Word: courtesans
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...digital sleight of hand, few artists ply their trade more slyly than Yasumasa Morimura. Inserting his image into famous works, this Osaka-based master becomes the languorous courtesan (and her maid) in Manet's Olympia or--how could he resist?--the Mona Lisa. Combining photography, painting and computer manipulation, each piece is a wicked homage, turning art history into a gilded vanity mirror. In his new show at New York City's Luhring Augustine Gallery, the farce is lavish and precise, as Morimura continues his wry, gender-bending ways...
...actually, that Shakespeare chooses to cast his antagonist in the stereotypical role of the miser. As the play progresses, we see the stereotype reflected onto its creators as money reveals itself to be the foundation for their actions. Antonio's friendship with Bassanio is the relationship between benefactor and courtesan. Bassanio's love for Portia is linked to the fortune she will bring him, and even the marriage between Bassanio's man Gratiano and Portia's maid Nerissa (Catherine Crow HGSE '99) is contingent upon their employers' financial union. The Christians themselves embody the gross materialism they condemn in Shylock...
Opera ultimately belongs to the singers, however, and La Traviata was no exception. All the performers, leads and chorus alike, showed remarkable vocal prowess and passion, and among the minor characters mezzo-soprano Gale Fuller's charming and coquettish Flora Bervoix (a courtesan whose wardrobe is far more scandalous than that of Violetta) was especially memorable and a well-needed break from the heavy tragedy of the rest of the opera...
...Traviata takes the hackneyed idea, "you can't judge a book by its cover," and turns it into something breathtakingly beautiful. The story centers around Violetta Valery, a French "courtesan"--basically an upper-class prostitute who provides parties and other entertainments for the members of the upper middle class--who, despite her shallow and flamboyant lifestyle, is caring and gentle at heart. Although she is very weak due to a severe case of tuberculosis, Violetta persists in throwing boisterous fetes that only make her worse, and the opera opens in the midst of one of these late-night revels...
Monica Lewinsky--just one more courtesan to shake an empire. K. HELMUT LENNEBERG Correas, Brazil...