Pleasure By Moonlight
We may need a music historian or an opera buff to fully explain the captioning on this one:
The three women masturbating on a moonlit beach (the nearest caption says Clare de Lune which I understand to mean “Light of the Moon”) are, I think, intended to compose a visual pun, with their ample bottoms outshining the moon in the sky. The moon itself is busy dallying with a tree branch; a nice touch, I’d say. But what does all this have to do with the opera Werther by Jules Massenet? One could speculate that there’s a Clare De Lune song in the opera, but the fairly shallow Wikipedia entry wouldn’t confirm any such notion. It remains, at least until my erudite readers chime in, a modest mystery.
In any case, the artwork dates from the 1920s, and is by Leo Berthie.
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There is a Clair de lune in Act II of Werther but it leaves me just as mystified since it a) has nothing to do with the moon (other than in the opera it is normally preformed as a moonlit scene) b) in fact the moon is not mentioned, but the sun and stars are, and c)it is a rather sappy sentimental piece where the only body parts mentioned are Charlotte’s eyes.
In fact the whole opera is so depressing that perhaps someone passed the time sketching some naughty bits on the programme?
Thanks, Peter! Yeah I don’t know that we necessarily will understand *why* somebody felt moved to create this bit of erotic art and tie it to the opera, but your confirmation of “Clair de lune” in the work does seem to connect the dots and tie down the fact *that* they did, for which I thank you.
If the tree is the conductor, then the masturbating women are the orchestra, follow the tree’s directions on how to touch themselves.