If I had only known this sooner, I would have taken a greater interst in Opera at an Earlier age :) 

If you've listened to classical music and never blushed at the blatant sexuality these composers are flaunting, then you may want to listen a little closer. As we might imagine, the Italians make it most clear but the Russians run a very close second. The Germans are out, too much philosophy and universal brotherhood and what not. The French are okay but tend to give us an impression of sex, well, except Carmen. Need I mention the Brits?

Let's start with the Russians. Two pieces come to mind. Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony 3rd Movement and Khachaturian's Adagio from Spartacus. The climaxes in each of these pieces are not so much explosive as enveloping and caressing. The Spartacus climax drips with sensuality but the Rachmaninoff is the stronger of the two because he gives us some snuggling music and then takes us for a second time.

Now the two Italian entries. Puccini's 1st act duet in Madama Butterfly and Leoncavallo's Siciliana which opens his opera Cavalleria Rusticana.

In Butterfly, American Naval Officer B. F. Pinkerton and Japanese geisha Cio Cio San get married. Technically they're married but in reality Pinkerton has purchased a concubine until he can find an American wife. Beings how it is their wedding night and he did pay, Pinkerton is ready to go but Butterfly is still thinking about the ceremony, her angry uncle and the beauty of the evening. Finally they start singing about love in very general terms but the music gives us all we need. Both singers and the entire orchestra fall into an arching, unison melody. This is code for Puccini. Whenever the tenor and soprano fall into a huge unison line, they're doing it. The duet ends with both singers on a suspended high C that is resolved with a massive brass crescendo and symbol crash. Hello!

Cavalleria is even more blatant. the show starts with Turriddu serenading his new lover Lola. Turriddu has already knocked up unwed Santuzza and, of course, Lola is married to another man. As Turriddu finishes his serenade, there is a repetitive figure that grows until the brass joins, symbol crash, hello--kind of like Butterfly until you hear the underlying tremolo in the low strings. Leoncavallo is screaming at us that after the climax the lovers are still trembling and trembling and trembling.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/
eternal-lightness-beauty/2010/oct/13/beast-two-backs/
 
 
 
 

Mon 10/11/2010
Remembering Why Columbus Day Matters

My good friend,  Rosario A. Iaconis, is arguing that we in the US must give just due to the Roman Law.  I whole heartily agree, but Christopher Columbus, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) and Amerigo Vespucci, were all outstanding Explorers, Navigators, and Adventurers, and had NOTHING to do with the Spanish and Portuguese CONQUISTADORS that "raped' North and South America, and they had no concern for Roman Law, but only the Sword and the Cross. We must skip forward 300 years until US founders relying much on Roman Law, and the Enlightenment, with the thoughts and help of Cesare Beccarria and Philip Mazzei, to create a more perfect Republic, which now with the ability for corporations to Buy our Politicians we have become a Plutocracy. We have failed in adapting to maintain that "Governence is the art of Fairness and Goodness"  Woe are we. 
 

Christopher Columbus lives.

Indeed, contrary to the assertions of radical revisionists, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea matters. For it was Columbus' epic discovery of a vast terra incognita that began the Age of Exploration ? and sparked the bold voyages of his fellow Italian navigators: Giovanni da Verrazzano, Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) and Amerigo Vespucci.

A contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, Cristoforo Colombo hailed from the land John Milton called "the seat of civilization and the hospitable domicile of every species of erudition." And as an exemplar of the Italian Renaissance, Columbus brought with him the reborn fruits of classical Roman humanism, pragmatism and governance ? gifts that inspired the Founding Fathers as they forged our res publica.

In fact, Roma Aeterna lies at the heart of America's laws, system of government and the very republic to which we pledge our allegiance.

The founders were steeped in the history of Rome's republic and empire. Indeed, according to historian Rufus Fears: "They crafted our Constitution to reflect the balanced constitution of the Roman Republic, with the sovereignty of the people guided by the wisdom of the Senate, with a powerful executive in the form of the commander in chief, the consul."

When Caesar Augustus became Rome's first emperor-imperator, his authority over a vast domain ? stretching from Scotland to the Sudan and across the desert sands of the Middle East ? derived from the executive power of the consul of the old republic.

John Adams believed that the "Roman constitution formed the noblest people and the greatest power that has ever existed."

Substantively and symbolically, the Founding Fathers embraced the laws, virtues and ideals of that ancient Italian polity. George Washington was hailed as the "American Cincinnatus" by his peers. Sic floret res publica ? "Thus shall flourish the republic" ? was the Latin motto inscribed on our first federal currency bills.

E pluribus unum ("Out of many, one") still adorns the Great Seal of the United States of America on the U.S. dollar.

And when the president delivers the State of the Union address in the House of Representatives, he is flanked by two bronze fasces ? symbols of Roman magistratical authority.

Our legal system, which has its origins in a jurisprudential continuum spanning the Twelve Tables of Rome and Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis, would be impoverished without stare decisis, habeas corpus, certiorari, posse comitatus, culpa in contrahend and paca sunt servanda.

Indeed, our entire governmental structure is predicated on Roman principles: the separation of powers, a bicameral legislature, checks and balances, the power of the purse, filibusters, vetoes, term limits, impeachment and the Electoral College.

Nor should we forget that the most hallowed of American tenets ? citizenship ? has an ancient provenance. The apostle Paul asserted his universal rights as a Roman citizen and secured a trial by declaring: Civis Romanus sum.

Indeed, Roman jurists had pragmatically translated the ideals of the ius naturale (natural law) into the ius gentium (the law of mankind) and the ius civile (the individual law of the Roman Empire).

And when it comes to the emancipation of women, Gloria Steinem and Co. ? not to mention the ladies of "The View" ? might be surprised to learn that Roger Vigneron and Jean-Francois Gerkens posit only two occasions wherein women have been considered legally equal to men: "Rome in antiquity, and now in North America and Europe."

These historians believe that the Romans pioneered an early brand of feminism because they held fast to a cardinal definition of the law: ius est ars boni et aequi ? "The law is the art of goodness and fairness."

The founders situated the nation's capital in the District of Columbia. And on Oct. 12, 1892, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage, Francis Bellamy penned the Pledge of Allegiance to underscore our national unity and to commemorate America's debt to the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

Having sailed across the expanse of the wine-dark Atlantic, Columbus enriched a new republic ? and enlarged the world ? with the gifts of his ancestral patrimony.

? Iaconis is vice chairman of the Italic Institute of America.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAnd
Analysis/Article/549881/201010081837/
Remembering-Why-Columbus-Day-Matters.aspx
 

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