# Nastiest, most vicious scenes in opera



## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

What are the most brutal, violent, and nasty scenes in opera? And hey, I'm a mystery novelist, what do you expect? (ha ha) Anyway...

Most non-opera people imagine a typical opera scene as hearts and flowers, a gooey duet between some idiotic couple in a bower of roses. Or, perhaps, the Wagnerian stereotype of the bronze-bra heroic maiden, clutching a spear, singing loudly, horned helm askew. But we know better.

So my nominees start with Wagner:

Rheingold, when Fafner strikes Fasolt dead. The music is intense and the action is usually equal to it, a terrible violence (and the primal eldest curse, as Shakespeare says).

Rigoletto (Verdi) has several: The murder of Gilda, of course, that stunning trio leading up to the killing, the amazing brilliance where Verdi stops the music to hear the fateful three door knocks, then the crescendo toward the stabbing. Later, that horrible revelation when Rigoletto finds his daughter dying, and the might of the ending, "La maledizeone!" And one I really enjoyed personally when I sang in the chorus, that scathing "Ha Ha Ha" that the courtiers taunt Rigoletto with when he's trying to find Gilda.

Il Tabarro, (Puccini), when Michele opens his cloak to reveal the strangled Luigi to Giorgetta. In our production, Michele seizes Giorgetta by the nape of her neck and shoves her face down toward the dead Luigi.

Of Mice and Men, offstage when the old dog is shot, the horror that sweeps across the men in the bunkhouse. And onstage, of course, when Lenny strangles Curly's wife.

And you?


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

There is a really horrible scene in *Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk* where the servant Aksina is viciously sexually assaulted by her co-workers. In this DVD the middle-aged singer playing the role is stripped to her underpants, and vigorously manhandled by the chorus. It's hard to watch.

*Lulu *is full of harrowing scenes, perhaps the worst the murder of the eponymous heroine at the hands of Jack the Ripper. The murder of Marie in *Wozzeck *is not much better.

The cold-blooded shooting of Klinghoffer in *The death of Klinghoffer* is awful. In fact this whole film of the opera is gritty, unsurprisingly in view of the subject matter.

A more ritual shooting takes place in *Eugene Onegin*, where Onegin shoots his best friend Lensky in a duel after gratuitously flirting the the latter's fiancee. Such a little thing with a massive consequence

Hermann's suicide at the end of *Pique Dame*, after a slow descent into obsessive madness, is pretty disturbing.

A mass suicide also takes place at the end of Act 2 of *Les Troyens*, the women of Troy preferring to die rather than be enslaved by the rampaging invaders. I've always thought I wouldn't be brave enough to join them.

The Harpies and Minotaurs in Harrison Birtwistle's *The Minotaur* indulge in some very unpleasant behaviour, to say the least. Rape, goring and feasting on bodies.

More cannibalism in* Written on Skin* when the Protector serves the Boy's heart up to his wife Agnès in revenge for her adulterous love for him. Agnès eats the heart and then kills herself.

My 16-year-old was upset by Marguerite killing her baby when she saw the Met's Live in HD *Faust*. I don't think she's be very impressed by *Medea *killing her two children in Cherubini's opera of the same name.

Rather wondering why I like opera so much after writing this.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

The scene in Salome where she kisses the severed head and caresses it and is being crushed to death with the shields!


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

I would have voted for a different scene in Troyens - the one where the Greek soldiers have taken Troy and are raping every woman they find. It wasn't graphic as the Met did it, but it was pretty suggestive and very brutal.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Suddenly I realize why mamas. posted that afterthought in her post! It's hard to think about those scenes, isn't it...


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

The Rape of Lucretia perhaps... or so I have heard.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Hmmmm The Devils of Loudon comes to mind but I haven't seen it in full......the book it's based on is...


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

DavidA said:


> The scene in Salome where she kisses the severed head and caresses it and is being crushed to death with the shields!


This version really has extreme sadistic bloodlust with Salome literally wallowing in a pool of bloody ecstacy with severed head....










