Noteworthy tidbids about opera and its composers.

Mozart and the Freemasons

Mozart wrote many songs and ceremonial music for use in Freemason lodges. At the time of Mozart's death there was much medical evidence to support a theory that Mozart was poisoned. One rumor widely circulated in the months following his death was that the composer was marked for punishment because he had revealed secrets of the Freemasons in The Magic Flute.

Emmanuel Schikaneder, the librettist for The Magic Flute was in fact a former freemason. Mozart and Schikaneder used the opera as a vehicle to introduce the Masonic ideals of courage, love, and fraternity to a wider audience.

Shortly after Mozart's death, the grand master of his lodge paid tribute to him as 'the most beloved and meritorious' of its members and referred to Mozart's passing as 'an irreplaceable loss.'

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Mozart's First Opera

Mozart composed his first opera, Bastien und Bastienne, at the age of twelve. It premiered in Vienna in 1768.

Mozart's Burial

Mozart died on December 5th, 1791 at the age of 35. His funeral cost an estimated $30. His memorial was attended by only a few mourners, and his body thrown in an unmarked grave on December 7th, 1791.

The Meaning of La Traviata

'Traviata' is the past participle of the verb traviare meaning 'to go astray'. The word 'traviata' is usually translated in operatic literature as 'the wayward one' or 'the straying one'. In Act III of Verdi's La Traviata, Violetta (a former prostitute) sings, 'Addio del passato' or 'Farewell to the past'. This aria includes the phrase 'Ah! della Traviata sorridi al desio'— loosely translated: 'Oh smile on this wayward one, dear Father I pray.'

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Definition of Opera (acadmic)

In English the plural of opus (meaning a creative work) is opera (or opuses). In Latin, opera was originally the plural of opus, but in both Latin and English, opera can correctly be treated as a singular. In English the plural of opera (the thing that ain't over till the fat lady sings) is operas.

Definition of Opera (funny)

'Opera is an art form consisting of a dramatic stage performance set to music.'

...or, as George Bernard Shaw put it:
'[Opera is when] a tenor and soprano want to make love, but are prevented from doing so by a baritone.'

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Short Composers

Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Wagner were all 5 feet tall or less.

The Brahms Wagner feud

Brahms had an ongoing famous feud with Wagner. He publicly criticized Wagner's music for being "contrary to the innermost spirit of music, strongly to be condemned and deplored." He later valued Wagner's work, saying that those who did not like his rival's music did not understand it. When he had news of Wagner's death in 1873 Brahms was rehearsing a chorus. He closed his score and said "We sing no more today. A master has died."

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List of Beethoven's Operas

Fedelio. (Oh c'mon, how many have you written?)

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The World's Longest Opera

Richard Wagner's The Ring Cycle clocks in at over 14 hours. If you include intermissions, allow 18 hours before the fat lady sings. The Ring Cycle took Richard Wagner 27 years to compose! It consists of 4 parts: Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Götterdamerung.

The Ring Cycle is loosely based on a Norse legend of the Nibelungenlied from the 1200s. It has many similarities to The Lord Of The Rings.

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World's record for highest vocal note produced by a male

According to the Guinness Book of Records, Adam Lopez (Australia) holds the world record for highest vocal note produced by a male. That pitch is designated C#8 in note-octave notation; it is one half step above the highest note on a standard grand piano. Before achieving this record, Lopez held the previous Guinness Record for singing a D7 in 2003. He broke his own record in June 2005.

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World Record for Longest Applause

Thunderous clapping echoed around the Vienna Staatsopher on the warm summer evening of July 30, 1991, for one hour and 20 minutes, setting a new record for the world's longest applause ever. The audience, who had just reveled in a performance of a lifetime by Placido Domingo in Othello, responded by rising to their feet and clapping through encore after encore – 101 curtain calls to be exact!

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Most Curtain Calls
On February 24, 1988, Luciano Pavarotti received 165 curtain calls and was applauded for 1 hour 7 minutes after singing in Gaetano Donizetti's L'Elisir D'Amore at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Germany. The greatest recorded number of curtain calls ever received at a ballet is 89 by Margot Fonteyn de Arias and Rudolf Nureyev after a performance of Swan Lake in Austria, in October 1964.

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Viking Hats and Opera

Wagner's famous Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen) has served as the opera that bore the caricature of opera attire— the horned helmet. (See operagifts.com own logo! ) While The Ring is often credited with popularizing the idea of horned helmets the story was not about Vikings. The Ring depicted Germanic gods and heroes in the mythical past, not during the historical Viking era. (The Viking age didn't start until A.D. 793 and, truth be told, they didn't wear horned hats.) Wagner did however use a horned helmet in the original production of Tristan und Isolde, an opera that preceded the Ring Cycle in 1865. This is even further from Vikings, because the story is Celtic, not a Germanic, in origin.

In Wagner's operas, horned helmets are now most closely associated with the Valkyries. In actuality the Valkyries wore winged hats. (The Valkyries didn't get horny until Wagner died.)
The only major figure in The Ring Cycle who wore a horned helmet in the early productions was Hunding. Wagner along with his costume and set designer Carl Emil Doepler probably borrowed the idea from the costumes in stage plays about ancient pre-Viking Germans. Very few Viking helmets have survived; most were probably leather.

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Donizetti's rushed opera

Donizetti was once approached by a desperate Milanese theatre manager who needed a new opera in two weeks. Given the urgency, he suggested that Donizetti revamp another man's work. 'Are you making fun of me?' he demanded. 'I am not accustomed to patching up my own old operas, let alone another composer's. I'll give you a new opera in fourteen days.' Donizetti gave his librettist one week to prepare the text. He challenged the librettist. "It must be set to music in fourteen days. Let's see which of us has guts!'  The result? L'Elisir d'amore.

The World's Best Opera

The one you are discovering now!
(note from Valerie: But really, it is 'La Boheme'.)

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