Tim Ashley 

Will you get the Rheingold or be dragged to hell? Try our opera and song quiz

From song texts to silver roses, pit your wits against our opera critic Tim Ashley with these 12 questions about vocal music on stage and off
  
  

Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at the Royal Opera House, London, September 2016.
Will you make the cut? ... Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at London’s Royal Opera House in 2016. Photograph: Alicia Canter/the Guardian

  1. Henri Duparc's L'Invitation au Voyage is a setting of which poet?

    1. Charles Baudelaire

    2. François Coppée

    3. Stéphane Mallarmé

    4. Paul Verlaine

  2. Nicholas Crawley (Masetto), Clive Bayley (Leporello), Christopher Purves (Don Giovanni) and Mary Bevan (Zerlina) in Don Giovanni, English National Opera 2016

    How many women did Don Giovanni seduce in Turkey?

    1. 640

    2. 231

    3. 91

    4. 1003

  3. Which historical figure, depicted in Tannhäuser, was the author of the poem that Wagner eventually took as the source for Parsifal?

    1. Heinrich der Schreiber

    2. Reinmar von Zweter

    3. Walther von der Vogelweide

    4. Wolfram von Eschenbach

  4. In 2016, New York’s Metropolitan Opera staged Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin. When was the last time an opera by a woman was produced on the New York stage?

    1. 2003, Olga Neuwirth's Lost Highway

    2. 1903, Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald

    3. Never – L'Amour de Loin was the first time an opera by a woman was staged at the Met

    4. 1947, Amy Beach's Cabildo

  5. Which of Strauss's Four Last Songs does not have a text by Hermann Hesse?

    1. Frühling

    2. September

    3. Beim Schlafengehen

    4. Im Abendrot

  6. Which composer wrote an overture for Alexander Ostrovsky's play The Storm?

    1. Stravinsky

    2. Tchaikovsky

    3. Vivaldi

    4. Janáček

  7. English Touring Opera’s February 2020 production of Così fan tutte

    In Mozart's Così fan tutte, what does Despina use to cure Guglielmo and Ferrando of supposed arsenic poisoning?

    1. Coffee

    2. A magnet

    3. An emetic

    4. Sal volatile

  8. In his Memoirs, Berlioz describes 'breaking down utterly' when he read the works of a writer, who 'first kindled my smouldering imagination'? Which writer is he referring to?

    1. Shakespeare

    2. Virgil

    3. Jane Austen

    4. Chaucer

  9. Nicholas Watts (Peter Quint), Tim Gasiorek (Miles) and Sarah Tynan (The Governess) in The Turn Of The Screw , Opera North 2020.

    Where was the first performance of Britten's The Turn of the Screw in September 1954?

    1. Sadler's Wells, London

    2. Teatro La Fenice, Venice

    3. Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh

    4. Tanglewood festival, Massachusetts

  10. To which of his song cycles does Mahler refer in his Second, Third and Fourth symphonies?

    1. Kindertotenlieder

    2. Des Knaben Wunderhorn

    3. Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen

    4. Rückert-Lieder

  11. Which of Stravinsky's stage works has a libretto by Jean Cocteau?

    1. The Fairy's Kiss

    2. Perséphone

    3. Oedipus Rex

    4. The Rake's Progress

  12. Octavian (Kate Lindsey), Herr Faninal (Michael Kraus) and Sophie (Elizabeth Sutphen) in Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne 2018

    In Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, what does the page boy Mohammed retrieve from the inn just before the curtain falls?

    1. The silver rose

    2. Baron Ochs's wig

    3. Octavian's sword

    4. Sophie's handkerchief

Solutions

1:A, 2:C - As Leporello tells it in the Catalogue Aria: in Italy – 640; in Germany – 231; in France – 100; in Turkey – 91 and in Spain – 1003. Image: Don Giovanni at English National Opera, 2016; photo by Tristram Kenton/The Guardian, 3:D, 4:B, 5:D - The text is by Joseph von Eichendorff, 6:B - Although The Storm also forms the basis of Janáček's opera Katya Kabanova, 7:B - Image: English Touring Opera’s February 2020 production of Così fan tutte; photo by Richard Hubert Smith, 8:B, 9:B - Image: The Turn of the Screw at Opera North, 2020, 10:B - They are commonly known as the Wunderhorn symphonies, 11:C, 12:D - Image: Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne, 2018; photo by Robert Workman

Scores

  1. 12 and above.

    Bringing the house down

  2. 10 and above.

    Bringing the house down

  3. 9 and above.

    Bringing the house down

  4. 8 and above.

    A great ensemble player

  5. 7 and above.

    A great ensemble player

  6. 6 and above.

    A great ensemble player

  7. 5 and above.

    A great ensemble player

  8. 4 and above.

    A few intonation problems

  9. 3 and above.

    A few intonation problems

  10. 2 and above.

    A few intonation problems

  11. 1 and above.

    A few intonation problems

  12. 0 and above.

    A few intonation problems

 

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