All About Madam/Madame, Part 2 Quiz

Answer: Giacomo Puccini

The libretto to the Puccini opera "Madama Butterfly" was written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. There are five versions of the opera; the first one has two acts and all the rest have three. The opera adapts an 1898 short story by John Luther Long.

In it, an American Naval lieutenant (B.F. Pinkerton) marries a Japanese woman in Nagasaki (Cio-Cio-san), leaves her for three years, returns with an American wife (Kate) to discover that he has a son by his Japanese wife, who promptly commits suicide.

A fascinating and effective part of this opera is the "humming chorus" which is a wordless composition sung by a choir offstage. An interesting book about this opera is Brian Burke-Gaffney's "Starcrossed: A Biography of Madame Butterfly" (EastBridge, 2004).

Answer: Sydney Biddle Barrows

Socialite Sydney Biddle Barrows preferred to call her business an "escort service" but her 1984 conviction was for promoting prostitution. She wrote the autobiographical "Mayflower Madam: The Secret Life of Sydney Biddle Barrows" (1986) which was adapted for the 1987 motion picture "Mayflower Madam" starring Candice Bergen.

In addition, she has written several books on how to succeed in business and lectures on that topic.

Answer: France

"Madame Bovary" was French author Gustave Flaubert's first novel. As was common for the time, it was serialized in Revue de Paris. Flaubert was charged with criminal obscenity and the publicity from the trial (which he won) produced vigorous sales of the novel.

It is the story of a doctor's wife who relieves her boredom and ennui by extramarital affairs. The novel has been filmed many times (1934, 1949, 1964, 2014) and once in Hindi (1993) as "Maya Memsaab." It was also adapted as an opera in 1951 and as a BBC television series in 2000.

Answer: Vietnam

Tran Le Xuan (1924-2011) was called the First Lady of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. Her husband's brother was the president; she and her husband lived in Independence Palace with him. He was unmarried. She was an outrageous figure who strained the political relationship between the US and the Republic of Vietnam.

A Roman Catholic, she fiercely criticized the Buddhist monks who burned themselves in protest against her family's government. When her husband and her brother-in-law were assassinated, she fled to France where she lived in exile.

Answer: Shirley MacLaine

Madame Sousatzka was an aging classical piano teacher, created in novelist Bernice Rubens' 1962 novel "Madame Sousatzka." Shirley MacLaine played her in John Schlesinger's motion picture, which he co-wrote. The madame lives in a run-down London boarding house where she teaches the most gifted pianists not only to play well but also to live well.

The movie was based on the real-life experience of the author's brother, Harold, and his instructor Madame Maria Levinskaya.

Answer: US Secretary of State

Just like the non-fictional Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton, the fictional Elizabeth McCord is the Secretary of State. McCord was an intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and a professor of political science at the University of Virginia.

The series ran six years (2014-2019); in the sixth season, Leoni's character became President of the United States.

Answer: Medusa

Madame Medusa is a horrible person who owns a grimy pawnshop in New York City. She is old, wears false eyelashes and too much makeup, has green eyes and sagging breasts, and wild bright red hair. Medusa seeks to retrieve The Devil's Eye from a pirate cave in Devil's Bayou.

She kidnaps an orphan girl named Penny and forces her to fetch the priceless stone by threatening to drown her if she doesn't and holding her teddy bear as ransom. Medusa was voiced by actress Geraldine Page, who was married to actor Rip Torn who also did voice work for Disney.

Answer: chief mistress to Louis XV of France

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, (1721-1764) was a commoner who rose to prominence in the French court of Louis XV. She is sensationally described as a temptress and concubine but was a trusted friend and counsellor of His Majesty and even kept his schedule.

She was a patron of the arts and of philosophy. The reference in the popular song nonetheless equates "personality" with a voluptuous body.

Answer: a popular song and a motion picture

Charles Newman and Jimmy Monaco wrote the popular song "Six Lessons from Madame LaZonga" which was made popular by singer Helen O'Connell and the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. The song scored seventh place on the "Lucky Strike Hit Parade" on 17 August 1940. Universal bought the rights to make it into a movie.

The resulting film (which bore little resemblance to the song) was released in January of 1941. Lupe Velez and Leon Errol starred along with William Frawley (the neighbour/landlord in "I Love Lucy") and Shemp Howard (one of the Three Stooges).

Answer: her size; she is half giant

One of Madame Olympe Maxime's parents was magic; the other was a giant. She sought to conceal her giant heritage because of prejudice against giants. When Hagrid asks her if she is a half-giantess, she denies it and says she has "big bones." She travels in a powder-blue carriage drawn by twelve winged Abraxan horses. Rather than water, the horses drink only single-malt whiskey. In the films, she was portrayed by Frances de la Tour.