Resumo A ópera ocupou importante espaço na vida cultural do Rio de Janeiro, recebendo, durante o período de implantação da República, especial atenção de cronistas e críticos que atuavam na imprensa. Esses intelectuais percebiam no gênero músico-teatral uma forma de promover a civilização e o aprimoramento do gosto artístico da população da cidade. Assim, a ópera figurou, para parte significativa desses escritores, como aspecto que deveria ser contemplado nos planos de modernização, integrando-se a um projeto de civilização e modernização, articulado a outras propostas discutidas naquele momento, inclusive a própria reforma urbana do Rio de Janeiro colocada em prática nos primeiros anos do século XX.

Abstract The opera has occupied important space in the cultural life of Rio de Janeiro, receiving, during the period of implementation of the Republic, special attention of chroniclers and critics who were in the press. These intellectuals perceived in opera a form to promote civilization and the improvement of the city's artistic taste. Thus, the opera figured, for a significant part of these writers, as an aspect that should be included in the modernization plans, integrating a project of civilization and modernization, linked to other proposals discussed at that time, including the urban reform of Rio de Janeiro, put into practice in the early years of the twentieth century.

We present some cosmological solutions of Brans-Dicke theory, characterized by a decaying vacuum energy density and by a constant relative matter density. With these features, they shed light on the cosmological constant problems, leading to a presently small vacuum term, and to a constant ratio between the vacuum and matter energy densities. By fixing the only free parameter of our solutions, we obtain cosmological parameters in accordance with observations of the relative matter density, the universe age and redshift-distance relations.