Opera?

[hortonhearsawho]

I know nothing about opera except for that there's a chance that your opera house contains and opera ghost and then you just have all sorts of problems. I also don't have the slightest idea how to search this, as I also know nothing about languages in which operas are usually sung so it's not really like I can check for lyrics

Comments

[ajora]

Flight of the Valkyries, from Wagner's Ring Cycle?

[hortonhearsawho]

Of course, this is practically the only bit of opera I know and it didn't occur to me... I'm a smart one!

I'm not quite sure it will work anyway (there's a bit too much of an Apocalypse Now association, at least for me, for comfort and for my little man in tails), but it may actually end up being perfect. I'll have to play with it a little. Thank you!

[ajora]

If you want to avoid the Apocalypse Now association, ditch the vernacular name for the track and go with the vorspiel und erste szene (prelude & first scene) of Act II of "Die Walkure." Would be a bit more obscure but mean the same thing.

[hortonhearsawho]

This is a very good point. I think I'm going to have to write it in a bit and see how well it works, because it definitely fits well in principle.

[frenchpony]

Do you mean "flight" as in "flying through the air like a bird" or "fleeing an enemy?"

The thing about most opera, of course, is that it's never really what you'd call calm. If you have music in a drama, it's usually pretty keyed up to begin with. However, the opening scene of Verdi's La Forza del Destino might work. Mary Sue Leonora, the soprano, has fallen in love with Gary Stu Don Alvaro, the tenor. Her father does not approve of the relationship. Alvaro steals into Leonora's bedroom so that they can have hot monkey sex elope. Enter dear old Dad. Dad rages around for a while, Don Alvaro accidentally kills him dead, and the lovers manage to escape amidst much merriment mayhem.

That's the first act, and most of the plot. There are three more acts, during which nothing much happens, except that Leonora and Alvaro whine about their misfortunes. Eventually, they meet up again, someone stabs Leonora to make her shut up, and she whines sings a heartbreaking aria about this for another ten or fifteen minutes before she finally

[hortonhearsawho]

This was not one of my smarter moments, it seems, as I completely forgot about the other meaning of "flight." I mean flying, as someone is, in short, falling/flying/soaring off the balcony in an opera house. (This is a random little thing based on a friend's recurring dream so it's not that complex or even very interesting, which is why the song needs to fit well.) I'm hoping for something that sort of escalates into mayhem to accompany his climb, though I do realize that, like you said, things are going to be pretty intense usually anyway

[frenchpony]

Hmmm. The problem is, from your description of the scene you want, it'd be most likely to appear in a comic opera, but you seem to want a tragic opera. Let me think a little.

Well, the title character in Lucia di Lammermoor has a pretty famous mad scene. And I think it's Floria Tosca, in Puccini's Tosca, who commits suicide by jumping out a window. Actually, Tosca's suicide could work for you, since she's being pursued for murder at the time.

I seem to recall one of those Famous Performance Stories involving a production of Tosca where, instead of the usual mattress placed backstage to receive the singer playing Tosca after her leap, the theater put a trampoline instead. Result: Tosca discovers that Cavaradossi is dead, that Spoletta has figured out that she killed Scarpia, Spoletta and his soldiers charge after Tosca, she hurls herself dramatically from the battlements. . . and bounces back up a few times.

[cirrussundog]

Hmm. What about the bit at the last act of Tosca where she - Tosca, that is - throws herself off the castle ramparts and falls to her death? She's just realized that her lover (who was supposed to be pretending to be dead) really has been executed, after singing him an aria (Ecco un artista) complementing him on his acting skills. Then a character enters with soldiers, denouncing her for having murdered the villain in the preceding act. (Hey, it's opera.)

Or, of course, there's always the Ride of the Valkyries at the beginning of act three in Die Walküre, the first part of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The score is unforgettable and very familiar even if the lyrics are pretty banal. Hojotoho! Hojotoho!

Wiki will give you more information on either opera, complete with links to scores.

[ajora]

(pst, first part of the Ring Cycle is Das Rheingold)

[cirrussundog]

Whoops, thanks! That's what I get for writing on the run.

[hortonhearsawho]

Throwing oneself off of castle ramparts is a really good thing. Woo opera! (That's quite the amazing ending, actually. You can't beat fake death and acting and murder and who knows what else.) Thank you!

I'm also definitely going to have to consider the Valkyries, because as much as I do have a random little aversion to it, it could work really well. Ahhh decisions.

I suppose I'll have to Wiki around a bit with the scores and things, as you said.

[glynnis]

You could use the famous aria "Ebben? Ne andro lontana" from Catalani's opera La Wally. At the end of that opera, the heroine throws herself off a mountain after her lover is swept away by a glacier.

[homasse]

...man, you have to love the interesting ways that opera finds to kill people.

*still chuckling over Manon Lescaut dying in the deserts of...Louisiana.*

[frenchpony]

Swept away by a glacier? Aren't glaciers specifically known for being slow-moving? For moving at, dare we say it, a "glacial" pace? Who gets swept away by something like that?

Probably the same sort of people who starve in a room full of food, or who are killed by their pet bunny rabbits or something. Stupid tenors.

[glynnis]

Er, yeah, bad choice of words on my part. He was swept away in an avalanche while on a glacier. Or something. Somehow, I don't think the librettist was up on his knowledge of ice movement in the Alps either.

[fshk]

I can't think of any better examples than those mentioned, but if you're still googling, almost all operas are in Italian or German. (Sometimes also French.) The Italian word for "to fly" is "volare." ("I fly" is "Volo.")