{"id":16933,"date":"2015-09-05T14:04:59","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T14:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/?p=16933"},"modified":"2015-09-05T14:11:32","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T14:11:32","slug":"a-papasian-production-that-makes-you-proud-of-being-an-armenian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/?p=16933","title":{"rendered":"A Papasian Production that makes you proud of being an Armenian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Exploring the socio-Political Context of the First Ottoman Turkish Opera Composed by an Armenian)<\/p>\n<p>By<\/p>\n<p>Professor Hovhanness I. Pilikian<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p><u>Editorial Note<\/u>: <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong> Hot from the press, Professor Pilikian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s this article is the most astounding yet, and that is saying something! Full of rich historical detail, spanning many centuries, integrating the ancient, the old and the new of our lives, the Professor is uniquely able to display historical continuities through the cement of the Armenian presence throughout millennia &#8230; in a language that is accessible, and free of academic jargon.<\/strong> \u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gerald Papasian<\/strong> hails from Paris, an Armenian man-of-the-theatre, who acts and directs with some <em>panache <\/em><strong>Garin<\/strong><strong>\u0569\u0083\u0539., <\/strong>the <em>op\u0569\u0083\u0539.ra<strong>&#8211;<\/strong>comique<\/em> by<strong> Dikran Tchoukhadjian <\/strong>(1837-98)<strong>, <\/strong>at the<strong> Arcola Theatre, <\/strong>in<em> Dalston, <\/em>London<strong>. <\/strong>I was particularly glad to catch its last evening performance, on the 15<sup>th<\/sup> (August, 2015), as I had seen his smooth production of the same on the Internet (Highlights) with French actors<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #00ccff;\"><strong>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=v2fXdyyB7rA<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v2fXdyyB7rA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tchoukhadjian undoubtedly was the creator of Opera in Turkey \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the very first composer of opera-music, and <em>Hor-Hor A\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534a<\/em> seems to have been his first opera, hence the first opera in Ottoman Turkish.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Few people have appreciated <u>the historical fact that the Ottoman Empire was multi-ethnic<\/u>, with a healthy lack, almost a complete absence of disgusting <u>racist nationalism which resulted in the genocide of the Armenians in 1915<\/u> by the <em>Young Turks<\/em>, and plunged Turkey into the mire of cancerous ultra-nationalist barbarism, under which the poor Turkish people are suffering still, surrounded with endless-seeming civil wars in our own days, produced by infective nationalist-racism, deliberately fanned by Western (American-British) imperialism.<\/p>\n<p><em>The First Ottoman Turkish Opera by an Armenian <\/em><\/p>\n<p><u>\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n<p><u>Most of the Ottoman Sultans had multi-ethnic Christian parentage, married to European Christian wives and numberless concubines filling their <em>harems<\/em>. <\/u><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sultan Selim III (1761-1808), of a Georgian-Armenian mother, was a great patron of the Arts. A poet and a composer himself, with highly civilized tastes, he introduced to his Court the Armenian musician Baba Hampartsoum <strong>Limondjian <\/strong>(1768-1839). While in today\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Turkey acknowledging the Armenian parentage of the great Ottoman architect <strong>Sinan<\/strong> (1489-1588) is a punishable state-crime, Sultan Selim received Baba Hampartsoum in his court with great honours and commissioned him to develop a system of musical notation, with the avowed noble intention to record and save the classical Ottoman repertoire of music for posterity. Limondjian could spend two years (1813-5) comfortably working on the project in competition with Abdulbaki Nasir Dede, who also created his own system. And <u>Sultan Selim did not cut off Limondjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s head, instead, he selected Limondjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s system of musical notation, which is still in use today in Turkey<\/u>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>{Baba Hampartsoum\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Armenian patron was Hovhanness \u0569\u008a\u0549\u0080\u00a7elebi D\u0569\u0085\u0539\u055ezian, no less than the Director of the <em>Ottoman Imperial Mint<\/em>&#8230; A super little book just published \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c ISBN 978-9953-0-3224-5 \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c by the Londoner, Dr. Hratch Kouyoumjian, lists the names of the Ethnic Armenian Civil Servants in leadership positions <u>running the Ottoman Empire as late as in 1909<\/u>, with some fascinating givens; the chief&#8230; <em>pharmacist<\/em> of the <em>Central Prison<\/em> was one Efendi Khatchig Kivosian; The First Inspector of <em>Alcoholic Drinks<\/em> and&#8230;<em> Hunting<\/em> was Mihran Efendi Yerazian; The Supervisor of <em>Turkish Language Exams Bureau<\/em> was Vosgian Efendi etc. etc.}<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 1797, Sultan Selim had invited a European (perhaps French) opera company to give perhaps a single performance in his <em>harem <\/em>in Istanbul \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the very first opera presentation in the Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the miracle of Tchoukhadjian was that <em><u>he created opera out of literally nothing, and at its highest level<\/u><\/em>. The composer\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s own Turkish title of the Opera was <em>Leblebidji Hor-Hor Agha <\/em>(1875), <strong><u>not<\/u><\/strong> <em>Garin\u0569\u0083\u0539.<\/em>, clearly labelled on the title-page of the score (and on posters, survived) as an <em>op\u0569\u0083\u0539.ra comique<\/em>, which clearly defines already the essential features of the music-genre, later obliterated by the romantic nationalist fools of Soviet Armenian cultural \u0569\u0083\u0539.lite, altering ironically (due to musical historical illiteracy) the subtle Mozartean type of call-to-revolution against the ruling classes (camouflaged in the complicated plot-lines) \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the Aristocracy in Mozart, and the Bourgeoisie in the Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately in this context, even Mozart\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s bitingly satirical revolutionary ardour is not yet appropriately evaluated in musicology \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c carried away by the beauty of his music and the wealth of his melodies people forget to notice <u>the massive political implications <\/u>of his entangled plots \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c Leporello (for example), the servant of Don Giovanni (the landed Aristocrat in the opera of his name, 1787, in Italian) makes a total fool of his Lord, representing the useless, pointless sex-obsessed class of idle perverts, aristocrats who have too much time on their hands, and have nothing else to do but fantasize sexually \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c their use of women is truly an abuse of the woman-kind, used as a tool for their masturbatory fantasies, and not a genuine loving appreciation of the individual female involved. Bed-hopping, usually <em>with <u>the lower classes who have no defence against them<\/u><\/em>, is their impotent violent hobby; violent, even murderous \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c <em>Don Giovanni<\/em> kills one of his many lover\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s father, once a military commander, trying to protect the virginal honour of his daughter \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c precisely like <em>Hor-hor Aga<\/em>, an ex-janissary commander, desperate to guard his daughter\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s virgin-honour! Hor-hor does <u>not \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093detest the theatre\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/u><em> per se<\/em>, as written up in the programme-leaflet, but the lack of honesty, deception, and sexual licence of the people who administer it \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c not much changed there since the old days.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mozart\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s highly original invention \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the killed <em>Commendatore<\/em> comes alive in the form of the &#8230; marble <strong>Statue<\/strong> on his grave, as a dinner guest invited (personally in the cemetery) by the arrogantly fearless aristocrat, and the loving father drags the Don down (with his <em><u>palace \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c signifying the whole system of the Aristocratic social order<\/u><\/em>) into the fires of hell and eternal damnation, where the whole of his ruling class belongs!