Which iconic opera stereotype plays in the background as helicopters swoop in to annihilate a village in one of the opening scenes of the movie Apocalypse Now?
"Marty used music made by Van Halen to scare his dad, George McFly, awake, implying that since that kind of music did not exist in that time, it would scare him. In ""Apocalypse Now"", a helicopter squadron plays classical music, Richard Wagner's ""Ride of the Valkyries"", over loudspeakers on-board their helicopters while attacking a Viet Cong village, as a form of psychological warfare. In Woody Allen's early film ""Bananas"", a prisoner is tortured by being tied up in a room while operetta, featuring an annoying coluratora soprano, is played over and over on a cheap record-player. In ""The Drew Carey"
"Doc?"" (1957). The ""Ride"" features in ""Apocalypse Now"" (1979), where the 1/9 Air Cavalry squadron plays it on helicopter-mounted loudspeakers during their assault on a North Vietnamese-controlled village as psychological warfare and to motivate their own troops. Notes Sources Ride of the Valkyries The ""Ride of the Valkyries"" () refers to the beginning of act 3 of ""Die Walküre"", the second of the four operas constituting Richard Wagner's ""Der Ring des Nibelungen"". As a separate piece, the ""Ride"" is often heard in a purely instrumental version, which may be as short as three minutes. Together with the ""Bridal Chorus"" from"
"famous aria ""Ombra mai fù"" opens the opera. The murder of Xerxes by Artabanus (""Artabano""), execution of crown prince Darius (""Dario""), revolt by Megabyzus (""Megabise"") and subsequent succession of Artaxerxes I is romanticised by the Italian poet Metastasio in his opera libretto ""Artaserse"", which was first set to music by Leonardo Vinci, and subsequently by other composers such as Johann Adolf Hasse and Johann Christian Bach. Later generations' fascination with ancient Sparta, particularly the Battle of Thermopylae, has led to Xerxes' portrayal in works of popular culture. He was played by David Farrar in the fictional film ""The 300 Spartans"""
"Opera (film) Opera (also known and released as Terror at the Opera) is a 1987 Italian giallo film co-written and directed by Dario Argento, with music composed and performed by Brian Eno, Claudio Simonetti, and Bill Wyman. Starring Cristina Marsillach, Urbano Barberini, and Ian Charleson, the plot focuses on a young soprano (Marsillach) involved in a series of murders being committed inside an opera house by a masked assailant. The film was one of Argento's most commercially successful, seeing 1,363,912 ticket sales in his native country of Italy.<ref name=""IMDB Box Office/Business""></ref> This is the second Dario Argento horror film to"
"similar to the premonitions seen in the Final Destination franchise. Otto hums Richard Wagner's ""Ride of the Valkyries"" while believing he is flying a helicopter, a reference to the helicopter attack sequence in the 1979 film ""Apocalypse Now"". The ""Ode to Joy"" segment of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Frédéric Chopin's ""Fantasie Impromptu 66"" and ""Gonna Fly Now"", the theme from the 1976 film ""Rocky"" are both played in the episode, while Ralph sings ""Wannabe"" by the Spice Girls. Since airing, the episode received mixed reviews from television critics. Steve Heisler of ""The A.V. Club"" wrote: ""I'm sorry, but"
"murder sequences."" Opera (film) Opera (also known and released as Terror at the Opera) is a 1987 Italian giallo film co-written and directed by Dario Argento, with music composed and performed by Brian Eno, Claudio Simonetti, and Bill Wyman. Starring Cristina Marsillach, Urbano Barberini, and Ian Charleson, the plot focuses on a young soprano (Marsillach) involved in a series of murders being committed inside an opera house by a masked assailant. The film was one of Argento's most commercially successful, seeing 1,363,912 ticket sales in his native country of Italy.<ref name=""IMDB Box Office/Business""></ref> This is the second Dario Argento horror"
"that disallows all chance of justice. The film's soundtrack consists almost entirely of pre-World War I 78 rpm recordings of opera arias sung by the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso. This bold use, despite Caruso's variety of musical styles, constitutes a first for Allen. Opera has been used before in his work as an indicator of social class, such as in ""Husbands and Wives"" (1992). In ""Match Point"", the arias and opera extracts make an ironic commentary on the actions of the characters and sometimes foreshadow developments in the movie's narrative. Furthermore, given Wilton's status as an introvert and opera enthusiast"
"20th and 21st century film scores. The critic Theodor Adorno has noted that the Wagnerian leitmotif ""leads directly to cinema music where the sole function of the leitmotif is to announce heroes or situations so as to allow the audience to orient itself more easily"". Amongst film scores citing Wagnerian themes are Francis Ford Coppola's ""Apocalypse Now"", which features a version of the ""Ride of the Valkyries"", Trevor Jones's soundtrack to John Boorman's film ""Excalibur"", and the 2011 films ""A Dangerous Method"" (dir. David Cronenberg) and ""Melancholia"" (dir. Lars von Trier). Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's 1977 film """"'s visual style and set"
