NOT EVERYONE KNOWS THIS…
By John Chaput John Chaput was raised in Montreal, has lived in Western Canada for about 45 years, and is seriously thinking about settling down there. A retired journalist and editor, he is the author of three books about Saskatchewan sports history. He is also an amateur actor and has won two awards for his performances at Theatre Saskatchewan festivals.
FEBRUARY 20, 1816
FEBRUARY 17, 1913
Giacchino Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville
The Armory Show opens in New York and spectators
opens at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. Not everyone
are shocked, shocked to find abstract representations
knows this, but the show is subtitled The Useless
of the female form in the exhibition of avant-garde art.
Precaution and, in retrospect, Rossini should have
Outrage focuses primarily on French painter Marcel
taken some precautions even if they did seem useless.
Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, in
Opera in Italy, especially in centuries past, has
which layered images of a model convey an incredible
been something of a spectator sport complete with
sense of motion but not much discernible nudity.
passionate followers and spirited rivalries between
Not everyone knows this, but the journal American
competing teams ... uh, camps ... uh, factions ... oh,
Art News even offered a $10 prize to anyone who
however opera lovers group themselves. Rossini took
could actually spot the nude in the painting. Former
pains to perfect the music, book the theatre, and
president Theodore Roosevelt wrote an article about
select the cast, but he didn’t bother to control the
the exhibition for Outlook magazine and observed,
audience. The theatre was packed with devotees of
“Take the picture which for some reason is called ‘A
rival composer Giovanni Paisiello, who had already
naked man going down stairs,’ ” which probably says
put on his own version of the story of the barber
more about the quality of those pince-nez glasses
Figaro. Paisiello’s fans noisily jeered throughout the
Roosevelt wore than it does about the man himself.
show, incited others to join them, and even instigated
In any case, Nude Descending a Staircase stands
disturbances on the stage. Subsequent performances
alongside Picasso’s Guernica as a masterpiece of
were successful and within three years the opera was
Cubism, even if Duchamp would become even more
a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
notorious for making art out of a urinal.
SIDEONE FEBRUARY 2021
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