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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #795 on: 15:22:24, 06-08-2008 » |
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And Act 1 of Death in Venice ends with the Games of Apollo.
Yes, we should see running, long jump, discus, javelin and wrestling going on in the Games of Apollo. An opera where a character competes in the Games under his friend’s name? An opera featuring a heavyweight boxer? Who wins a game of billiards to pay off a debt? |
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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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martle
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« Reply #796 on: 15:28:48, 06-08-2008 » |
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Can we include games, as opposed to sports? I love the card game in the graveyard in The Rake's Progress. Scary stuff!
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Green. Always green.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #797 on: 15:32:16, 06-08-2008 » |
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Tosca does the Triple Jump at the end, and there's a bit of marksmanship just previously. The False Stanislas is definitely upwardly mobile in UN GIORNO DI REGNO, so I suppose that counts as Pole Vaulting. The tenor in L'ELISIR D'AMORE was disqualified after it was found he'd used a performance-enhancing substance. Can we include games, as opposed to sports? I love the card game in the graveyard in The Rake's Progress. Scary stuff! If we can have card games, then COX & BOX play each other to avoid the hand of Penelope Ann Wiggins - they also try dice ("Sixes!") and a two-headed sixpence to avoid forthcoming matriomony. (The number was cut from public performances as the idea of gambling for a woman was thought indecorous). |
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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 #798 on: 15:36:47, 06-08-2008 » |
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Can we include games, as opposed to sports?
Absolutely. Well, billiards isn't exactly an Olympic sport either (well, not yet), so why not? I'll raise your offer with the card game between Minnie and Jack Rance in La fanciulla del West.  |
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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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HtoHe
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« Reply #799 on: 15:41:00, 06-08-2008 » |
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Are we deliberately ignoring Carmen as too obvious or does bullfighting not count as sport? I got one with billiards in it but I refreshed my vague memory using google, so I'll let others have a go. Lady D's mention of soccer reminds me that, unless someone can come up with other examples, football embraced opera long before opera embraced football. I can't help thinking it should have been the other way round given the importance of the game in the Western world - and the fondness of, for example, Pavarotti and Shostakovich for the game. Any composers out there want to adapt the 2005 Champions League final? It falls into three acts quite naturally. Or the Busby Babes and the Munich tragedy? Plenty of scope I'd have thought. Can we include games, as opposed to sports? I love the card game in the graveyard in The Rake's Progress. Scary stuff!
There's dice in Porgy and Bess, too, isn't there? |
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harpy128
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« Reply #800 on: 16:21:00, 06-08-2008 » |
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With the start of the Olympics only days away, tell us about operatic sporting contests/ settings.
Hunting in Handel's Atalanta. And (if we're counting cards) there's The Queen of Spades. |
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harpy128
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« Reply #801 on: 16:22:45, 06-08-2008 » |
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...and still more cards in The Love of Three Oranges, IIRC
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #802 on: 16:26:23, 06-08-2008 » |
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...and Alfredo beats Baron Douphol at cards in Act II Scene ii of La Traviata.
There's a scene in a Venetian casino in Candide too.
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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 #803 on: 17:29:25, 06-08-2008 » |
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There's a billiards ensemble in a Lortzing opera - Der Wildsomething. Anyone know it?
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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 #804 on: 17:30:34, 06-08-2008 » |
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and Hermann plays cards in THE QUEEN OF SPADES...
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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 #805 on: 17:55:08, 06-08-2008 » |
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There's a billiards ensemble in a Lortzing opera - Der Wildsomething.
Good. There is another opera, with a familiar title, which includes a significant billiards game, though. It's been a while since I've played my joker, but La Forza del Destino has an off-stage card-gambling scene at the start of Act III, which turns nasty and requires Alvaro to resuce Don Carlo from the fracas. If only he knew Carlo was Leonora's brother in dusguise, he could have left well alone... An opera where a character competes in the Games under his friend’s name? (Baroque!) An opera featuring a heavyweight boxer? (German) |
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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 #806 on: 18:21:38, 06-08-2008 » |
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And there's another, in which two youths compete at the discus... but one of them is hit by a discus and is killed. The composer is extremely mainstream, although the work isn't so well known. (it's the central story of the opera, not one of IGI's "it happens in the wings in 15 seconds while you were looking elsewhere" efforts ) |
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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 #807 on: 18:38:31, 06-08-2008 » |
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And there's another, in which two youths compete at the discus... but one of them is hit by a discus and is killed. The composer is extremely mainstream, although the work isn't so well known.
That would be Mozart's Apollo et Hyacinthus, wouldn't it? |
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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 #808 on: 18:41:02, 06-08-2008 » |
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You made short work of that one, IGI! Apollon et Hyacinthe it is! (What language is the title in, in fact? The opera itself is in Latin, as far as I remember?)
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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 #809 on: 18:45:23, 06-08-2008 » |
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« Last Edit: 19:06:40, 06-08-2008 by Il Grande Inquisitor »
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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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