"officially becoming a publicity agent. The theme of the film ""is predominantly café society, the diverse and glittery world rebuilt upon the ruins and poverty"" of the Italian postwar period. In the opening sequence, a plaster statue of Jesus the Labourer suspended by cables from a helicopter, flies past the ruins of an ancient Roman aqueduct. The statue is being taken to the Pope at the Vatican. Journalist Marcello and a photographer named Paparazzo follow in a second helicopter. The symbolism of Jesus, arms outstretched as if blessing all of Rome as it flies overhead, is soon replaced by the"
"than a dead one. The Commendatore then pronounces a curse on Don Juan, condemning him to live forever. On hearing the curse, Don Juan shoots himself, but instead of dying is turned into an even younger man. Doomed to desperately repeating the cycle of his life over and over again, Don Juan enters the same darkened house where the opera began, accompanied by the same solo flute, to seduce yet another victim. La Morte and the Shadows lurk in the darkness singing, with the final words of the opera given to La Morte: ""Salvation is so distant—again."" The world premiere"
"of it happening at this stage are ""highly unlikely"". The Phantom of the Opera (1989 film) The Phantom of the Opera is a 1989 American horror film directed by Dwight H. Little and based on Gaston Leroux's novel of the same name. The film is an updated and gorier version of the classic 1910 tale, and stars Robert Englund as the Phantom. Christine Day (Jill Schoelen), a young opera singer in modern-day Manhattan, is searching for a unique piece to sing at her next audition. Her friend and manager Meg (Molly Shannon) discovers an old opera piece called ""Don Juan"
"films, as well as many original compositions for Apocalyptica, including ""Conclusion,"" ""Farewell"" and ""Beautiful."" Kivilaakso is an opera buff, which began while attending performances as a very young child at the annual Savonlinna Opera Festival. His father would play in the orchestra, and young Kivilaakso was entranced by both the music and the performances. Kivilaakso was three when he first asked his mother what he had to do to get onstage. He has a huge collection of opera recordings, including many rare and hard-to-find ones. His favourite composer is Italian Giuseppe Verdi, and his favourite opera is ""Il Trovatore"". His"
"in London. In acts 1 and 2, the time of the opera is the American Civil War, 1865. The epilogue occurs 10 years after the close of act 2. W.P. Inman, a Confederate soldier wounded at the Battle of Petersburg, decides to desert from the Confederate Army and return home to Ada Monroe, his beloved who lives at Black Cove Farm, in North Carolina. Inman is aware of the Home Guard, which hunts down deserters from the Confederate Army. The leader of the local Home Guard is Teague, who resorts to such practices as burying deserters alive. On his journey"
"who are waiting for the arrival of the Messiah and believe that with the addition of one more dead child will come the resurrection of the dead. A persecuted man enters, and the children, believing he is the Messiah, beg him to resurrect them, but he is really only a traveling salesman. The soldiers and their commander enter, and the commander shoots the ""Messiah."" The commander takes the mother away to have sex with her, and one of the dead children tells the mother's child that he will slowly lose the will to live again. The opera is scored for"
"The Phantom of the Opera (1989 film) The Phantom of the Opera is a 1989 American horror film directed by Dwight H. Little and based on Gaston Leroux's novel of the same name. The film is an updated and gorier version of the classic 1910 tale, and stars Robert Englund as the Phantom. Christine Day (Jill Schoelen), a young opera singer in modern-day Manhattan, is searching for a unique piece to sing at her next audition. Her friend and manager Meg (Molly Shannon) discovers an old opera piece called ""Don Juan Triumphant"", written by a composer named Erik Destler. Curious,"
"terrible fate (Radamès: ""Morir! Si pura e bella"" / To die! So pure and lovely!) and bid farewell to Earth and its sorrows. Above the vault in the temple of Vulcan, Amneris weeps and prays to the goddess Isis. In the vault below, Aida dies in Radamès' arms as the priests, offstage, pray to the god Ftha. (Chorus, Aida, Radamès, Amneris: ""Immenso Ftha"" / Almighty Ptah). The opera has been adapted for motion pictures on several occasions, most notably in a 1953 production which starred Lois Maxwell and Sophia Loren, and a 1987 Swedish production. In both cases, the lead"
