Culture Clash

As I've written before, one of my favorite aspects of history is when different cultures from vastly different regions somehow find themselves in direct contact. Because we tend to learn, study and read about different topics in silos, it strikes me as really interesting when the silos cave in on one another. It's sort of like the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family bumping into one another at the grocery store.

Now I'm running into a similar co-mingling; not across geographies but across different aspects of culture. All of a sudden I'm hearing about it everywhere.

The most recent example has to do with the operas of Mozart, which I'm continuing to study and enjoy. For example, Mozart, born in the middle of the 18th century, is certainly a cultural phenomenon himself. But I had no idea of the content of his opera. His first opera (written at age 11, by the way) entitled Apollo and Hyacinthus is based on the Roman writings of Ovid in his metamorphoses, almost 18 centuries before his time.

It turns out that Mozart, not exactly known for his academic achievements, wrote a lot about historical figures. His opera Mithridate, King of Pontus is based on the actual Mithridates (yes, he was King of Pontus) from Asia Minor, who ruled during the late Roman Republic. Mozart's Lucio Silla is, not surprisingly, based on the Roman General and all-around bad guy Lucius Sulla - though not without wild divergence from the historical facts. There are many other examples which I won't list here.

I'm also reading about similar occurences in the Italian Renaissance, where artists set aside their religious beliefs to rediscover and immortalize the pagan gods of ancient Greece and Rome in their works.

I've also been watching a movie on the life of Marco Polo. A Renaissance Venetian in the middle of Kublai Khan's court in Mongolian China must have been quite a sight, indeed. The fact that he stayed and prospered there for more than a decade is almost unbelievable.

I guess it turns out that cultures have always had a fascination with one another. Granted, much of this culture clash has to do with the idolization of classical civilization. However, I think it actually says more about the education of society. In Mozart's day it was expected that you would know the story of Mithridates. If you didn't, you would have a really boring night at the opera.

Nowadays I could throw a stone in the middle of Times Square and not hit a soul who could tell you if Mithridates was an ancient king, a river in South America, or the nightclub in Hollywood where Lindsey Lohan was recently spotted!