In response to this, by me...

>>Where do his sexual acrobatics impinge upon his compositional talents?
>>How, except perhaps in plotting an opera, would the sex of those he
>>embeds affect his art?

...John Smyth wrote:

>Tchaikovsky, for instance, found a kindred spirit in Byron's "Manfred":
>he found himself sympathetic to the character's sin of unnatural love.
>Surely this helped Tchaikovsky put pen to paper.

Fine: I'll take your word for it.  Even so, just how did that initial
impulse affect the nature of the art that emerged? How is what prompted him
determinative of the final composition?

>Genius is a combination of talent *and* will, and I believe that sexual
>desire, sympathy and eroticism are very important functions of will.

I'm not sure about the sexual component of your account, given, say, the
6-year old Mozart's creations; and I'll also take a raincheck on the notion
of "genius." Still, I'd agree that artistic creation stems from talent and
will, and that the erotic/emotive plays a key role.

But while the erotic may well be at the heart of the creation of artworks,
that doesn't confer some important role to the particular impulses that
gave rise to a composition.  I just don't see this kind of difference in
the artist's motivations or attractions impinging on the final work, qua
art.  Qua manifesto, perhaps, or regarding some themes -- but that doesn't
happen in music.

>I'm listening to Britten's Billy Budd as we speak.

Operas are special cases since the composer articulates personal roles, and
sexual themes, etc., are explicit in such works.  Still: does it make much
sense to subdivide operas into those of the gay or straight kind?

Camille Paglia mentions a production of Wilde's "The Importance of Being
Ernest" where all the central characters were performed as gay, some in
drag, etc.  Apparently, the idea 'worked.' But what sense would it make to
say it became a gay work of art? None, I think.  The only question that
matters is as to whether it worked, whether it remained as art.

>...it's empowering for us to know that people could have flexible or diverse
>orientations and still accomplish something.

Perhaps for many.  But I somehow doubt that this is really so for you.

>(I just learned about Lully.)

(What?  What?)

BB