Still More Opera Summaries in Four Words Quiz

Answer: The Ghosts of Versailles

This opera by John Corigliano premiered in 1991 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Marie Antoinette has just been beheaded and is in an afterlife with other dead French courtiers, who wear decayed, ripped costumes. Playwright Beaumarchais decides to stage a sequel to "The Marriage of Figaro" to entertain the courtiers (to which Louis XVI replies that he never understood what happened in Act III of that opera).

The story goes back and forth between the opera-within-an-opera and the drama of Marie Antoinette's grief at how her life turned out and her love for Beaumarchais.

It contains many parodies of operatic conventions, including a cameo by Brunnhilde, who declares, "This is not opera! Wagner is opera!"

Answer: Hansel und Gretel

Granted, she was trying to fatten them up and eat them. After getting kicked out of their house and wandering the woods, the titular children of the fairy tale come upon a witch's house and eventually free other children in Humperdinck's opera. Though having no thematic ties to Christmas, the opera is often performed around Christmas.

Answer: Peter Grimes

Warning: serious plot spoilers. "Peter Grimes" is a 20th-century opera by Benjamin Britten. Grimes is a sailor who's viewed suspiciously after his young apprentice dies. Against advice, he gets another one, who dies in an accident. Grimes loses his sanity and sinks his boat, killing himself, and none of the townspeople care, even calling the sinking a rumor. What jerks.

Answer: Tosca

So here's what happens with the bare minimum of spoilers: painter Cavaradossi loves Tosca, a jealous singer. He's hiding the whereabouts of an escaped revolutionary, whom Baron Scarpia is hunting. Scarpia is one of the most vile characters in opera--he wants Cavaradossi dead and also wants to rape Tosca (he even has a whole song about how he loves raping women). The torture, murder, and suicide come in Acts II and III.

Is it just me, or does "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot" sound somewhat like "E Lucevan le Stelle" from Act II of "Tosca"? Then again, I hear the "Nessun Dorma" melody in almost every Puccini opera I see.

Answer: Rusalka

In this "Little Mermaid"-inspired Dvorak opera, Rusalka is a water nymph who falls in love with a man who doesn't know she exists. A witch gives her the ability to walk on land, although unlike in the fairy tale, Rusalka doesn't lose her voice permanently--she simply can't communicate vocally with humans.

While the prince is initially smitten with her, he loses interest since she can't speak, and unhappy fates await them both.

Answer: Acis and Galatea

Handel wrote this work that has been staged as a pastoral opera, an operetta, a serenata, and an opera-ballet. In the last, each major character is played by both a singer and a dancer. Galatea, a nymph, loves the shepherd Acis. SPOILER ALERT. A rival, Polyphemus, kills Acis when Galatea rejects him, and Galatea turns her lover into the spirit of a fountain.

In a way, this could be considered a happy ending, because now they both have divine status.

Answer: La Cenerentola

This take on the Cinderella fairy tale was composed by Rossini. The Cinderella is named Angelina, a servant to her stepfather and stepsisters. A prince, Don Ramiro, has his valet switch places with him so he can test the women's characters. The middle section of the aria "Non pił mesta" sounds fiendishly difficult to sing.

Massenet also wrote an opera based on the Cinderella story called "Cendrillon".

Answer: The Queen of Spades

Herman is in love with Liza, the granddaughter of a countess. The countess has special gambling knowledge, and Herman wants to know her winning secret of three cards, which helped her win at gambling in her day. He loses sight of his fiancee in the pursuit, and things turn out poorly. Also called "Pique Dame" or "La Dame de Pique", "The Queen of Spades" is one of Tchaikovsky's operas.

Answer: Lohengrin

Elsa is accused of drowning her brother. A white knight riding on a boat pulled by a swan appears to defend her, and even proposes marriage. However, the condition is that she never ask his name or where he came from, which he will be bound to tell if she asks.

At first she consents, but is gradually coerced into asking his name, with terrible results. "Lohengrin" is Wagner's last traditional opera, with the ones after this breaking from the usual opera format and doing very different things with the music.

Answer: Werther

Massenet's opera was based on the book "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe, which was greatly influential on the Romantic movement. Allegedly, the book caused a string of copycat suicides. Werther's a little older than a teen, but the phrase "teen angst" definitely applies to him, as he spends a great deal of his journal entries (and solos in the opera) moping over the fact that the girl he loves, Charlotte, is engaged to another man. He's so focused on Charlotte that he doesn't notice that her sister Sophie has a crush on him.

I feel that the grating effect of his whining is greatly lessened in the opera, as 1) other characters talk, so there's far less moping, and 2) it's all sung. So here's a case where I think adaptation is better than the book.