Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #345 on: 12:42:13, 05-04-2008 » |
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I thought you'd appreciate the Donizetti, Don B! There is a drinking song for a poisoned drink in a work scheduled next season for ROH. Any suggestions?
I'm not familiar with it, but is it The Beggar's Opera?
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #346 on: 12:55:38, 05-04-2008 » |
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Yes it is The Beggar's Opera. Polly and Lucy are both rivals for Macheath's affection and one of them (I think Lucy) tries to poison the other with rats' bane in the gin. Her drinking song is Come sweet lass, let's banish sorrow till tomorrow and the melody was used in one of the first batch of modern hymn books c 1965.
The other drinking song, for the men (Fill ev'ry glass for wine inspires us) was set by John Gay to melody which I have come across as a French Noel Quelle est cette ordeur agreable? now in Andrew Parrot's revised Oxford Book of Carols.
Very odd ecclesiastical associations.
But there are plenty of other driinking songs in proper operas, as well as your number 3.
And before any other G&S buffs mention it, there is a Teacup Brindisi in the Act 1 of The Sorceror, sung by the Rector at the parish bunfeast, laced with the fatal love potion. Come pass the cup round, I'll go bail for the liquor. It's stong, I'll be bound, for it was brewed by the vicar.
I don't know Tristan that well. Do he and Isolde toast each other in style before knocking back the stuff?
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #347 on: 13:10:41, 05-04-2008 » |
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THE SICILIAN VESPERS opens with what, to my mind, is one of Verdi's least-inspired drinking songs. The words are "we are cardboard two-dimensional baddies". Actually they aren't - but they might as well be. Scribe must have have a hangover that day The crowd that gathers around the hallucinating Hoffmann at the opening of the opera sing an altogether more menacing drinking-song.
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House" - Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #348 on: 13:33:10, 05-04-2008 » |
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I don't know Tristan that well. Do he and Isolde toast each other in style before knocking back the stuff?
Yes, they toast each other before drinking the love potion, but it's hardly a drinking song. I can think of one Wagner example though, where Daland's crew starts up a merry drinking song to try and counter the eerie one coming from the Flying Dutchman's ship. There are a couple more Verdian ones, including possibly the most obvious in the genre. Nobody has had a stab at No.3 yet.
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #349 on: 13:40:21, 05-04-2008 » |
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There are a couple more Verdian ones, including possibly the most obvious in the genre.
Please sir, I know that one... but I am overexposing myself already and want to give some else a chance. The Pirates of Penzance begins Pour o pour the pirate sherry, giving a surreal Gilbertian vision of pirates passing a decanter round the Senior Common Room. Drinking Song 3 is clearly French, which must narrow the field a bit.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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martle
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« Reply #350 on: 13:46:10, 05-04-2008 » |
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There are a couple more Verdian ones, including possibly the most obvious in the genre.
Would that be the one in Otello, IGI?
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Green. Always green.
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harpy128
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« Reply #351 on: 13:46:55, 05-04-2008 » |
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Violetta and Lady Macbeth both sing brindisi. (Why are they called that, does anyone know? Is it anything to do with the town?)
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #352 on: 13:48:54, 05-04-2008 » |
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Lady Macbeth sings a brindisi to distract her guests from paranormal phenomenon at the dinner table.
But IGI is angling for one SO obvious cough, cough...
(Just seen harpy say just that. I will look up Grove on the name.)
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #353 on: 13:52:19, 05-04-2008 » |
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All Grove has to say is:
Brindisi (It., ? from Sp. brindis, from Ger. bring dir’s).
An invitation to a company to raise their glasses and drink; a song to this effect. Such songs, usually solos with choral response, are common in 19th-century opera; well-known examples occur in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, Verdi’s Macbeth, La traviata and Otello and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana.
ANDREW PORTER
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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harpy128
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« Reply #354 on: 13:57:15, 05-04-2008 » |
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Thank you very much for putting me out of my misery, Don B. And "bring dir’s" would mean something like the barperson's "here you go" as they hand you your half of mild'n'bitter?
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #355 on: 14:14:00, 05-04-2008 » |
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Violetta and Lady Macbeth both sing brindisi. Yes, Harpy. Ernani begins with the chorus singing a very jolly Eviva! beviam!. The character in No.3 is singing a drinking song to deliberately act the fool to aid his deception... Drinking song 3
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #356 on: 14:22:58, 05-04-2008 » |
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brindisi (n) - reputedly the text of a two-word telegram ("Bryn dizzy") sent to the Royal Opera House by a famous baritone (although misspelt by an Italian telegraph operator), explaining that his head was spinning and he'd be unable to appear in the forthcoming RING cycle (Groan's Dictionary Of Opera)
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House" - Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #357 on: 14:45:30, 05-04-2008 » |
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As I mentioned elsewhere, Chabrier's L'etoile includes a Green Chartreuse duet.
King Ouf and his astrologer decide to drown their sorrows (as they think the stars predict the king will die at 5 that afternoon) with a spot of Green Chartreuse. It is a slow number and I doubt you would guess it was meant to be a comic drinking song out of context, but it grows on me. It has a dreamy air which in fact is what alcohol can produce as well as the bouncy numbers we have been mentioning so far.
Any one for IGI's number 3? I really want to know.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #358 on: 15:46:09, 05-04-2008 » |
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Piet the Pot, Prince Go-Go and Astradamors get Nekrotzar blind drunk before setting Mescalina on him in order to attempt to prevent the end of the world in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (at least I think that's the order in which it all happens). Whether or not their plan succeeds or not is another matter.
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #359 on: 16:13:33, 05-04-2008 » |
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To be Slavic for a moment, Act 2 of The Bartered Bride is in a tavern and starts with a chorus praising the beer - Budweiser in the Czech Republic?
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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