"mammoth fixture comes to life, the years roll back and the Opéra's former grandeur is restored (""Overture""). It is now 1881. As Carlotta, the Opéra's resident soprano prima donna, rehearses for that evening's performance, a backdrop collapses without warning. The anxious cast members whisper about ""The Phantom of the Opera"", who Carlotta reveals has been troubling the Opera Populaire ""for the past three years"". The Opera's new owners, Firmin and André, try to downplay the incident, but Carlotta angrily chastises the pair for saying ""these things do happen"" and storms offstage, closely followed by Monsieur Piangi. Meg Giry, the daughter"
"without mythic claims on the world's attention"" while eliminating altogether the Israeli position, asking rhetorically ""Who could tell from this work just what the Jewish side really isa sort of touristy attachment to an ancient land?"" Following the American premiere, Adams deleted this scene, while revising his opera for all future productions. Following the September 11 attacks, the Boston Symphony Orchestra cancelled a scheduled performance in November 2001 of extracts from the opera. This was partly in deference to a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, who lost a family member on one of the hijacked planes, as well as"
"Agrigento and directed by Paolo Panizza. Elena Candia and Piero Lupino Mercuri sang the roles of Carmela and Turiddu with Claudio Onofrio Gallina at the piano and Loredana Russo conducting the Stesicoro Choir. ""Setting: A 19th century Sicilian village on Easter Sunday"" Turiddu and Lola are lovers. Turiddu's former lover, Carmela, confronts him on Easter morning outside the village church, curses him in a jealous rage, and then tells Lola's husband Alfio about the affair. To preserve his honour, Alfio challenges Turiddu to a knife fight and stabs him to death. Mala Pasqua! Mala Pasqua! (Bad Easter!) is an opera"
"equivalent in Holberg's original. To complicate things even further, Jeppe's wife, Dolly, a bus driver, who has accused Jeppe of being impotent, is having an affair with Erik, who, along with Josh (an accountant), is one of the camera operators on the show. The other principal characters include La Diva, the star of Shoenberg's American Civil War musical, and Luna, Jeppe's bartender, a neo-hippie who claims that her name was given to her by Jimi Hendrix touching her mother's abdomen at Woodstock. Unlike many operas, the action and visuals often have a severe contrast to the text. In one scene,"
"of the opera was performed on October 10, 1960 in a concert version at Town Hall in Manhattan with Gloria Davy in the title role, Florence Kopleff as Gaea, Robert Nagy as Leukippos, Jon Crain as Apollo, Lawrence Davidson as Peneios, and The Little Orchestra Society under conductor Thomas Scherman. The chaste girl Daphne sings a hymn of praise to nature. She loves the sunlight as trees and flowers do, but she has no interest in human romance. She cannot return the love of her childhood friend Leukippos, and she refuses to put on the ceremonial clothes for the coming"
"emergence of contemporary historical operas, in contrast to the tradition of basing operas on more distant history, the re-telling of contemporary fictional stories or plays, or on myth or legend. ""The Death of Klinghoffer"", ""Nixon in China"", and ""Doctor Atomic"" by John Adams, ""Dead Man Walking"" by Jake Heggie, and ""Anna Nicole"" by Mark-Anthony Turnage exemplify the dramatisation onstage of events in recent living memory, where characters portrayed in the opera were alive at the time of the premiere performance. The Metropolitan Opera in the US reports that the average age of its audience is now 60. Many opera companies"
"political themes. Likewise Roger Parker argues that the political dimension of Verdi's operas was exaggerated by nationalistic historians looking for a hero in the late 19th century. Giuseppe Verdi's ""Nabucco"" and the Risorgimento are the subject of a 2011 opera, ""Risorgimento!"" by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Italian unification. ""The Leopard"" is a film from 1963, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, and directed by Luchino Visconti. It features Burt Lancaster as the eponymous character, the Prince of Salina. The film depicts his reaction to the Risorgimento, and his vain"
"release, the film originally began (after the opening credits) with the image of a ""boat on canal"". A superimposed title read, ""ITALY – WHERE THEY SING ALL DAY AND GO TO THE OPERA AT NIGHT"", and was followed by a musical number featuring bits and pieces from Leoncavallo's ""Pagliacci"" performed by ""everyday"" Italians: a street sweeper sings part of the prologue (""Un nido di memorie..."") as he greets a man who then hands out opera tickets to a group of children emerging from a store; the children respond with ""la-la-la-la-la, verso un paese strano"" (from ""Stridono lassù""); a ""captain"" comes"
"opening, with a plethora of jet setters who are on the show: he seems to want to warn any extraterrestrial by the arrival of these individuals, identified him as the true excrements of the Earth. Description symbolic of circus populated by large rats, where the singer's life sadly goes on. ""Un vero uomo dovrebbe lavare i piatti"" On a thrash metal tune, Caparezza goes against the current of most reactionary stereotypes about ideal man's identikit. Imitating a child's voice and the melodies of the Zecchino d'Oro,a popular Italian TV programme where children sing, this song contains an initial quote on"
