Maria Theresia von Paradis was the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa’s Court Councilor and thus a young woman of standing despite the blindness that took her eyes before the age of five. Her father Joseph Anton and mother Maria Rosalia had the means to therefore teach her the finer things such as piano — a vocation to which she found expertise. The Empress allowed her a disability pension as financial assistance to help offset the strain of raising a daughter in the eighteenth century without prospects for marriage. But the pain in her eyes grew and every doctor hired to alleviate it only made matters worse. Franz Anton Mesmer became their last hope with his laughable method of healing via an invisible, odorless, and weightless magnetic “fluid.” It worked.
Paradis (Maria-Victoria Dragus) would eventually become a touring musician and composer who may have also been an inspiration to Mozart (she...
Paradis (Maria-Victoria Dragus) would eventually become a touring musician and composer who may have also been an inspiration to Mozart (she...
- 9/22/2017
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
A blind harpsichordist in Rococo Vienna who is “not pretty but talented,” as one of the characters describes her, can see again after a rather dubious medical treatment in Mademoiselle Paradis (Licht), from Austrian director Barbara Albert. There is, however, a catch: After the titular protagonist has regained her eyesight, her tinkling talents start to diminish rapidly. This adaptation of Alissa Walser’s novel Mesmerized is an inquisitive, curious and gorgeously accoutered period piece about science, the senses and the position of women in Mozart-era Austria. But it might have a thing or two too many on the brain to finally...
- 9/10/2017
- by Boyd van Hoeij
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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