\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0 This indeed is the true camouflaged message of Mozart\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s own &#8230; Marxist Revolution, entirely unobserved by the so-said Mozart-experts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And yet incredibly, Tchoukhadjian, hardly half a century later, seems to have grasped this nature of Mozart\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s music by the horns. Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s plot is as complicated as Mozart\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s, even messier, more complicated than the one in (say) <em>Die Entf\u0569\u0085\u0539\u055ehrung aus dem Serail<\/em> (by Mozart, in German = <em>The Abduction from the Seraglio)<\/em>, where there is also a <em>Chorus of Turkish Janissaries<\/em> (\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093<em>singt dem grossen Bassa Lieder<\/em>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d = Sings the big Base Songs, a parallel for the Chorus of the <em>Leblebidji ex-janissaries<\/em>) with a lot of shenanigans, coming and going out of the <em>Harem<\/em>, with plenty of occasions for rude and crude vulgar eroticism \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c belly dancing, <em>commedia dell\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7arte<\/em> gesticulation etc.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To sum up Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s plot, very briefly; an opera-theatre is being set up for a sumptuous production (symbolizing high art \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the private domain of the Ottoman Aristocracy). The Soprano absconds, but lo and behold, out of the blue, an angelic virgin appears, the daughter of a chick-pea seller, who in turn is trying to hunt for her, his own lost daughter named <em>Garin<\/em>\u0569\u0083\u0539.! What follows are endless excuses for erotic incidents of drunken behaviour, harem belly-dancing, dagger-and-dog fights etc.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The original <em>libretto<\/em> in Turkish is lost \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c what we have is a mangled Soviet Armenian hash of it, entirely unreliable. I shall explain how, as I unpack <u>for the first time ever<\/u> the gems still preserved even in the title&#8230; The composer Tchoukhadjian knew well what he was doing, which alas, his first Soviet Armenian romantic interpreters did not.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Let us begin at the very beginning, with the title, <em>Leblebidji Hor-Hor A\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534a<\/em> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009cThe original name of the opera has remained a puzzle hitherto, and yet it contains a wealth of material buried within it, which can be mined for a proper understanding of the missing libretto. It is the golden key that opens an Aladdin\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s cave of complex semantic and musical significances.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Note that the name is of 3 sections;<\/p>\n<p>(1) <em>Leblebidji<\/em> provides the hero\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s profession \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c <em>leblebi<\/em> = chick-pea, &#8211;<em>dji<\/em> is a Turkish suffix, signifying a person\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s daily occupational involvement \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c in this case, a dealer concerning all matters to do with <em>leblebi \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c <\/em>buying\/selling it, grooming it (washing, cleaning, sorting, as there are several kinds of it) etc. He is thus not a mere seller, but a true trader, a <u>business-man<\/u> with a shop, using free or tuppence child-labour, selling his chick-peas in street corners everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>(2) <strong>Hor-hor <\/strong>is the first (and possibly the only) name of this tradesman, which suggests that it is <u>actually a nickname<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c a natural imitative sound-effect = khor-khor = khrr-khrr in Turkish\/Armenian, and refers to<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Snoring = being a sleepy-head, to which character-trait there are certainly many references in the plot-line about the chick-pea seller falling asleep, or being made to sleep through wine, and erotic semi-naked belly-dancers, and<\/li>\n<li>The reference also goes to his flatulence, gas-pains, a rumbling stomach full of farts \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the Chick-Pea Seller\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s name would thus satirically mean <em>The Farting Lord<\/em> or <em>the Lord of Farts<\/em>, abbreviated to <em>Lord Fart, <\/em>further complicated by the seller\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s profession, because<\/li>\n<li>The Chick-pea (a very nutritious seed) has a sophisticated, layered use in Byzantine \/ Ottoman \/ Armenian food-culture; several versions (like musical variations) are produced from the basic seed \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c fried with salt, it loses its natural skin, turns attractive yellow with black-burnt spots and is eaten universally throughout the day as <u>a staple cheap food for the poverty stricken masses<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c imported by London rip-off merchants, it becomes a luxury item, an expensive <em>delicatessen<\/em>! It needs no further <em>dressage, <\/em>is eaten like peanuts. Raw, the chick-pea is softened by boiling, then crushed into a paste and mixed with <em>tahini<\/em> (paste of crushed sesame seeds) in virgin olive-oil becomes the most delicious nutritious <em>humous, <\/em>another cheap staple diet for the masses even today among the London Turkish\/Kurdish communities. Unfortunately, again, the side-effect is a gassy <em>Hor-hor khrr-khrr<\/em> flatulent belly, reinforcing the semantic-musical significance of the Base-baritone lead as <em>the Lord of Farts<\/em>, the most important, vital commander ( = Agha) of the hungry masses with <em>khrr-khrr<\/em> tummies &#8230; The<em> Commedia dell\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7arte<\/em> humour, the main ingredient of the Comic Opera, was scatological, not just a camp game of wits for its own sake, but because it reflected real life; lacking food hygiene in medieval times, the \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093rotten\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d food the lower classes accessed, and the \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093rich\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d food the Aristocrats consumed, made populations everywhere overall gassy \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c half-empty rumbling bellies full of farts, although for opposite economic reasons. In Ottoman Turkey, moreover, they had to enjoy belly-dancers with belly-aches farting anywhere, from the Sultan\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s harem to the <em>mayhanes<\/em> (the drinking places) of the poor.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>(3) The third part of the opera-title is Hor-hor\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s exclusive honorific title; Typical of all empires, the Ottomans used an enormous number of silly titles to feed the vanity of their hierarchically obsessed ruling class; <em>Pasha, Hoca, Effendi, Bey, Vali, Vizier, Hanim, Mufti, Alim, Mullah <\/em>Etc.<\/p>\n<p><em><u>Agha<\/u><\/em><u> was a military title exclusive to the <em>Janissaries<\/em><\/u>, be they active or retired, signifying <em>commander<\/em> (Mozart\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s <em>commendatore<\/em>), appropriate in Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s opera for the revolutionary attempt of the chick-pea seller to affect a <em>coup d\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7\u0569\u0083\u0539.tat <\/em>with his mates formed into a gang.<\/p>\n<p>Tchoukhadjian thus displayed inventiveness, <em>bravura<\/em>, and an extraordinary <u>revolutionary courage<\/u> to place the lowest social class of the <em>Leblebidji<\/em>-s right in the heart-centre of Life itself in Ottoman <em>Istanbul<\/em> (as the producer of the staple food of the masses \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c and to think that such a point would not be understood in a <u>Soviet<\/u> Armenia!); thank god the Ottoman audience was too illiterate to appreciate Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s subtleties, otherwise, he could have lost his head on a Silver platter gifted to the Sultan by his Grand <em>Vizier<\/em> (the Prime-Minister).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And there\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s the rub; The Turks were barbaric Turkic hordes, from the steppes of Central Asia, murdering and plundering their way into Europe via <em>Byzantium<\/em>, continuing the tradition they had inherited from Genghis Khan and his nomads \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c their ancestors. While Genghis and his hordes used to do their plunder <em>seasonally<\/em>, destroying everything in their wake, and then returning to their dens in <em>Mongolia<\/em> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c I am aware that a Mongolian oligarch of the Russian category, a man of billions and billions of pounds is trying to whitewash and civilize the Genghis-image as a national hero, and we shall be fools in Europe to be bribed by it \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the destructive derivatives of Genghis set their ambitions higher and wished to rob the riches of Europe on a <u>permanent basis<\/u>, by bleeding the heart of the civilized world then, <em>Byzantium<\/em> itself, marked finally by the fall of the city of <em>Constantinople<\/em> itself in 1453.