The envelope, please…

By on March 20th, 2005

Herewith, the results of the pseudo-aria contest. Though, really, since I couldn’t pick any one entry, it’s more like the caucus-race in Alice in Wonderland, in which everybody has won, and all must have prizes. Anyway, the winners are:

  • “Come vergine”: simile aria from a baroque opera by Handel, in which the hero (countertenor) compares his besieged city to a chaste vestal virgin. (From a certain Madonna song title suggested by Bane.)
  • “In punta di piedi va il cane”: cheerful (but dramatic-irony-laden) baritone aria from long-lost Verdi opera, accompanied by an offstage hunting horn. (Rana‘s suggestion: “A dog walks on tiptoe.”)
  • “La gallina fa le uova”: mock folk song by Donizetti. An outtake from L’Elisir d’Amore. (Also from Rana: “the chicken, she is laying.”)

Some of the results sounded more like titles of entire operas, e.g.:

  • Le Cisaillement des Arbres Grotesques: allegorical one-act opera by Ravel from around the time he composed L’enfant et les Sortilèges. Or, alternatively, by Stravinsky. (From MisterBS: “The pruning of the misshapen trees.”)
  • Il Serpente al Cuore Freddo: very early Mozart; serpent motif foreshadows giant snake in Die Zauberflöte. (Another of Bane’s 80s song-title suggestions: “Cold-Hearted Snake.”)
  • L’accumulatrice di Filo: opera buffa by Rossini, in which the plucky heroine’s skill at fiber-crafts saves the day; musicologists note its comic rewriting of the Penelope and Ulysses myth. (From Heather: “She who hoards yarn.”)

Thanks to everyone who contributed random phrases and titles. Comfits and thimbles for everyone all round!

Categorized under: Music, Silliness.
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2 Responses to “The envelope, please…”

  1. Rana says:
    March 21, 2005 at 9:44 pm

    🙂
    (Masterful invocation of the caucus race, btw!)

  2. Amanda says:
    March 24, 2005 at 8:37 pm

    Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are among the best quotation-sources ever.