Saturday Beefcake Nostalgia from Five Years Ago
"Eravamo tanti bei Nemorini," a phrase spoken by an Italian contemporary of the pre-Stonewall years indicating that young gay men of the 60s were very much like the protagonist of Donizetti's Opera L'Elisir D'Amore . "We were so many beautiful Nemorinos." Never more so in the Summers of those years at the beach while giving furtive glances at lifeguards and other outstanding creatures of the same sex, many believed, as perhaps they still do, that the right combination of the elements would bring the object of that very desire closer. Not unlike Nemorino who believed he had actually purchased an elixir, a love potion, to make Adina fall in love with him. Donizetti's Elixir is an opera that actually ends happily. There is, however, pathos and haunting beauty in Nemorino's aria, Una Furtiva Lagrima , when he is convinced that Adina loves him by virtue of the elixir, which is actually Bordeaux, not to dispel the love inducing qualities of a good win...