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>A Failed Document of True Civilization<\/em><\/p>\n<p>One Turk, called <strong>Osman<\/strong> (1258-1326), born in Anatolia \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c ancient Armenia \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c excited by the centuries of Byzantine refinement wished to go further and <em><u>civilize his followers<\/u><\/em> (easier said than done!), by founding a dynasty, that remarkably lasted for 600 years as the Ottoman Empire (until its dissolution in 1922, by the declaration of the Republic of Turkey, in 1923).<\/p>\n<p>It takes millennia to construct a civilization, and with our own Western modern technology and the arms-trade, just a few days to destroy all, as the civilized American and British governments achieved attacking <em>Iraq, Syria, Libya, <\/em>turning ancient countries to dusty rubbles today!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Osman, the progenitor of the Ottomans, in his last Testament to his son Orhan Ghazi, instructed him to<\/p>\n<p>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093<em><u>avoid cruelty and superstition<\/u> &#8230; Remove from the state those who encourage cruelty and superstition &#8230;. <u>Widening justice and virtue to the whole world<\/u>&#8230; scholars, virtuous men, artists, literary men constitute the power of a state &#8230; honour these men, treat them with kindness&#8230; Depend on God\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s help to <u>achieve justice and fairness, and remove cruelty from the world<\/u>&#8230;<\/em>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.osmanli700.gen.tr\/english\/sultans\/01index.html\">http:\/\/www.osmanli700.gen.tr\/english\/sultans\/01index.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>{My own translation of a glorious document of civilized culture indeed, unique in history \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c The ancient so-said civilizations of the <em>Maya<\/em> and the <em>Inca<\/em>, and the <em>Chinese<\/em> had produced no such document \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c translated unfortunately into ghastly English on the website above!)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><u>There can be absolutely no doubt that the progenitor of the Ottomans wished to construct a <strong>civilization<\/strong>, and would have disowned in eternal shame the genociders of the Armenians (the blood-thirsty pack of hyenas led by Talaat, Enver, Djemal Pashas) carrying his name as <em>Osmanli<\/em> Turks. <\/u><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>The Armenian Contribution to the Byzantine Empire \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c Politics and Culture, All<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Osman, born amidst the Armeno-Byzantine culture of Anatolia, <\/strong>wished to adopt and adapt it for his own people. He would be fully aware of yet another <strong>absolute<\/strong> historical fact forgotten now but alive and vibrant during Osman\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s own lifetime \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the Armenian legacy in the Byzantine Empire, which Osman\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s progeny was to destroy by the destruction of Byzantium.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The most important Byzantine Emperor, who brought about the Golden Age of Byzantine culture, was <strong>Basil the First<\/strong> (811-886 AD), who founded a Dynasty, that lasted almost 200 years (from 867 to 1056).\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0 He was a Law-giver, collected in 60 books, called <em><u>Basilika<\/u><\/em> (= <em>Royal Matters<\/em>, from the classical Greek word <em>Basileos = King) <\/em>that governed Byzantium until its fall to the barbarians. During Basil\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s own reign of 19 years, an official genealogy of the Emperor was recorded documenting his <u>birth as a descendant of the <em>Arshakouni<\/em> (in Greek, the <em>Arsacid<\/em>) Kings of Armenia<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the eminent British historian John Julius Norwich goes as far as confirming that Basil, in spite of his Greek name, was actually <u>a native speaker of Armenian<\/u>, and spoke Greek with a heavy accent!<\/p>\n<p>If you wish to find out the Armenian names of over 20 Byzantine emperors, visit<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.peopleofar.com\/2011\/10\/24\/armenians-of-byzantium-part-1\/<\/p>\n<p><strong>Procopius<\/strong>, the Roman Historian, records that the Byzantine Palace Guards called <em>Scholari<\/em> protecting the Emperor\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s family \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093<strong><em>were selected from amongst the bravest Armenians<\/em><\/strong>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d, who had contributed <u>a contingent of around 150.000 highly trained soldiers<\/u> to the overall Byzantine army, where one of its early generals <strong>Nersess<\/strong> shined brilliantly \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c Nersess is an Armenian name still in use today (an architect friend of mine in London is called Nersess!)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The contemporary Byzantines themselves considered Basil the I-st as their greatest emperor, and his dynasty reigning over the most glorious era of the Empire. The cultural renaissance Basil initiated, which undoubtedly went into the boiling pot of the later <em>Italian Renaissance<\/em> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c <u>the cradle of our <strong>modern culture and modernity<\/strong><\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c was led by three of the most educated men in Byzantium; <strong><em>Patriarch Photius, John the Grammarian, <\/em><\/strong>and the<strong><em> Philosopher Leo<\/em><\/strong> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c <strong><u>all three of them Armenians indeed<\/u><\/strong>!!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Heraclius the Elder<\/strong>, the Exarch (Governor) of <strong><u>Africa<\/u><\/strong>, was an Armenian-Roman general, who distinguished himself in the wars against the Sassanid Persians (580s). As a result, he was given the post <em><u>in Africa<\/u><\/em> (in 600 AD) reaching <em>Carthage<\/em>, the most important port-city conquered by the Romans, the hub of their life-and-death grain trade in the Mediterranean. His son became Heraclius I, Byzantine Emperor (ruled from 610- 641 AD), and founder of a dynasty that continued to rule Byzantium for a century. He drove the Persians out of <em>Asia Minor<\/em> completely by 627, by the Battle of <em>Nineveh <\/em>(today the second city of Iraq, named <em>Mosul<\/em>, alas occupied by the pseudo-Muslim lunatics of ISIS).\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0 Emperor Heraclius boldly <u>changed the official language of the Eastern Roman empire from <em>Latin<\/em> to <em>Greek<\/em><\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c pity not Armenian!<\/p>\n<p><em>\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The First occurrence and record of AIDS Four centuries ago <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sultan Murad I (1326-89), whose mother was&#8230; Greek, a Byzantine princess, and he himself was married to some wives, one a daughter of a Byzantine emperor, and another the daughter of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander, transformed Osman\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s tribal territory into an empire, conquering most of the Balkans (<em>Rumelia<\/em>) and the whole of <em>Anatolia<\/em>.\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0 He even <u>invented the title of <em>Sultan<\/em> in 1383<\/u>. He was assassinated in his tent, in the evening after the <em>Battle of Kosovo<\/em>. I bet he had not read Osman\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Testament (above), for his sons were as murderous as their Father \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c he had two sons, Bayazid and Yakub, who was invited by his brother to the father\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s tent in the battlefield, and was&#8230; strangled, just like that, leaving the Sultanate to his brother Bayazid, who naturally was delighted to take over!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The honour of creating the blood-dripping system of <strong><em>Dev\u0569\u0085\u056a\u0534irme<\/em><\/strong> (= collection) went also to their father, Murad I \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c inhumanly, the latter considered it as a legitimate <em>blood-tax<\/em> or <em>tribute in blood<\/em>, initiating one of the most disgusting, heinous and genocidal institutions of the Ottoman Empire, entirely contrary to Islamic law, and the last will and testament of his ancestor Osman \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c every 4 to 5 years, the Ottoman military would go to the Balkan and Anatolian villages, precisely targeting generally the Christian, and specifically <em><u>the Armenian children<\/u><\/em>, 6 to 10 years old, tearing them from their families, collecting them like so many lambs in a pigsty, <em><u>raping them sexually<\/u><\/em>, to manufacture the most ruthless military order called <strong><em>Yeni<\/em><\/strong><strong><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><\/strong><strong><em>eri<\/em><\/strong> (<em>Janissaries, <\/em>in English<em>)<\/em> from emotionally and physically abused children \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c by 1650s, <strong><em><u>more than 50 thousand janissaries lived as out-and-out homosexuals<\/u><\/em>. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Polish musician and linguist Wojciech Bobowski (1610-75) \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c named Ali Ufki after conversion to Islam, has preserved a most stunning historical information, <strong>which I suggest is the first occurrence of &#8230; <\/strong><strong>AIDS <\/strong>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c he wrote (as Albertus Bobovius) in 1686 that \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093diseases\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d (in plural) were common among the homosexual <em>Dev\u0569\u0085\u056a\u0534irme <\/em>(turned into adult <em>Yeni\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535eri<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Running parallel to the <em>Dev\u0569\u0085\u056a\u0534irme<\/em> system, was the institution of the <em>k\u0569\u0085\u0549\u0080\u0098<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>ek<\/em> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c again recruited from Christian, specifically Armenian parents \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c aged 7\/8, the most handsome among the male children were snatched, but really homosexually abused, and trained further for another six years as dancers, selected specifically for <u>passive-feminine homosexual intercourse<\/u>, cross-dressed in brightly coloured female attire, were employed as harem-entertainers, patronized by the Sultans, usually as belly-dancers. They even achieved stardom \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c at least 50 superstars (one of them K\u0569\u0085\u0539\u055e\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535\u0569\u0085\u0539\u055ek Afet was known also by his Armenian name, as <strong>Kaspar<\/strong>). Later, as their popularity increased, they were employed to celebrate family circumcisions, and in<em> meyhane<\/em> = taverns (but really male brothels \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the great British poet Lord Byron is known to have visited one), driving the male-drinkers wild with their lascivious finger-gestures, causing violent fights among the rabble, often ending in murder. Famous Ottoman homosexual poets and musicians dedicated works to them. By 1805, there were approximately 600 <em>K\u0569\u0085\u0549\u0080\u0098<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eks<\/em> in Istanbul.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The real female belly-dancers (called <em>\u0569\u008a\u0549\u0080\u00a7engi<\/em>) were so disturbed by the mass-popularity of their very effeminate male counterparts that they in turn did not hesitate to kill some of them.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The <em>yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em> (in Turkish = new corps) graduating from the <em>Dev\u0569\u0085\u056a\u0534irme<\/em> state, unsurprisingly and very predictably became uncontrollably violent as young adults, even though they were led into wars by the Sultan himself as their Supreme Commander (like an American President!) \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c They were for example instrumental in the capture of Constantinople in 1453, and the subsequent <em>fall of the Byzantine<\/em> E<em>mpire<\/em>; they became the first and foremost military power in the Ottoman Empire. In 1804 (for example), a violently homosexual Janissary junta called the <em>Dahias<\/em> ruled the whole of Serbia in the Balkans.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em> acquired prominence of very high military rank and social prestige, high levels of pay, <u>exclusively because of homosexual favouritism<\/u>. They became untouchable, like the British cross-party parliamentary <em>Velvet Mafia<\/em> (in the immortal words of a British parliamentary committee, warning the Conservative Prime Minister John Major, when he first came to power 1990-7, that he should never ever cross the cross-party group of <strong>homosexual<\/strong> Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, ganged-up like the Chick-pea Sellers of Istanbul, defending their rights at all costs against the idle-classes, and rightly so!)<\/p>\n<p>The <em>yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em>s, like the British Underground-train-drivers\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7 union leaders would never compromise their pay and hierarchies (\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093differentials\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d, in British trade-union discourse). All attempts to modernize them within the Ottoman Army would hit the rails!<\/p>\n<p>The city of <em>Edirne<\/em> was the third-time-round capital city of the Ottoman Empire for 90 years, where Mehmed II (1432-81) the Conqueror of <em>Constantinople<\/em> and the destroyer of the Byzantine Empire was born \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c he declared it as his new capital city in 1453. And he (like a modern ISIS leader) established the first slave market in Istanbul (in 1460s). They mushroomed overnight in most cities and towns \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c special markets called <em>Esir<\/em>, where the slaves of all ages and both genders were <u>publicly stripped totally naked and shamelessly examined by potential buyers<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c it was the hard-core pornography of the day, replicated today by the genocidal lunatics of ISIS in part-occupied <em>Syria<\/em>, determined to revive the \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Ottoman Caliphate\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d (whatever they mean).<\/p>\n<p><em>\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Edirne<\/em> was and still is (I think) the home of <em>K<\/em><em>\u0569\u008e\u0539\u0564<\/em><em>rkp<\/em><em>\u0569\u008e\u0539\u0564<\/em><em>nar<\/em> the name of an extraordinary oil-wrestling tournament held once a year in June, since 1346, and still a very highly prized cultural event in modern Turkey \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the pair of young male wrestlers pour buckets of olive-oil on their naked bodies, wear heavy black leather-trousers down to just below the knees, and begin to wrestle normally \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c but what is unique and quite amazing is the <u>single<\/u> shockingly homoerotic rule of the match \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c that they can only topple the opponent by <u>plunging their hands in the trousers to grab the bare oily buttocks of the opponent<\/u> to trip him up!\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0 Of course all wrestling is intensely homosexual, but this Turkish version is beyond the pale \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c there is nothing like it anywhere.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mehmed II built also the vast <em>Topkapi Palace<\/em>, where, in a part of the <em>Harem,<\/em> little could he guess, an area emerged in time as a kind of virtual <em>Cage (Kafes<\/em>, in Turkish) for the potential successors to the throne to be under a kind of house arrest, constantly watched by palace guards \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c with endless sons of the sultan\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s concubines vying for power, their mothers hatching conspiracies to empower their own children, <u>it became customary for a new sultan to get his siblings killed, including infants, dozens of them at once<\/u> &#8230; as a matter of <u>Ottoman routine ritual of succession<\/u>, very much like an alpha&#8230; lion in the jungle who kills all the cubs of a pride he takes over, to force the fertility of his harem-lionesses he immediately mates with in succession! \u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0The Cage-inmates were allowed to mate only with <u>barren<\/u> concubines \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the psychological pressure was such that one deposed Sultan committed suicide.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And Mehmed II was happily insistent to claim descent from not Osman, but John Tzelepes Komnenos, the brother of a Byzantine emperor \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c John II Komnenos (= The Beautiful). He wrote poetry under a pseudonym named \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Avni\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d(= the Helper). In painting, the Sultan is exclusively portrayed smelling &#8230; two red rose-buds, not matured yet (<em>Serayi Albums<\/em>, circa 1480) \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c a homosexual symbol of paedophilia referring to the <em>sex-slavery\/dev\u0569\u0085\u056a\u0534irme\/yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri <\/em>vicious circular system he had propagated fiercely and fearsomely throughout his empire.<\/p>\n<p>Mehmed II did also some good \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c codified criminal and constitutional law, and commissioned the first imperial mosque \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the <em>Fatih Mosque<\/em> in Istanbul. Rossini has an opera, one of his most interesting, titled <em>Maometto II<\/em> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the heroic Sultan is the same, but the plot line a total fantasy!