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French Operas Trivia Quiz

French Operas may have been more popular in nineteenth century than these days, but still they were a major contribution to the history of the genre. Some names are definitely worth remembering. Check for yourself.

A multiple-choice quiz by flem-ish. Estimated time: 5 mins.

Author
flem-ish

Time
5 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
76,039

Updated
Oct 23 23

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Average

Avg Score
6 / 10

Plays
797

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. Whose two main operas could be summarised like this: (a) Military deserter involved in fatal incident. Bull-fighter's girl-friend killed by jealous ex-lover, (b) Fisher of pearls saves lives of rival and ex-girlfriend? Hint

Maurice Ravel

Charles Gounod

Georges Bizet

Francis Poulenc

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Question 2 of 10

2. Claude Debussy's Pelleas and Melissande is an opera full of mystery. When Melissande drops her wedding-ring in a well, ________________ ? Hint

her husband Golaud is given back his eye-sight

her child Yniold is run over by its father's galloping horse

her husband Golaud is struck with blindness

her husband Golaud falls off his horse

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Question 3 of 10

3. When in 'Pelleas and Melissande' Golaud realises that his half-brother and Melissande simply cannot help loving each other, __________________ ? Hint

he kills himself

he stabs his rival, and strangles his beloved.

he generously forgives them

he kills his rival, but loses his wife too

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Question 4 of 10

4. What is in Gounod's version of Goethe's Faust the name of Marguerite's brother who tries to revenge his dishonoured sister, but gets killed in a duel in which Mephisto secretly assists Dr. Faust? Hint

Valentin

Valmont

Valmy

Valere

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Question 5 of 10

5. What is the reason why Faust's beloved Marguerite is locked up in prison after Faust has left her ? Hint

She has been condemned to death for murdering her baby.

French girls were not allowed to have affairs with passing German tourists.

She has been accused of being a witch.

Unmarried mothers were punished with life-long imprisonment.

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Question 6 of 10

6. Gounod also made an opera version of Shakespeare's ' Romeo and Juliet'. What title did he use? Hint

Romeo et Juliette

Bastien et Bastienne

Julien et Julienne

Romeo et Julie

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Question 7 of 10

7. Only a few years before Puccini, Jules Massenet had already written an opera version of l'abbe Prevost's 'Manon Lescaut'-story. In it we see how des Grieux at first tries to escape from his dangerous infatuation with the 'femme fatale' Manon ultimately was for him. What decision does he take to be able to sever his ties with her? Hint

he decides to leave for America

he decides to leave Paris and go and live on the countryside

he decides to become a priest at the Seminar of Saint-Sulpice in Paris

he decides to join a Trappist monastery in the French Alps

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Question 8 of 10

8. Richard Wagner's dislike of Giacomo Meyerbeer may of course have been just a case of the usual rivalry between artistic colleagues. Yet other reasons may have played a role. Which of the following possible explanations is at least factually true ? Hint

Meyerbeer was a staunch defender of the Catholic Church (and Wagner was at odds with the Church)

Meyerbeer had Jewish roots ( and Wagner did not like Jews)

Meyerbeer was a fanatic Frenchman ( and Wagner did not like Frenchmen)

as an Italian Meyerbeer exclusively used Italian subjects and librettos (which Wagner considered dej�-vu)

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Question 9 of 10

9. Meyerbeer's most famous opera is probably the one he wrote about events in August 1572 in which thousands of unsuspecting Protestants were killed by their Catholic opponents. Under what name are those events best known? Hint

The Crystal Night

The St. Bartholomew's Massacre

the Defenestration of Prague

the Sacking of Rome

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Question 10 of 10

10. In 'Dialogue of the Carmelites' Francis Poulenc dealt with the story of some nuns at Compiegne who during the period of the Terror in the French Revolution were taken to Paris to be guillotined. We see how one nun in particular in the face of their approaching arrest at first 'deserts' the others and leaves the monastery, but when she sees the others die on the scaffold, she serenely decides to come out of the crowd and join them again at the hour of their martyrdom. Who wrote the text? Hint

Claude Mauriac

Georges Bernanos

Francois Mauriac

Paul Claudel

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

Answer: Georges Bizet

Bizet lived from 1838 till 1875. He wrote 'Carmen'in 1875. 'The Pearlfishers' had been written in 1863. Poulenc, one of the 'Six' (together with Honegger, Milhaud and other friends of Jean Cocteau, was born in 1899. Died in 1963. Gounod was born in 1818, died in 1893. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) wrote a comic opera 'L'heure espagnole', collaborated on a version of Mussorgsky's 'Khovanshina' and also composed a fantasy opera: ' L'enfant et les sortileges'.

