Operantics II Online Quiz | Other Music

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. In Georges Bizet's 'Carmen', the soldier Don Jose sings the aria 'La fleur que tu m'avais jetee', the so-called 'Flower Song', in which he declares his love for the gypsy girl Carmen, having saved the flower she gave him after he allowed her to escape from the authorities in Seville. Which of the following composers did NOT compose an opera in which flowers play an integral part of the plot?

Answer: Friedrich von Flotow

In Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly', the heroine Cio-Cio San and her servant Suzuki gather flowers in preparation for the return of Lieutenant Pinkerton; in Cilea's 'Adriana Lecouvreur', the eponymous heroine dies after receiving poisonous violets sent by her rival in love; in Richard Strauss' 'Der Rosenkavalier', the young nobleman Octavian is sent to deliver a silver rose to the young Sophie von Faninal, with whom he falls in love.

While the most popular tune in von Flotow's 'Martha' is 'The Last Rose of Summer', it does not reference an actual flower, but is an air sung by Lady Harriet and overheard in the garden by the young farmer, Lionel.

2. In what opera does the heroine, blaming her beauty for the death of a childhood playmate, morph into a laurel tree before singing an extended transfiguration scene?

Answer: Daphne, Richard Strauss

In Wagner's 'Die Walkure', the heroine Sieglinde lives with her husband in a hut built around the trunk of an ash tree. In the Handel, Semele, having been scorched to death after viewing Jupiter in all his godly splendor, is transformed into a phoenix from her ashes. Lakme, knowing that her lover Gerald shall return to his life in the British army, tears off a leaf from the fatal datura tree and bites it. Only Daphne, who is loved by the god Apollo, is immortalized as a laurel tree.

3. All save one of the composers listed wrote an opera whose libretto makes prominent use of a common household fruit. Which composer is the odd man out?

Answer: Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari

Rossini's 'Guillaume Tell', an operatic treatment of the William Tell story (yeah, yeah - the 'Lone Ranger' theme), contains the famous scene where Tell shoots an apple off of his son's head. Mascagni's 'L'amico Fritz' is well-known for its second act 'Cherry Duet', where Suzel and Fritz flirt while harvesting fruit in the orchard. On a more fantastic level, Prokofiev's 'The Love for Three Oranges' features a plot device in which the evil sorceress Fata Morgana causes the son of the King of Clubs to fall in love with three oranges, following them to the ends of the earth (you'll just have to read the whole synopsis).

In Wolf-Ferrari's 'Il segreto di Susanna', the only item ingested by the heroine is tobacco.

4. After tasting the blood of the dragon Fafner, Wagner's Siegried finds he has acquired the ability to understand the words of the Forest Bird, a soprano role. Of the following four operas, which one does NOT have a bird which sings?

Answer: La gazza ladra, Gioachino Rossini

The nightingale in Stravinsky's 'Le rossignol', the falcon in Strauss' 'Die Frau ohne Schatten', and the cock in Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Le Coq d'Or' are all sung by a soprano; the magpie in Rossini's 'La gazza ladra' is represented by a dancer.

5. From among the following listed operettas of Jacques Offenbach, which offers a highly comedic duet for fly and human?

Answer: Orphee aux enfers

In Offenbach's 'Orphee aux enfers', the god Jupiter disguises himself as a fly to woo Orphee's wife, Eurydice, who takes a liking to the fly and buzzes a duet with him. I'm not making this up, you know!

6. If birds and insects can sing in opera, it should come as no surprise to find that a number of animals do as well. Which of the following composers did NOT write an opera with singing fauna?

Answer: William Walton

In Janacek's 'The Cunning Little Vixen', Stravinsky's 'Renard', and Henze's 'The English Cat', there are parts for a number of singing animals. In Walton's 'The Bear', based on the Chekhov story of the same name, there is not a role for a singing animal, merely a beastly acting gentleman.

7. Which of the listed composers did not write an opera with the moon as a plot element?

Answer: Gustav Holst

A portion of the mise-en-scene of Janacek's 'The Adventures of Mr. Broucek' takes place on the moon; as part of a deceptive charade, Buonafede's garden is transformed into the moon in Haydn's 'Il mondo della luna'; Schoenberg's expressionist monodrama, 'Erwartung', is concerned with the ravings of a demented woman searching for her lover in a forest under a full moon.

While not composing an opera with any predominant lunar elements, Holst did compose the orchestral suite 'The Planets'.

8. Which composer includes Fire as a character in one of his operas, presenting her with a spectacular coloratura aria?

Answer: Maurice Ravel

A brilliant work, 'L'enfant et les sortileges', was written when Ravel was at the height of his compositional powers. It includes vocal parts for a number of inanimate objects, including animals, toys, and furniture.

9. There are no operas set at Florida's Weekee Wachee Springs, yet a number of operatic composers have written works which ostensibly require singers to perform underwater. Which of the following works does not have a body of water as an integral part of the plot?

Answer: La Wally, Alfredo Catalani

Dvorak's Rusalka is a water nymph, Wagner's 'Das Rheingold' takes place IN the river Rhine, and much of Debussy 'Pelleas and Melisande', with its liquid impressionist style, centers around a ring and its loss in a spring. In Catalani's opera, Wally does manage to throw herself into an avalanche.

10. Lightning! Thunder! What an opportunity for an operatic composer to produce phenomenal stage effects. Which of the following entries does not have an on-stage storm?

Answer: Hugh the Drover, Ralph Vaughan Williams

Rossini uses a storm to comic effect in the second act escape scene of 'Il barbiere di Siviglia'; Berlioz supplies 'Les Troyens' with an orchestral interlude, the 'Royal Hunt and Storm'; and the overture of Wagner's 'Der fliegende Hollander' depicts a storm continuing into the first scene of the opera. Vaughan Williams, while not setting 'Hugh the Drover' anywhere near the sea, does supply a storm scene in his one-act opera, 'Riders to the Sea'.

Source: Author hairymuscles

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Operantics II Trivia Quiz

This second installment of operantics, concerning opera and the natural world, is not only for canary fanciers. Hold on!

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