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Sultan in real life was capable of incredible genocidal cruelty, contrary to the noble legacy of his ancestor Osman\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s message to his son; when Mehmed II had secured the <em>Bosporous Straits<\/em> militarily, he levied a toll on ships passing through \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c fair enough, but one day, a Venetian vessel ignored the signals to stop (perhaps even due to some confusion, malfunction or misunderstanding); A single cannon shot sank her, and all the sailors lucky enough to have survived in the water were scooped up and beheaded, except the captain, who was impaled and set-up as a public scarecrow!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While worshipped by modern Turks as their greatest national hero, Mehmed II was so hated by the Europeans (needless to say the Venetians in particular) that when the news of his death was reported, church-bells rang, celebrations held, <em>La Grande Aquila \u0569\u0083\u0539. morta!<\/em> (= the great eagle is dead) was shouted in the watery streets of Venice, and on <em>gondolas<\/em> through the canals!<\/p>\n<p><em>Is There an Ottoman culture?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I think there is, and contrary to what the Anglo-American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) thought, that the Ottomans ruled for six hundred years as a military dynasty <u>incapable of culture-creation<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the great philosopher had probably the 1915 genocide of the Armenians in mind. In his old fashioned way, the philosopher obviously equalized culture with civilized behaviour \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c a definition now entirely outmoded and further demeaned by the use of culture for any other sub-culture to include murderous cults.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And in this centenary year of it, we must observe that the Ottoman \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093high-culture\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d, if any such Whiteheadean entity should be defined \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c was mostly the invention of the Armenians in <em>Istanbul<\/em>; In addition to the above examples, we must never forget the great architect <strong>Sinan<\/strong> (1489-1588) \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c some think the greatest in the history of architecture \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c he realized 476 projects \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c mosques, hospitals, aqueducts, roads, bridges &#8230; the most famous Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, and the Selimiye mosque in <em>Edirne<\/em> (thought to be his masterpiece); Sinan trained apprentices, assistants, some of whom later designed the <em>Taj Mahal; <\/em>as the head of a government department, Sinan served three sultans \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II, and Murad III. Sadly, he was a <em>Dev\u0569\u0085\u056a\u0534irme<\/em> child, trained as a <em>yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em> to the level of <em>A\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534a<\/em>-commander, one of the proofs of his Armenian ancestry denied by modern Turkish lunatics. Myself, I think Sinan built his mosques <u>according to the design of the blue-print of a traditional classical Armenian church<\/u>. When in 1573, Sultan Selim II decided to exile the Armenian communities of the <em>Kayseri<\/em> region of Anatolia (the birthplace of Sinan) to the island of Cyprus he had conquered two years earlier (in 1571), Sinan could arrange that his family was saved from exile by a special <em>firman<\/em> (Order) from the Sultan.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The British Bond of the Band of Ottoman \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Brothers\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c a modern historical puzzle solved<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Ottoman Sultanate was liberally homosexual. Most of the Sultans and their poets were practising paedophiles.<\/p>\n<p>One of the great mysteries of modern history is the intense puzzling intimacy of the British Foreign policy with that of Turkey, leading the three grand <u>denialists<\/u> of the Armenian holocaust of 1915. The USA (the mother of all Gay Liberation) and Israel (where the State formally declared <em>Tel Aviv<\/em> as the Gay Capital of the Middle East), are Britain\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s wedded partners in patronising the Young Turkish genocidal crime, murdering almost 2 million Armenians.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The annals of the British Empire generals of the time freely express their \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093love of the Turk\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d-ish soldiery openly. They share this homosexual underbelly, which can go a long way to explaining the bosom bonding (and bondage) of their foreign policies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A never known fact seems to be the overall <u>British Empire Army\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s adoption of the Ottoman Empire\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s sadistic Janissary training<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c and here it is in black-and white from a book to be officially published on September 10<sup>th<\/sup>, summed up by Tony Rennell in <strong>today\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s<\/strong> <em>Daily Mail<\/em> (29<sup>th<\/sup> August, 2015, pp 46-8) from a biography of the notorious British homosexual spy Guy Burgess);<\/p>\n<p>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093<em><u>As the son of a naval officer <\/u><\/em><u>{aged 13}<em>, it was natural for Burgess to go to Dartmouth Naval College in Devon. Here he entered a regime that was vicious to the point of cruelty. Cadets were constantly shouted at and harshly punished for the most minor of imperfections. [&#8230;] Caning \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c six strokes to the buttocks \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c was arbitrary and frequent. For serious offences, a cat o\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7 nine tails was used <\/em>{a heavy rope with 9 large knots on it to cause maximum pain}<em> [&#8230;] <\/em><\/u><em><u>He later claimed to the Russians that <strong>he became homosexual at Eton, where seduction was common among masters and boys<\/strong>.<\/u><\/em>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The above description is flawless to describe equally the Ottoman <em>Dev\u0569\u0085\u056a\u0534irme\/Janissary<\/em> system, for which the British Foreign policy seems to be very grateful (and feels indebted) to modern Turkish state, continuing the Disraeli policy down to our own days; Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), twice Queen Victoria\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Prime Minister, <u>in denial of Armenian rights under Russian empire support<\/u>, acquired for the British empire the island of <em>Cyprus<\/em> (1878) gifted by the Ottomans as a military base (still so!) to police \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093their\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d <em>Suez Canal<\/em> which was the life-line of Britain to India.<\/p>\n<p><u>The most famous Eton of course is the number one Secondary School for the empire-builders<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c Eton and Harrow are the Cambridge and Oxford Universities for the super-wealthy teenagers of the British oligarchs. <em>Trinity College<\/em> at Cambridge was famous for harbouring secret societies (one named <em>Apostles)<\/em> exclusive to homosexual elites.<\/p>\n<p>By now it is thus a well-proven fact that most of the British ruling class were <u>child-abused, especially in the best public schools led by Eton (and Harrow)<\/u>, beaten regularly with the rod on their buttocks by sadistic paedophile headmasters and all-male teachers, exactly as described above regarding the naval cadets of the military. The elite British educational <u>system \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c primary \/ secondary \/ Oxbridge<\/u> never influenced by social (and societal) changes or modernity, <u>preserves its Ottoman sadistic fixtures<\/u>.<\/p>\n<p>From endless examples, let us mention the great baby Winston Churchill, whose father, a Lord of the British Realm died of syphilis, and whose American mother was \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093the local bike\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d for the British upper crust \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c an apt Cockney folk expression for female fornicators. They neglected horribly their teenage-son dumped in a famous boarding school, until the matron sent the repugnant parents a message that they might soon have to collect child-Churchill\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s corpse &#8230; That physically frequently heart-broken sweet child Winston Churchill became a true Ottoman janissary, plunging the world into the Second World War with his attack on <em>Gallipoli<\/em>, and then inventing the Cold War against Bolshevism.