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How does one reach the beautiful old threshing floor (aloni)?
Thursday, 4 July 2019
From the Blues to Rockabilly: Two Images
Two telling photographs found on various internet sites; photographers and copyright owners unknown to me (please advise):
Georgia, 1937:
Tennessee, 1956:
Hesiod, Works and Days: Wholesome Strife; ΗΣΙΟΔΟΣ, Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι
From Hesiod's Works and Days (Ἔργα καὶ Ἡμέραι, c. 700 BC):
"So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due. But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel".
Hesiod: Works and Days, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White [1914]
From a translation by Richmond Lattimore (Greek Attitudes, 1974; acknowledgements to Harper and Row):
From a translation by Richmond Lattimore (Greek Attitudes, 1974; acknowledgements to Harper and Row):
Οὐκ ἄρα μοῦνον ἔην Ἐρίδων γένος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ γαῖαν
εἰσὶ δύω· τὴν μέν κεν ἐπαινήσειε νοήσας,
ἡ δ᾽ ἐπιμωμητή· διὰ δ᾽ ἄνδιχα θυμὸν ἔχουσιν.
ἡ μὲν γὰρ πόλεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ δῆριν ὀφέλλει,
σχετλίη· οὔ τις τήν γε φιλεῖ βροτός, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀνάγκης
ἀθανάτων βουλῇσιν Ἔριν τιμῶσι βαρεῖαν.
τὴν δ᾽ ἑτέρην προτέρην μὲν ἐγείνατο Νὺξ ἐρεβεννή,
θῆκε δέ μιν Κρονίδης ὑψίζυγος αἰθέρι ναίων
γαίης τ᾽ ἐν ῥίζῃσι καὶ ἀνδράσι πολλὸν ἀμείνω·
ἥ τε καὶ ἀπάλαμόν περ ὁμῶς ἐπὶ ἔργον ἔγειρεν·
εἰς ἕτερον γάρ τίς τε ἴδεν ἔργοιο χατίζων
πλούσιον, ὃς σπεύδει μὲν ἀρόμεναι ἠδὲ φυτεύειν
οἶκόν τ᾽ εὖ θέσθαι, ζηλοῖ δέ τε γείτονα γείτων
εἰς ἄφενος σπεύδοντ᾽· ἀγαθὴ δ᾽ Ἔρις ἥδε βροτοῖσιν.
καὶ κεραμεὺς κεραμεῖ κοτέει καὶ τέκτονι τέκτων,
καὶ πτωχὸς πτωχῷ φθονέει καὶ ἀοιδὸς ἀοιδῷ.
Wednesday, 3 July 2019
Opera and the Greek World During the Nineteenth Century
Pdf file here (235 pages)
CONTENTS
Introduction
Penelope Avouri, The reception of opera performances at Zakynthos, in 1880: social and financial parameters
Spiros Deligiannopoulos, The operas of Giuseppe Verdi as being reflected in the piano works of Pavlos Carrer
Stanimira Dermendzhieva, The contribution of the Hellenic diaspora to the formation of the Russian opera in the 19th and the early 20th century
Κωνστάντζα Γεωργακάκη, Ο θίασος της Alice Reine στο θέατρο Φαλήρου. Η γαλλική «Αναγέννηση» στη φαληρική σκηνή
Eleni Georgiou, Reflections of the philhellenic spirit in the Italian music theatre of the 19th century and the particular case of Rossini
Stamatia Gerothanasi, Flora mirabilis by Spyridon Samaras: A cognitive approach on selected parts of the libretto
Κωνσταντίνα Καρακώστα, Νικόλαος Δούμπας. Σκιαγραφώντας έναν φιλόμουσο μαικήνα Κώστας Καρασαββίδης,
Filippo Termanini: Μια πρώιμη πρόσληψη των Μυλωνάδων στην Κέρκυρα (1836)
Kostas Kardamis, Domenikos Padovás: a “lesser” of an anniversary
Eleni M. Kokkinomilioti, Spiro Samaras' career on the stages of Europe as a learning scenario incorporating sociopolitical, historical and cultural events
Georgia Kondyli, The opera in Smyrna in the 19th century according to the Greek Smyrnian press
Stella Kourmpana, Hermoupolis, the lost Atlantis of our musical culture
Dionysios – Ioannis Kyriakoulis, The Life and Works of Georgios Sklavos
Małgorzata Lisecka, The feminine art? On reinterpretation of opéra comique genre in Camille Saint-Saëns’s Phryné (1893)
Αύρα Ξεπαπαδάκου, «Εκεί, στη Σαμαρκάνδη». Ευρωπαϊκοί περιπλανώμενοι λυρικοί θίασοι στην κοντινή και μακρινή Ανατολή Kωνσταντίνος
Γ. Σαμπάνης, H κερκυραϊκή σαιζόν όπερας 1888-1889
Andrea Sessa, The musical life in Greece in the 19th century in the pages of the Gazzetta Musicale di Milano (1842-1902)
Summaries - Contributors
The Sea (Η ΘΑΛΑΣΣΑ), a Greek Poem by Dinos Christianopoulos, 1984; Ντίνος Χριστιανόπουλος
From Nisos, Mousiki kai Poiisi 3, Athens, June 1984:
Η ΘΑΛΑΣΣΑ
Ἡ θάλασσα εἶναι σὰν τὸν ἔρωτα:
μπαίνεις καὶ δὲν ξέρεις ἂν θὰ βγεῖς.
Πόσοι δὲν ἔφαγαν τὰ νιάτα τους –
μοιραῖες βουτιές, θανατερὲς καταδύσεις,
γράμπες, πηγάδια, βράχια ἀθέατα,
ρουφῆχτρες, καρχαρίες, μέδουσες.
Ἀλίμονο ἂν κόψουμε τὰ μπάνια
Μόνο καὶ μόνο γιατί πνίγηκαν πεντέξι.
Ἀλίμονο ἂν προδώσουμε τὴ θάλασσα
Γιατὶ ἔχει τρόπους νὰ μᾶς καταπίνει.
Ἡ θάλασσα εἶναι σὰν τὸν ἔρωτα:
χίλιοι τὴ χαίρονται – ἕνας τὴν πληρώνει.
(1962)
A first attempt at a very free translation:
The Sea
The sea is like love, like Eros:
You wade right in,
You never know if you’ll come out.
How many youths have squandered lives
Through fateful plunges or deadly dives,
Risked cramps or currents, rips or rocks,
Sharks or whirlpools,
Medusas or men o’ war?
Woe betide us if we should give up swimming
Because half a dozen people drowned!
Woe betide us if we reject the sea,
For fear that she will swallow us.
The sea's like love, like Eros:
A thousand people take pleasure in it,
But one of us will pay the price.
Dinos Christianopoulos' first poem (not the poem above) was published in The Record, an annual bilingual publication of the British Institute, Salonica. It served as the chronicle of the Salonica Institute and of the British Council in Thessaloniki, as mentioned in the book The British Council and Anglo-Greek Literary Interactions, 1945-1955
Note also Chapter 8, The magazine The Record (1947-1955), by Dinos Christianopoulos.
About the poet
More poems
Christianopoulos on Rebetika (from my library):
Some Sea Photographs (and a Painting):
The Sea (Greece and Dorset, UK): The Pleasures and Dangers
.
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