Winnaretta Singer (8 January 1865-26 November 1943), the Princess Edmond de Polignac, was an important musical patron, lesbian, and heir to the Singer sewing machine wealth.
One of the younger of the more than twenty children of Isaac Singer, she married Prince Louis de Scey-Montbéliard in 1887. This marriage had been arranged by her mother, against her will. The marriage was annulled in 1891 by the Catholic church (which might indicate it was not consumed).
However, in 1893, at the age of 29, she stepped consciously into a "separate beds" marriage with the 59 year-old gay Prince Edmond de Polignac, an amateur composer: he died in 1901.
From 1923 till her death her partner was Violet Trefusis.
She commissioned several works of the young composers of her time, amongst others Igor Stravinsky's Renard, Erik Satie's Socrate (by her intercession Satie was kept out of jail when he was composing this work), and Francis Poulenc's Two-Piano and Organ Concertos. Her salon in St-Leu-la-Forêt was frequented, amongst others, by Marcel Proust, Jean Cocteau, Monet, Diaghilev, and Colette. Manuel de Falla's El retablo de maese Pedro was premiered there, with the harpsichord part performed by Wanda Landowska. (Kahan 2003)
Singer also acted as patron for many others, like Nadia Boulanger, Clara Haskil, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Ethel Smyth, Adela Maddison, the Ballets Russes, l'Opéra de Paris, and l'Orchestre Symphonique de Paris.
She had some part in the raising of her niece Daisy Fellowes.
Winnaretta Singer is described (amongst others by Violet Trefusis) to have few physical charms, while generally she was considered to have a formidable character. As a patron she used to keep some distance to her protégés (e.g. when a work dedicated to her was presented to her she used to sit in front on a separate fauteuil, other selected guests, often not including the composer, way behind her) - in style this was very different from the more relaxed kind of patronage exerted by e.g. the contemporary count Etienne de Beaumont.
As a lesbian she can be considered as one of the earliest documented examples of a butch, preferring to dominate women with a whip, dressed in riding boots. Her sympathies towards militarist displays (like in early fascism advocated by Ezra Pound) might not surprise when seen from this angle. Eventually in the 1920s some scandal about her lesbianism was in the press, for a short time: she appeared too big for scandal to stick. It is said that this was one of the major reasons why Alice Keppel did not object her daughter to carry on a lesbian relationship with her.
Apparently aware of her impending death, Singer summarized: "Faced by what seems to be the end of it all for an old lady like me, I proclaim that I always loved music, paintings, and books more than anything else, and I was right!"
Further reading
- Sylvia Kahan (2003). Music's Modern Muse: A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac, Eastman Studies in Music. University of Rochester Press. ISBN 1580461336.
- Michael de Cossart, Food of Love: Princesse Edmond de Polignac (1865-1943) and her Salon, Hamish Hamilton, 1978. ISBN 0241897858