"London had an orchestra in the pit. In 1826, Felix Mendelssohn wrote his well-known overture to Shakespeare's ""A Midsummer Night's Dream"", and later supplied the play with incidental music. In Verdi's ""La Traviata"", Violetta receives a letter from Alfredo's father where he writes that Alfredo now knows why she parted from him and that he forgives her (""Teneste la promessa...""). In her speaking voice, she intones the words of what is written, while the orchestra recapitulates the music of their first love from Act I: this is technically melodrama. In a few moments Violetta bursts into a passionate despairing aria"
"the opera and which represent the evil character of Scarpia—or perhaps, Charles Osborne proposes, the violent atmosphere that pervades the entire opera. Budden has suggested that Scarpia's tyranny, lechery and lust form ""the dynamic engine that ignites the drama"". Other motifs identify Tosca herself, the love of Tosca and Cavaradossi, the fugitive Angelotti, the semi-comical character of the sacristan in act 1 and the theme of torture in act 2. The opera begins without any prelude; the opening chords of the Scarpia motif lead immediately to the agitated appearance of Angelotti and the enunciation of the ""fugitive"" motif. The sacristan's"
"from the sides of the stage; on the top is a wheel that whirls always about, and throws out a shower of gold-colour, silver, and blue fiery rain. Loosely based on the mythological story of Atalanta, the opera is set in legendary times of ancient Greece. King Meleagro of Aetolia has disguised himself as a shepherd, taking the pseudonym Tirsi, and is enjoying his life in the countryside away from the cares of state. He is very much in love with the huntress ""Amarilli"", whom he does not realise is the Princess Atalanta. He meets up with Aminta, a real"
"the American Civil War. The piece is scored for baritone voice, two flutes (or two piccolos), two oboes, clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons, two horns, trumpet (or piccolo tpt), timpani, synthesizer, and strings. ""The Death of Klinghoffer"" (1991): The opera's story begins with the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship ""Achille Lauro"" by Palestinian terrorists and details the murder of a passenger named Leon Klinghoffer, a retired, physically disabled American Jew. ""Chamber Symphony"" (1992): This piece was commissioned by the Gerbode Foundation of San Francisco for the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players. ""I Was Looking at the Ceiling and"
"Opera"", the singer with his street organ introduces and closes the drama with the tale of the deadly ""Mackie Messer"", or ""Mack the Knife"", a character based on the dashing highwayman Macheath in John Gay's ""The Beggar's Opera"" (who was in turn based on the historical thief Jack Sheppard). The Brecht-Weill version of the character was far more cruel and sinister and has been transformed into a modern anti-hero. The play opens with the singer comparing Macheath (unfavorably) with a shark and then telling tales of his crimes: arson, robbery, rape, murder. The song was a last-minute addition that was"
"the 1950s. Francesco Lanzillotta conducted the Teatro San Carlo orchestra and chorus. The opera was performed again in July 2015 at the Festival della Valle d'Itria. The performance there (with a new cast) was recorded live and released in 2016 on the Dynamic label. Setting: A village near Naples in the early 19th century Act 1 The opera opens inside Bartolaccio's inn. The road to Naples with hills in the distance can be seen through the inn's entrance. Bartolaccio's daughter Fiorina is at her spinning wheel in the dining room, while Bartolaccio and his head waiter Carletto scurry about serving"
"in Los Angeles during the World Cup. The concert was watched on television by 1.3 billion people worldwide. The aria that Bernini sings near the end of the film, ""Nessun Dorma"" from Puccini's ""Turandot"", became Luciano Pavarotti's best-known song and reached the second spot on the British charts in 1990. He popularized the aria, which soon became a football anthem and regularly recorded by pop stars, in addition to classical singers. In the film, Palacios also briefly mentions the Verdi opera, ""Otello"", Plácido Domingo's signature role for almost three decades. For the movie, Spanish tenors Manuel de Diego and José"
"describes bullets flying and even bombs exploding. There is also the aria ""[[Largo al Factotum]]"" from the opera [[The Barber of Seville]] by [[Gioachino Rossini]]. Matthau sings this as he passes a border checkpoint. The words to the aria explain how everyone is looking for the barber, and he moves fast like lightning. Kendig has the aria ""[[Un bel dì vedremo|Un Bel Dì Vedremo]]"" (""One Beautiful Day"") from [[Madame Butterfly]] by [[Giacomo Puccini]] playing loudly on the stereo as the FBI and CIA shoot up Myerson's wife's house. The operatic contrapunto adds a surreal air of ironic justice to the"