Opera in Cyprus by Yvonne Georgiadou
Perhaps it would have been easier to write about “Cyprus in Opera”… In that case, we would have sufficient material to exploit – such as, the tragic legend of Verdi’s Otello and the gallant qualities of Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro. Cyprus seems to have aroused an abundance of operatic and non-operatic composers (and artists), though the island itself has never really been inspired by their music.
“Opera”, a term I personally despise, has had little bearing on the transcontinental land of Cyprus, probably because the specific genre is not associated with the nation’s culture and social mores. People embrace the type of art that relates to their history and past, expressing their inner and subconscious aesthesia and perception. The emergence of western opera, in about 1600, found Cyprus under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. It was only after 1878, the year Britain acquired the island as a “place of arms” in return for supporting the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War, that Cyprus came across the stimulus of western music. |
