatment of refugees as a country.
This is only the second peformance of Engelchen What reactions have you had to it?
The feedback has been very positive in terms of the story and incorporating the current refugee situation into it. It's been referred to is as a "thought-provoking and powerful event" and "a deeply affecting and emotional experience". One person said, “Engelchen was challenging but not alienating", and a comment on the music said it was "hauntingly beautiful". The brilliant musician Chloe Herington will be accompanying me at this event. I've also recorded an album of the music inspired by the sisters. I’ve been touring that since March of this year.
