Carmen (verse)

In Ancient Rome, the term "carmen" was generally used to signify a verse; but in its proper sense, it referred to a spell or prayer, form of expiation, execration, etc. Surviving examples include the Carmen Arvale and the Carmen Saliare.

Purposes

Spells and incantations were used for a variety of purposes. If a spell was intended to harm someone, the State could interfere to protect him. For instance, it was not unusual for a farmer whose crops had failed to accuse another farmer of having, by a carmen, lured the crops away. Tibullus, in a poem in which he complains that an old woman has bewitched Marathus, takes the opportunity to recount various feats of witches, such as transferring crops from one field to another. Similarly, Pliny the Elder records in Naturalis Historia (XVIII. 8) that a certain freedman, Furius, by using better implements and better methods than his neighbor, obtained richer crops from a smaller strip of land. A neighbor compelled Furius to go before the tribes and accused him of having bewitched his field. But when the tribes saw his sturdy slaves and his implements of witchcraft—hoes, rakes, and ploughs—they acquitted him.

Carmen (2003 film)

Carmen is a 2003 Spanish drama film directed by Vicente Aranda. The script was written by Aranda and Joaquim Jordà adapting the classic romance of the same name by Prosper Mérimée. Director Vicente Aranda based the plot on Mérimée's original 1847 novella about jealousy and passion, not its famous operatic adaptation by Bizet from 1875, changing some details about the love story between Carmen (Paz Vega) and José (Leonardo Sbaraglia). As in the novella, author Mérimée (Jay Benedict) is portrayed as a French writer who finds the "real" Carmen in early 19th century Spain.

Plot

While traveling through Andalusia, Spain in 1830, Prosper Mérimée, a French writer, meets José, a wanted criminal. José ends up condemned to death by garroting. The day before José is going to be executed, Mérimée, who has befriended the bandit, visits him in prison. From his jail cell, José begins to narrate his tragic story to the sympathetic writer.

A Burlesque on Carmen

A Burlesque on Carmen is Charlie Chaplin's thirteenth and final film for Essanay Studios, released as Carmen on December 18, 1915. Chaplin played the leading man and Edna Purviance played Carmen. The film is a parody of the overacted Cecil B. DeMille Carmen of 1915 which was itself an interpretation of the popular novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée. Composer Hugo Riesenfeld wrote the music for both the DeMille and the Chaplin films, based on George Bizet's opera Carmen.

Chaplin's original version was a tightly paced two-reeler, but in 1916 after Chaplin had moved to Mutual, Essanay reworked the film into a four-reel version called A Burlesque on Carmen, or Burlesque on 'Carmen', adding discarded footage and new scenes involving a subplot about a gypsy character played by Ben Turpin. This longer version was deeply flawed in pacing and continuity, not representative of Chaplin's initial conception. Chaplin sued Essanay but failed to stop the distribution of the longer version; Essanay's tampering with this and other of his films contributed significantly to Chaplin's bitterness about his time there. The presence of Essanay's badly redone version is likely the reason that Burlesque on Carmen is among the least known of Chaplin's works. Historian Ted Okuda calls the two-reel original version the best film of Chaplin's Essanay period, but derides the longer version as the worst.

Carmen: Duets & Arias

Carmen: Duets & Arias is an album released in 2010 by Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli. The album is a collection of arias of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen, including duets with Welsh bass-baritone, Bryn Terfel, Russian mezzo-soprano Marina Domashenko, and Italian soprano Eva Mei, from the French opéra comique.

Background

In 2005, Bocelli recorded the opera Carmen. Myung-whun Chung conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Chœur de Radio France for the recording. Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, mezzo-soprano Marina Domashenko, and soprano Eva Mei, were also part of the Ensemble.

In 2008, Bocelli played the role of Don José on stage, opposite Hungarian mezzo-soprano Ildikó Komlósi, as Carmen, at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, in Rome, for four nights, from June 17 to June 28. Bocelli released the complete opera recording of Carmen, in Italy, in the same year.

In March 2010, the recording was released Internationally.Carmen: Duets & Arias contains highlights of arias and duets of that recording.

Verse (film)

Verse is a 2009 Bolivian film, starring Mirtha Elena Pardo and directed by Alejandro Pereyra.

See also

External links

Interscope Records

Interscope Records is an American record label. It is a division of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, whose parent company is the Universal Music Group, a subsidiary of Vivendi S.A.

Interscope was founded in 1989 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Time Warner's Atlantic Records. At the time, it differed from most record companies by giving decision-making authority to its A&R staff, and allowing artists and producers complete creative control. It had its first hit records less than a year after it was founded and achieved profitability in 1993.

In 1992, Interscope acquired the exclusive rights to market and distribute the hardcore rap label Death Row. Albums by Death Row artists including 2Pac, Dr. Dre, and Snoop Doggy Dogg were at the center of the mid-'90s gangsta rap controversy, and as a result, Time Warner severed ties with Interscope by selling its 50 percent stake back to Field and Iovine for $115 million in 1995. In 1996, 50% of the label was acquired by the MCA Music Entertainment Group for a reported $200 million.

Chapters and verses of the Bible

The Bible is a compilation of many shorter books written at different times by a variety of authors, and later assembled into the biblical canon. All but the shortest of these books have been divided into chapters, generally a page or so in length, since the early 13th century. Since the mid-16th century, each chapter has been further divided into "verses" of a few short lines or sentences. Sometimes a sentence spans more than one verse, as in the case of Ephesians 2:8–9, and sometimes there is more than one sentence in a single verse, as in the case of Genesis 1:2. As the chapter and verse divisions were not part of the original texts, they form part of the paratext of the Bible.

The Jewish divisions of the Hebrew text differ at various points from those used by Christians. For instance, in Jewish tradition, the ascriptions to many Psalms are regarded as independent verses or parts of the subsequent verses, making 116 more verses, whereas the established Christian practice is to treat each Psalm ascription as independent and unnumbered. Some chapter divisions also occur in different places, e.g. 1 Chronicles 5:27–41 in Hebrew Bibles is numbered as 1 Chronicles 6:1–15 in Christian translations.