Five-plus years ago I used to portray Mozart on a website I designed to provide an educational service for students. It got very popular and ran for about three years. My idea was that young people could learn about Mozart, not only via the material I provided (bio, pictures, all that), but also by conversing with him through email and a personal message board. It was very rewarding and I received tons of letters from students all over the world, asking Mozart sometimes funny, sometimes difficult questions. Some of the writers were young prodigies who simply needed a little emotional support from the ultimate child prodigy. Naturally, I kept my true identity hidden, not because I had anything to hide, but for the sake of those young people’s fantasy of actually communicating with the composer. Of course, they knew it wasn’t Mozart; it was a Santa Claus kind of thing. Everyone had a lot of fun.
Not long after I set up the message board it was visited by a group of women who at first pretended they didn’t know each other. One of them (I’ll refer to her as Sister Agnes of God) was the author of a new book on Mozart’s wife and she wasted no time in using my forum to promote herself. I didn’t have a problem with that, and we began what I thought was a growing online acquaintance. We even wrote to each other privately and she sent me a copy of her book in the mail.
It was about that time that one of the other women (one who pretended with her to be strangers meeting for the first time on my board when they’d actually known each other for a while) asked if she could read my manuscript, and I said sure. (I’ll refer to her as Sister Innocenza.) We’d been writing to each other for a while and were pretty good online friends. Remember that all this time I kept my true identity a secret, but I did use a male pen name with the adults with whom I’d developed a correspondence and who wanted to know who was behind the Mozart mask. I wasn’t ready to let them completely into my private life. Most people on the Web don’t. I was also trying to get my book published; my decision to use a male nom de plume was because in the Mozart world there is a great deal of misogynistic snobbery, and how could I possibly write Mozart’s memoirs? What could I know about Mozart as a man?
It turned out that this little clique had a different idea about the Mozart marriage than I did. So what? I didn’t care, but they obviously did. A lot. When Sister Innocenza read my book, she took it so personally that she told Sister Agnes of God about it, who in turn sent her copy back to me unopened and unread. I didn’t understand. These women then did everything in their power to discredit me, not only by bad-mouthing me privately to some of the young people who frequented my forum, but in other Mozart forums as well. And why? Because my opinion of Constanze Mozart was different than theirs.
Privately, I began to call this hen house “The Sisters of St. Constanze” because their vehemence about such a small matter bordered on fanaticism, and their devotion to Frau Mozart was worthy of a cult. Some of the things that were said about, and to, me were downright malicious. In an email to a mutual “friend” Sister Agnes of God called me, a “monster” and a “perverter of innocent youth.” WHAT? Why? Because of the conclusions I came to after years of research? It’s not like I wrote that Mozart and his wife ran a brothel, or an opium den, or were pedophiles, or into child slavery, or anything like that. All I wrote was that, as a man of his times, Mozart enjoyed a few extra-martial romps. For crap sake, his own wife said so in interviews after his death. Besides that, what’s it to these people? The man’s been dead for over two-hundred years.
This little cult very quickly ran the educators and their students off of my site. Some of the students were befriended by these women so that they could turn them against me by filling their ears with all kinds of nasty lies. It hurt. It hurt a lot. It broke my heart, to be truthful, and I closed the site down. And who really paid the price? Those kids who were having a good time.
The Scheisse really hit the fan, however, when I decided to drop the male pen name and pursue the publishing of my book using my own name. Now I really was a perv in their estimation. “Oh my god! Steph and Lynette are… are…” The Sisters of St. Constanze never forgave me for that. I mean, what does it mean when you find out you’ve had a crush on someone of the same gender and you couldn’t tell? Especially if you’re a conservative Christian, which they both are. It means I was a bloody good actor and that my Mozart was flawless, thank you!
Fast-forward. About a month ago Lynette joined a discussion forum where “The Sisters” dominate the members with the same old crap. If anyone disagrees with them about St. Constanze, they lash out with nostrils flaring and spittle flying. I don’t go there. I never want to see those crazy women ever again. They brought me too many nightmares that recalled the movie, “Misery.” I’d actually forgotten about them and figured they’d tired themselves out, but I was wrong. Now, it seems, they see me hiding behind every poster who disagrees with them. I’m being accused of posting under assumed names right and left. I mean, who the hell am I? Get over me! When Nettl told me about this, adding that Sister Agnes of God is throwing out passive-aggressive remarks like, “Who are you now, Stephan, or Steph, or Mozart…” So, what’s your point, sister? Do you think you know something about me no one else does and that you have some kind of power over me by holding my identity over my head?
This catty shit pisses me off. Who gives a rat’s ass about the Mozart marriage? I went into the forum tonight and read the posts for myself, then I wrote a simple clarification for the members, stating that I never post there and never will, especially hiding under an assumed user name.
Makes me kind of worry about what they might do once the Rhombus film is out, though. That film’s going to surprise a lot of people who think they know me, and some of those who do.
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind
and won’t change the subject.”
Winston Churchill
“There is no place in a fanatic’s head
where reason can enter.”
Napoleon Bonaparte
Don’t worry about those horrible women. Funny thing is, you and I had two separate pairs of women in our lives, at the same time, who were doing the same thing. The women in my life managed to be the demise of my business, but they did not prevail in their object of total destruction of what they felt was their due: my own life. These women stopped at nothing, even tried to bread down my relationship with K. and all of the friendships that we had. It was nothing more than envy.
ReplyDeleteJust as those two nothings tried to destroy your own relationship, and ours together and those of your other friends, the have nothing more to offer the world. This is it for them.
Sure, those types come around with success and they try to weasle themselves into whatever good things you are getting. Just remember, this is the only level of spotlight they’ll get. They have never learned that your success is not their birthright, nor does it mean their own failure.
Jesus. It’s sad that when we try to be genuine and sincere, some people use our sincerity and our openness to trample, trample, trample. Ego–it’s awful. Ego gets in the way of so many things.
ReplyDelete