<\/p>\n<p>In my time, in Beirut Lebanon, I was in touch with the <em>British Council<\/em>, the cultural wing of Britain\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Foreign Office, closeted exclusively with homosexual officers in foreign lands \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c even the cultural acts they imported from Britain for display to the local people were cast from highly civilized and socially cautious homosexuals. The first violin of a Quartet, in his forties, fell in love with me \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c I was 14, and he wished to sight-see Beirut for a day with me arm-in-arm. I obliged politely out of love for Shakespeare\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s <em>Hamlet<\/em> and <em>King Lear <\/em>I used to soliloquize.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A homosexual Sultan, Selim III was entirely reform-minded, and determined to modernize his Ottoman empire \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the <em>Yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em> did not like it a bit, especially that the Sultan\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s reform-intentions (just like the British Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s) were focused on the destruction of their trade-union power, threatening their socio-economic status. Consequently, they rebelled \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c referenced in Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s opera \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c deposed the Sultan (a first in Ottoman history), allowing a gang to murder him.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sultan Mahmud II (1789-1839), the 30<sup>th<\/sup> Sultan (not to be confused with Mehmed II), developed the Reform-zeal of Selim III\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s legacy further, enough to win the sobriquet of \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093<em>Peter the Great of Turkey<\/em>\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d. Legend has it that his mother was a first cousin of Josephine, Napoleon Bonaparte\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s wife.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sultan Mahmud dared to abolish the <em>Yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em> by simply genociding them \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c on 15<sup>th<\/sup> June 1826, most of the 135.000 of them had rebelled fighting battles in the streets of Istanbul which was their power-base \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c (<u>echoed in the street battles of <em>Hor-hor A\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534a<\/em> commanding his band of <em>yeni<\/em><\/u><em><u>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/u><\/em><em><u>eri<\/u><\/em><u> &#8230; chick-pea Sellers<\/u>).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mahmud II gathered the <em>Janissaries<\/em> in their barracks and simply slaughtered them. The last of them, were put to death by decapitation in the <em>Blood Tower<\/em> of the (now Greek) city of <em>Thessaloniki<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>An indication that the <em>Yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em> trade-union power did not disappear altogether was held in the rumours that Sultan Mahmud II himself \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c their genocider \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c died eventually in mysterious circumstances, perhaps of TB, but most likely assassinated by an avenging <em>Yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em>, who as an army contingent of homosexuals passed into myth and legend, their ambiguous characters (bad-and-good) transmuted into rebel-fighters for their rights, like modern British trade-union leaders demanding more pay, job-security, and decent living standards. Their exclusive military honorific title <em>A\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534a <\/em>gained wider prominence precisely like <em>the members of the British Legion<\/em>, ex-army officers referring to each other with their military ranks (like Rear Admiral, Sergeant Major, Commander etc.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Janissary<\/em> military-band music (called <em>mehter-<\/em>music) based on the intensive use of giant timpani, <em>davul<\/em> (Base-drum), <em>zurna<\/em> (loud shawm) \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c both <u>Caucasian Armenian<\/u> elements), <em>zil<\/em> (cymbals), bells, triangle, <em>boru<\/em> (natural trumpet) inspired the classical composers of the West; Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c in Giacomo Puccini\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s opera <em>La Boh\u0569\u0083\u0539\u2014me <\/em>(Premiered in 1896)<em>, <\/em>a military band parades in the streets of Paris (in the first Act). The genius of Beethoven, transformed the <em>Janissary<\/em>-band music into a new genre, the <em>Funerary March<\/em>, an unsurpassed masterpiece of which is the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> movement of Beethoven\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s <em>Symphony No. 3<\/em> (opus 55, in E flat Major, 1804) the <em>Eroica<\/em> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c <em>Marcia Funebra<\/em>, the funeral march (in <em>adagio assai<\/em>) glorifying the hero\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s death.<\/p>\n<p>And today, the <em>yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri mehter<\/em>-band is prettified with beautiful primary coloured costumes as one of the best tourist attractions of modern Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Incredibly, <u>all of the above, and more, are reference points in Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s complicated opera<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c so very complicated, as he seems to have attempted an <u>impossible task<\/u> in the history of music \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c <u>an amalgamation of the two major <em>genres<\/em> of opera<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the <em>opera<\/em> <em>seria =<\/em> serious opera, with mythic-tragic and practically melodramatic subjects, against which the <em>opera bouffa<\/em> = comic opera had arisen. There are undoubted echoes of Giuseppe Verdi\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s <em>Rigoletto<\/em> <u>in the plotline, but not in the music<\/u> which is the culprit of the confusion of the Soviet Armenian musical oafs to have lumbered Tchoukhadjian with \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093the Armenian Verdi\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d nonsense.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While I am certain that the Ottoman ambiguities about the genocidal <em>Dev\u0569\u0085\u056a\u0534irme<\/em> system and its paedophile-homosexual extension are all over Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s plot of the <em>Hor-hor A\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534a<\/em>, I cannot be certain at all about his self-imposed task of forging the two opera genres (of the comic and the serious) into a single unity, as none of the original librettos\/scores of his operas have survived intact. The presence of the tragic sentiment features as a constituent element also in the comic operas of Mozart \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s great source of musical inspiration, although one cannot detect any conscious effort on the part of any composer in the history of music attempting a union of both, the faint signs of which appear in Tchoukhadjian (and perhaps in Wagner 1813-83).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s main character, for example, right from the bottom of the social scale \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c a <em>Leblebidji<\/em>, but an <em>A\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534a<\/em> = a <em>Yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eri<\/em> military Commander, commands his friends, symbolizing their whole social class, of the Leb-lebi (= chickpea) sellers of Istanbul, and organizes a rebellion to reclaim his virgin-daughter (hence a young girl, and not a middle-aged Soviet soprano) from the clutches of the Opera-administration (symbolizing the Ottoman ruling class, whose <u>sole function<\/u> was to entertain the Sultan \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c a Don Giovanni with hundreds of concubines caged in a <em>harem<\/em>).\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0 The intention of the <em>yeni<\/em><em>\u0569\u008f\u0549\u0080\u0535<\/em><em>eris<\/em> of Hor-hor A\u0569\u0084\u056a\u0534a is to topple the sex-mad regime of the <em>artistes<\/em> of Selim III&#8230; and by camouflaged extension, the Sultanate itself!<\/p>\n<p>The chorus led by the <em>Leblebidji<\/em> (a <em>base-baritone<\/em> role) is a powerful rhythmic almost dance like-melody, displaying revolutionary fervour with their raised clubs to beat the hell out of the lascivious-regime \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c (in Armenian) <em>enbess me bidi dsedsenk vor morrnan irents harssanik<\/em> = we\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7ll beat them up (physically) such that they\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7ll forget their wedding ceremonies! <em>Harssanik<\/em> is an <em>argot<\/em> euphemism in Armenian for sex-orgy!