2. Claude Debussy's Pelleas and Melissande is an opera full of mystery. When Melissande drops her wedding-ring in a well, ________________ ?

Answer: her husband Golaud falls off his horse

Pelleas is Golaud's halfbrother who was absent when Golaud , originally against his grandfather's (= King Arkel's) wishes, marries the golden-haired Melissande. When Melissande and Pelleas meet, they are in less than no time in a situation as Tristan and Isolde's: doomed love. At first Golaud is blind to their {love;} later he will use his son to spy on the two 'innocent lovers'.

3. When in 'Pelleas and Melissande' Golaud realises that his half-brother and Melissande simply cannot help loving each other, __________________ ?

Answer: he kills his rival, but loses his wife too

Debussy was born in 1862 at St. Germain-en-Laye and died in Paris in 1918. Pelleas et Melissande was for the larger part written in 1893-5, but it was not completed until 1902. It was based on a work by Maurice Maeterlinck, that had been published in 1892. Maeterlinck(1862-1949) himself was a Ghent-born Belgian author who won the Nobel Prize in 1911.

Answer: Valentin

The Vicomte de Valmont is a character in ' Les Liaisons Dangereuses' by Choderlos de Laclos. Valmy , near St. Menehould, is where the French revolutionary troops (on September 20th, 1792) stopped the Prussian troops that had invaded France to intervene in the ongoing events of the overthrow of the monarchy. At Valmy the Duke of Brunswick was defeated by the French general Dumouriez.

5. What is the reason why Faust's beloved Marguerite is locked up in prison after Faust has left her ?

Answer: She has been condemned to death for murdering her baby.

Goethe's 'Faust Part One' was published in 1808. The second part in 1831. Gounod's 'Faust' dates back to 1859.Berlioz had already composed his cantata 'La Damnation de Faust' in 1846 and Liszt had written his 'Faust-Symphony' in 1854.

6. Gounod also made an opera version of Shakespeare's ' Romeo and Juliet'. What title did he use?

Answer: Romeo et Juliette

'Bastien et Bastienne' is a Singspiel by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, dating back to 1768, when Mozart was ... 12 years old.

Answer: he decides to become a priest at the Seminar of Saint-Sulpice in Paris

'Manon Lescaut' had been published in 1731 by l'abbe Prevost (1697-1763).

Answer: Meyerbeer had Jewish roots ( and Wagner did not like Jews)

Born at Vogelsdorf near Berlin, Meyerbeer (1791-1864) was neither French nor Italian. He was the son of a wealthy sugar refiner, Judah Herz Beer. His mother was Malka Liebmann Meyer Wulff. He changed his first name Yakov into Giacomo in the period of his strong enthusiasm for Italian opera.

He became the chief target of an infamous anti-Semitic essay by Richard Wagner: 'Jews and Music'. There was nothing anti-German about Meyerbeer who was a very good friend of the composer Carl Maria von Weber. As to Meyerbeer's librettos they could not be more French: he took them from France's popular playwright of the time Eugene Scribe.

Answer: The St. Bartholomew's Massacre

The first Defenestration of Prague was after the execution of Jan Hus (1415). In 1419 the reactionary town magistrates of Prague were hurled out of the windows of the townhall and impaled on pikes held by the mob below. The Defenestration of Prague of May 1618 touched off the Thirty Years' War. Two representatives of the Emperor were thrown out of a window of Hrdcany Castle in Prague, into a ditch. Neither man was seriously injured but the Emperor was badly insulted.

The Sacking of Rome situated by historians in AD 476.

The Crystal Night: term used to describe anti-Jewish actions in the night of 9-10 November 1938. Crystal being an allusion to the many broken shopwindows that night. St.Bartholomew's Day Massacre (24 August 1572), organised at the instigation of a rather Macchiavellian Catherine de Medicis who wanted Admiral Coligny removed.

Answer: Georges Bernanos

A surprising subject for a composer who had at an earlier moment of his career chosen to write an opera on Appollinaire's 'Mammelles de Tiresias'. Bernanos's text was based on a novel by Gertrud von le Fort: 'The Last on the Scaffold'. Georges Bernanos (1888-1948), best-known for 'Diary of a Country Priest' 1936. Francois Mauriac (1885-1970), Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952. Claude Mauriac (1914-1996), son of Francois. French critic of literature and film. Paul Claudel (1868-1955) important Catholic French writer. Member of the French Academy. Career as French Ambassador in various capitals.

Source: Author flem-ish

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