Opera Nerd #3: Building Stereotypes Mystery Cache
Anderbrand: Due to complaints about the park, this cache is being archived.
Opera Nerd #3: Building Stereotypes
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Another Opera Nerd Puzzle! But this one in a cute, but slightly sketchy, pocket park.
BTW the cache container is slightly mislabeled and is called Sketchy Park instead of Opera Nerd Cache #3. I will fix the error when I get a chance.
47 39 ABC
122 19 DEF
Don’t be put off by this wordy ‘opera’ quiz. The answers are fairly easy to find and highlight some of opera’s eccentricities, urban legends strange facts.
Composers are commonly known for being extremely young, crazy, etc. But the following composers, while all being fabulous music writers, belong to the shortest composer club as well.
Beethoven Brahms, and Schubert (all famous composers of classical music) were shorter than ___ 4 inches.
A = ____ (Feet)
Opera Divas and Divos alike are known for taking more than their fair share of curtain calls (final bows,) often using this as a time to show judge how fabulous of a performance they gave. However during his 24 Feb. 1988 performance Luciano Pavarotti received the greatest number of curtain calls in history and was applauded for 1 hr. 7 min. after singing the part of Nemorino in…Donizetti's: L'Elisir]d'Amore at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin….”
B = Take the total number of curtain calls from this performance, add all the digits together and divide the sum by 2.
Probably the opera(s) who have given us the most lore, or at least stereotypes is Wagner’s great Ring Cycle “Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)” Based on the same tale as Tolken’s Lord of the Rings, this epic tale gives us the stereotype of fat women in horned helmuts with blonde braids and with metal breastplates (Brunhild), operas being too long (a wopping total of 18 hours, with intermissions, for the whole cycle) and most importantly Warner Brother’s What’s Opera Doc? cartoons.
C = Number of works included in Wagners Ring Cycle
Ludwig Von Beethovan was a German composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music, and remains one of the most acclaimed and influential composers of all time. However it is widely known that he continued to write after he went deaf. From analysis done on a sample of Beethoven's hair that there were alarmingly high levels of lead in Beethoven's system. High concentrations of lead can lead to bizarre and erratic behaviour, including rages. Another symptom of lead poisoning is deafness. In Beethoven's time, lead was used widely without an understanding of the damage it could lead to: for sweetening wine, in finishes on porcelain, and even in medicines. The investigation of this link was detailed in the book, Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved. However, while the likelihood of lead poisoning is very high, the deafness associated with it seldom takes the form that Beethoven exhibited.
This only matters in this puzzle because, I think it is interesting AND more importantly because he waited until he was going deaf to write his opera(s)
D = The number of complete operas written by Beethovan.
The opera Tosca is rife with urban legends, but hey, when you kill off all your leads, you are bound to have some troubles. My favorite 2 refer to who was supposed to die in the opera and when.
1. The Collective Suicide: During a production of Tosca, the Metropolitan Opera suddenly found itself without a regiment of soldiers to come on stage. There had been no stage rehearsal, and he gave them the usual instruction "exit with the principals". When Tosca leapt from the parapet, seeing no other principals left on stage, they all dutifully jumped after her, giving a Shakespearean greatness to the final tragedy.
2. The Bouncing Tosca: Tosca as usual jumps from the walls of Castel Sant'Angelo. But the stage workers, angered by the temperament of their diva had improved her security by replacing the mattress with a trampoline, so that during a performance, when the Tosca ‘died’ she was ‘resurrected 2 or 3 times from behind the wall...
E = The number of characters who die in Tosca (excluding Count Palmieri)
My favorite piece of opera 'lore' may have nothing to do with stereotypes but it is just such a 'great' death story that I couldn't help but toss it in.
Jean Baptiste - Lully, the father of French opera, became know not only as a composer but also as a conductor. After coming into the service of Louis XIV, Lully he became secretary of all music for France until his death. SPEAKING of his death, Lully has one of the strangest deaths in opera history.
While banging a large pointed stick (to conduct an orchestra) on the floor during a rehearsal of a Te Deum, he speared his own foot. With medicine being what it was in the 17th Century, it quickly abscessed, became gangrenous and killed him. Thus making him the only person know to have died by conducting. Genius.
F = The century digit in which Lully was born 1F32 or died 1F87
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Va gur ohfurf ba gur 'hccre' yriry bs gur cnex. Lbh ner ybbxvat sbe n pnaavfgre pbirerq va oynpx ryrpgevpvna'f gncr ynoryrq sbe trbpnpuvat.
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