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>The conspiracy of Turkish governments post 1915 to ethnically-cleanse Western Public&#8230; Libraries <\/em><\/p>\n<p>I remember from my teenage years when Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s lost musical score was discovered in a Turkish grocer\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s shop in <em>Istanbul<\/em>, and rescued by a wealthy Lebanese Armenian from being consumed as wrapping paper!<\/p>\n<p>There was an undoubted conspiracy by the post-war Turkish governments, to methodically and ruthlessly cleanse European public libraries of all references <u>in print<\/u> to the genocide of the Armenians \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c it was their second level of genocide, the continuation of attempting to wipe the Armenian natives of <em>Anatolia<\/em> out of History. Security checks were practically non-existent then, and the evil Turkish deeds done easily. On many occasions, I would visit the <em>British Museum<\/em> in London for research, in the seventies, and discover works <u>recorded in their catalogues, but vanished from the collection<\/u> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c there was the case of an article, cut out with a blade, out of a book of essays!<\/p>\n<p>A few years ago, there was a hullabaloo about the opening of the Ottoman state-archives for research about the genocide of the Armenians, some believed to find hard-core evidence there.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But how could those Armenians be so naive still, when the modern Turkish state had already cleansed their Republic by changing (turkey-fying) the names of ancient Armenian cities, dynamiting the Byzantine Armenian churches (hundreds of them! Even their historical ruins!), had paid secret agents travelling to Europe to mutilate the British Museum and the National Archives.<\/p>\n<p>The British government Civil Servant-slaves are themselves masters of clearing state papers of all harmful and undesirable content, <u>tampering with history <\/u>itself, while simultaneously pretending that they are releasing the facts and truths of history, the deception strengthened by the titillation of the 30 years rule of keeping them under lock and key.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s score saved from the Istanbul grocer was immediately transmitted to the Opera House in <em>Yerevan, <\/em>the capital city of Soviet Armenia, where ignorameously, not even understanding the revolutionary aspect of the plot and its music, the Soviet Armenian intellectual \u0569\u0083\u0539.lite totally messed up poor Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s <em>comic opera<\/em>, <em><u>Mozartean<\/u><\/em> (and Rossini like \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the latter himself anyway influenced greatly by Mozart), and <strong>not<\/strong> <strong>Verdi<\/strong>-ean.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Tchoukhadjian is the Armenian Mozart\/Rossini<\/em>, <strong><u>not<\/u><\/strong> Verdi, as an epithet commonly thrown about by Armenian \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093experts\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d; the tomfoolery of the Soviet Armenian musical Establishment went as far as even <strong>changing the very nature of <\/strong>Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s work, unforgivably, either from sheer ignorance of music-history, or heterosexual male chauvinist idiocy \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c they <strong><u>should<\/u><\/strong> have known that the lead singer of the <em>op\u0569\u0083\u0539.ra comique<\/em> <strong><u>which defines the very <em>genre<\/em> of the music is the Base\/Baritone<\/u><\/strong>, <strong><u>not the female<\/u><\/strong> Soprano\/Mezzo (singing the role of a made-up name) <em>Garin\u0569\u0083\u0539.<\/em>, stamped then (and now on poor Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s work), shifting by misdirection the semantic and musical balance of the work.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You just can\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t have a <em>comic opera<\/em> with a <em><u>female<\/u><\/em><u> lead<\/u>, not even a <em>tenor<\/em>; it <u>must absolutely be a Base<\/u>, at the most a <em>Baritone<\/em>, which is closer in vocal range to the <em>base<\/em>. And this was the genocidal musical crime the Soviet Armenian opera directors were guilty of, and frankly, I expect their successors to apologize and recant, and make amends by officially denouncing their unjustifiable musical error, then replace the sheer stupidity of the <em>Garin\u0569\u0083\u0539.<\/em> (Soprano) title role to the opera\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s distinctive original <em>Leblebidji Hor-hor Agha<\/em> (Base) title.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danae Eleni<\/strong>, a beautiful English soprano, with perfect pitch, <em>mezzo<\/em> range, plus coloratura was ignorameously made the star of the London production \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c I was surprised she did not hail already from the ENO (the <em>English National Opera Company<\/em>) where she should reside! They should be all ears and eyes to get her for Mozart\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Queen of the Night (in the <em>Magic Flute<\/em>)!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leon Berger<\/strong> <em>Hor-Hor, <\/em>with a pleasant timbre of <em>basso<\/em> did an excellent job trying not to steal the show, which actually <u>musically technically speaking really belonged to him!<\/u><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In <em>Beirut<\/em> (the capital city of the Lebanon), there arrived in the fifties, a genius of the Armenian Istanbul theatre tradition, <strong>Berj Fazlian<\/strong>, who in the early seventies also laid the foundations of the Lebanese <strong>Arab<\/strong> theatre, by directing musicals for the most famous <strong>Rahbani<\/strong> brothers, one of them being married to <strong>Feyrouz<\/strong>, a folk singer known throughout the Arab countries.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Fazlian, probably in his late eighties now, directed Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s <em>Leblebidji<\/em> with a unique savvy Istanbul flavour difficult to define, working together with the late <strong>Armen Tarian, a master of Armenian Prose and short-stories <\/strong>(and my own brother-in-law) as the <em>Librettist<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What is quite inexplicable is Gerald Papasian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s own remarkable grasp of what I call the <em>Istanbul-flavour of life and art<\/em>! He was too young to have experienced the fruits of Berj Fazilian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s genius &#8230; and yet, Mr Papasian seems to have it run through his veins \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the best I could define it with is the <em>Commedia dell\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7arte<\/em> tradition, which undoubtedly went into the unique melting-pot of the <em>opera-comique<\/em> \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the ingredient of eroticism to the degree of obscenity, the British theatre tradition of which stretched back to Medieval theatre, and of course Shakespeare (still not properly understood by Shakespeare scholars deluding themselves that their great national playwright is as sexless as themselves &#8230; There should be an agreed age-of-consent limit (perhaps at 25) <strong>not<\/strong> to expose Shakespeare\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s true meanings to children!<\/p>\n<p><em>No Sex Please, We Are British and American Musicals <\/em><\/p>\n<p>While the European <em>commedia<\/em> tradition was less imbibed with blatant violence, British literary obscenity (with Shakespeare and what followed him, the <em>Jacobean Theatre<\/em>) was drowned in it&#8230; By the second half of the 19<sup>th<\/sup> c., attending a theatre performance in London (musical burlesque, bawdy badly translated continental operas, vulgar farce, erotic \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093ballets\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d) became demeaning for the Bourgeois (outwardly respectable) public, while the landed British Aristocracy continued with their sexual peccadilloes behind the heavily laid curtains of their mansions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In 1875, Richard D\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7Oyly Carte noticed quite a big gap in the market to invent the family-friendly light opera by commissioning two composers <strong>Gilbert<\/strong> and <strong>Sullivan<\/strong> to write the first \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093clean\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d comic operas \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the time of <em>No Sex please, we are British <\/em>had arrived (the unforgettable title of a British farce, premiered in 1971, playing to full houses until 1987, totalling 6,761 performances!)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>D\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7Oyly Carte went further, and built the <em>Savoy Theatre<\/em> in London especially for them (now an adjunct of the <em>Savoy Hotel, <\/em>home of international celebrities, where today a 50 pence afternoon tea costs a whopping \u0569\u0082\u0539\u0589 50 English pounds, yes, you read it correctly, 5000 times over-priced, typical of what the <em>Daily Mail<\/em> calls <em><u>Rip-off Britain<\/u><\/em>!)