La Dame aux Camélias

I saw a camellia in bud at Chiswick House today and thought of Violetta, Verdi and La traviata.

Verdi’s opera premiered in Venice in 1853. Remarkably there have been at least twenty-six opera world premieres at La Fenice of which, more remarkably, I have seen ten – not the prems of course. Verdi was quick off the mark. Alexandre Dumas’ best seller, La Dame aux Camélias, was published in 1848 and his play of the same name staged in 1852. Obviously I thought it was by the prolific author, Alexander Dumas. But it is by his son known as Alexandre Dumas fils who was just twenty-four when his novel was published. AD Jnr in his lifetime was better known than his father although that is no longer the case. Like Sir Kingsley and Lucky Jim – you will think of other examples – he peaked early.

Camellias were bought to Europe from China and Japan in the 17th century by the East India Company. In Latin camellia means “helper to the priest”, named by Carl Linnaeus in honour of Jesuit missionary and botanist Karl Georg Kamel, who was practicing pharmaceutical botany in the Philippines in the 17th century. Shouldn’t it be Kamellia?

Being impatient to see some camellia blossom I went to the conservatory.

“The Conservatory was commissioned by the 6^th Duke of Devonshire, the great-grandson of Lord Burlington, and is home to our heritage camellia collection, which bloom marvellously every March. It was designed by Samuel Ware, who also built Burlington Arcade in Piccadilly, and was completed in 1813. At 300ft long, it was one of the earliest large glass houses to be built and thus a forerunner of Decimus Burton’s glass house at Kew and Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace.” (Chiswick House and Gardens)

I was pleased to see them flowering in January but a gardener told me he saw the first bloom in October. There are daffodils out in December in London but I leave them to other social media nerds to photograph.