‘O body swayed to music’: The allure of Jacqueline du Pré as spectacle and drama

The allure of the British cellist Jacqueline du Pré (1945–1987) is the subject of this article, which examines the spectacle of her playing and the drama of her biography. What motivated the popular and critical responses to du Pré as a performer? What can accounts and depictions of her tell us about how the public personae of classical musicians, and especially female classical musicians, have been constructed? Du Pré’s career and legacy provide insight into multiple discourses including celebrity, classical music, gender, social propriety and disability. I query the operation of apparently ‘extra-musical’ significations that become attached to musicians and affect how they are perceived and understood, both in their lifetimes and afterward. I correlate various accounts of du Pré, drawing on newspaper reviews and magazine articles, observations made by those who knew her, audio-visual documentation and dramatizations of her life – principally the biopic Hilary and Jackie, directed by Anand Tucker (1999). I analyse how du Pré was characterized in dramatic form and portrayed on film. I argue that her persona is multi-layered, collectively authored, and informed by her gender, performance style, and artistic interpretations (or distortions) of her biography. Furthermore, I propose that du Pré’s allure highlights the fascination and anxieties the cello can provoke as a potentially sensual, erotically charged musical instrument.