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The childish junk of <strong>Gilbert and Sullivan<\/strong> operettas \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c a bad imitation of a pair of Rossini-s \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c continued performing at the <em>Savoy<\/em> exclusively, de-sexing the British until&#8230; 1982, all the while laying the foundations of the American musicals.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately rubbed down clean with camp detergent, to the degree of perverting the genre itself of <em>comic opera<\/em> &#8230; into complete infantile boredom, the Gilbert and Sullivan Rossini-foot-prints inspired the silly, superficial, petty, wishy-washy lyrics of the American musicals fit for mindless audiences!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>A Last Word on the Arcola Production<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Regrettably, the production suffered from some serious flaws. Obviously under-rehearsed, it ran the danger of being a complete waste of time, but it was not, on the contrary, it held the audience spell-bound.<\/p>\n<p>I was stunned by the profoundly moving commitment of the cast to its director \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c something I have rarely witnessed at Britain\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s National Theatre!<\/p>\n<p>Some flaws could have been easily corrected \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c <em>Opera<\/em>, with its aggrandized emotions, can absorb imperfect diction, and even a complete ignorance of the lyrics which explains why audiences do not mind not knowing the original language of a grand opera \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c but not in <em>Opera comique<\/em>, which possesses large chunks of unsung libretto progressing the plot-line \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c it is hence absolutely vital that <u>every word is properly enunciated and fully understood in the language of the audience<\/u>.<\/p>\n<p>From the very first day of the formal rehearsals, the director should have ensured a consensus of how to pronounce the foreign words and names, so that you do not get a dozen different pronunciations of (say) <em>Ga-ri-n\u0569\u0083\u0539.<\/em> as <em>Garaineh<\/em>, <em>Gai-aneh<\/em> etc.<\/p>\n<p>Although the director had the excellent idea of spreading out the action all over the stage-space(s), nevertheless, the crowd-scenes were messy and not adequately expansive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Papasian, the director (who is also the stage-Narrator) displayed a wonderful sense of stand-up comic\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s endless humour and perfect timing. He kept harping on the fact that this was only a semi-staged enterprise. I thought he was joking, until I worked out that he meant it! But I think he should have kept it as a deliberate joke, otherwise the question arises as to why bother at all, and not wait for better days when one could stage the opera in full, with orchestra instead of a piano accompaniment (perfectly and seamlessly executed by a first-class musician <strong>Kelvin Thomson<\/strong>) and all the paraphernalia of an opera house! Since there is no prospect of that happening, I think the semi-staging of it should stay as a nice joke, digging at the foolishness of international opera house managements for ignoring such a musical masterpiece. Tchoukhadjian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s <em>Operetta<\/em> can be made unflinchingly a staple of the classical repertoire.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I liked also the grotesque <em>commedia dell\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7arte<\/em> moustachioed characters played with French style cabaret monkey-business. I think the production could be safely advertised containing some <em>Commedia dell\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7arte<\/em> characters, preparing the potential audience for its directorial innovations \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c I found it hilarious, the ironical presentation of the Bosporus with sheer blue lighting on the inner red-brick wall of the theatre\/stage.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>All in all, it was a brilliant success \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the audience absolutely loved it. Tchoukhadjian was the great winner \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c even as a lame duck, he could compete with Tchaikovsky\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s <em>Swans <\/em>in any lake!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>P.S.<\/p>\n<p>While I was trying to acquire tickets, I discovered that the Internet site of the <em>Arcola theatre <\/em><u>was announcing <\/u>the evening\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s programme <u>with a Review<\/u> of the show \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c something I have never encountered anywhere else \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c this fact alone was very odd, but what shocked me most was moreover the obnoxious review \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c I thought to myself, what madness to put off a prospective theatre-goer from seeing the production &#8230; for a moment I thought Hell, why bother&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it is despicable when a Reviewer seemingly deliberately attempts to demean a creative enterprise and the group of people (the Cast) who are trying their damnedest to kindly entertain.<\/p>\n<p>I am not paranoid, and I dislike anti-Semitic\/Armenian obsessives who hunt for conspiracies at the drop of a hat; but in this sensitive year of the genocide of the Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman <em>Young Turks, <\/em>could it be that the occasion was a \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093subtle\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d attempt to paper over the incontrovertible fact that the Ottoman culture was very much indebted to Armenian creativity, their children providing the Janissaries, their women ornamenting the Sultan\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s harems \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c it was discovered only last year that about 3 million Turks today have an Armenian grandmother &#8230; who have usually divulged the secret of their identity <u>on their deathbed<\/u>!<\/p>\n<p>By genociding 2 million Armenians in cold blood, in 1915, against the last will and testament of <strong>Osman<\/strong>, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty (born in ancient Armenian Anatolia) advocating kindness, fairness and justice, <strong>never cruelty<\/strong>,\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0\u0569\u0082\u0539\u00a0 the racist hyenas of the <em>Young Turks<\/em> plunged their own country into a hell the fires of which are still burning, and threatening to engulf the whole of the Middle East \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the sick fantasy of Western Bushite warmongers aiming for permanent \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093little\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d wars that can keep their macro-economies based on military-industrial complexes oiled and going&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I am told that the Theatre\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s Founder and Artistic Director is a very nice Turkish gentleman \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c and one would think that he would not cut his own throat by denigrating on his website a production he had initiated &#8230; But then, people of all nations are funny that way&#8230; which way?<\/p>\n<p>The genociders of the Armenians in 1915, <strong>Talaat<\/strong> (the PM), and <strong>Enver<\/strong> (the minister of War) were bosom Freemason brothers of the Armenian Lawyer <strong>Krikor Zohrap<\/strong>, an MP of the Ottoman Parliament, and their expert of international law (he was also the Guy de Maupassant of Armenian literature, an unsurpassed master of Prose) &#8230; he had Turkish coffee in the morning with Enver, arrested in the afternoon by Talaat, and his head smashed with (literally) rocks in the evening (bragged about by the murderer himself)!<\/p>\n<p>I have dear and sweet and compassionate Turkish friends in London, who know that my own father was a victim of the genocide, they share my tears of his memories, but then suddenly deny that it was a well-planned genocide \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c only an <em>accidental<\/em> massacre&#8230; of 2 million!<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the Artistic Director of the <em>Arcola<\/em> Theatre could inspire a Turkish composer to write a comic opera on this accidental massacre!<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>(Exploring the socio-Political Context of the First Ottoman Turkish Opera Composed by an Armenian) By Professor Hovhanness I. Pilikian * Editorial Note: Hot from the press, Professor Pilikian\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s this article is the most astounding yet, <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/?p=16933\" title=\"A Papasian Production that makes you proud of being an Armenian\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,10,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaeurop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}