*Also in R Strauss Elektra *final scence brother Orestes enters defiled family home and begins a mass killing spree to avenge his fathers death.....while Elektra dances outside in a perverse sense of joy


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

*In La Gioconda final death scence* when Gioconda stabs herself rather than submit to sexual submission to despised Barnaba just as she draws her last breath the monster describes how he just killed her beloved blind mother to torment her further.....so vile and cruel


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I've always found the Quintet in Rossini's LA CENERENTOLA -- where Cinderella is begging to go to the Prince's ball and her stepfather, Don Magnifico, repulses her and then denies before everyone present that she is his stepdaughter at all -- almost painful to watch. Magnifico's behavior is so nasty. He's definitely one of the worst of all "comic" villains.

Another "nasty" scene is the Act III assembly in OTELLO, where Otello ends up striking Desdemona and cursing her. He humiliates her and himself in front of everyone, which is also painful to watch.

In ELEKTRA, the entrance of Clytaemenestra (I hope I spelled that right) when she says something like "And I let that thing [meaning Elektra, her daughter] wander free around the house." Pure nastiness.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

DarkAngel said:


> *In La Gioconda final death scence* when Gioconda stabs herself rather than submit to sexual submission to despised Barnaba just as she draws her last breath the monster describes how he just killed her beloved blind mother to torment her further.....so vile and cruel


that's the winner for me. Dude...

weirdly enough, I don't find Salome's necrophilia upsetting at all... now don't get any strange ideas about me  the head was freshly chopped! and she could have asked for other body parts. Anyway, I'll leave it at that.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

Even though it takes place offstage, Cavaradossi's torture in the second act of _Tosca_ has to be among the most brutal scenes in opera, as does the torture of Liu in _Turandot_. And the auto-da-fé in _Don Carlo _-- that's just grisly.


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

Ah, such tender scenes! One reason why we all love that delightful and cheery art form so much, eh?

Now that I'm inspired, I'm off to write the chapter where the police examine the apartment where the serial killer murdered the young grad student. If I waver and write something genteel, I'll simply think back to these flowery, colorful scenes and be properly ramped up. Ha ha

(honest, I was just checking the forums and then I'm settling down to do some more novel writing, with that exact chapter up next) And thanks for the cathartic fun.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Bellinilover said:


> In ELEKTRA, the entrance of Clytaemenestra (I hope I spelled that right) when she says something like "And I let that thing [meaning Elektra, her daughter] wander free around the house." Pure nastiness.


Yeah, not bad from a lady who killed her husband with an axe.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

In Act II of _Peter Grimes_ Ellen finds a bruise on the apprentice John's neck. This sets off a very disturbing series of events, involving John denying any abuse (as victims often do), Grimes hitting Ellen for prying into his affairs, and Grimes and John leaving in a hurry to "go fishing" - on a Sunday, which apparently was not done back then. John is told to change into his fishing clothes - while Grimes creepily watched him in the production that I saw - and then they have to descend the cliffs to Grimes' boat. John falls to his death, but is it an accident or suicide to escape a worse fate? Grimes is dismayed by this, but is it because he is sorry for John's death, or just worried that the townspeople will lynch him?


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

The mass execution at the end of _Dialogues of the Carmalites_ has the audience shuddering with every gilloutine drop.
GG


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## musicphotogAnimal (Jul 24, 2012)

Judas Maccabeus - though it isn't an opera... - getting squished by an elephant after eviscerating it wouldn't be a great start or END to my day. 

"To Eleazar special tribute pay;
Through slaughter'd troops he cut his way
To the distinguish'd elephant, and, whelm'd beneath
The stabbed monster, triumph'd in a glorious death."... 

OUCH! "Triumph'd" isn't the word for it. Poor b****** fair got turned into Pâté.


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

There's another mass suicide at the end of Khovanshchina .


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Bring on the debauchery! I'll look these up on YouTube. :devil:


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## katdad (Jan 1, 2009)

GraemeG said:


> The mass execution at the end of _Dialogues of the Carmalites_ has the audience shuddering with every gilloutine drop.
> GG


Well, this is more of the dramatically tragic category, not particularly on-stage vicious that I'm looking for. It does however rank right up there in number of on-stage deaths.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

For shear nastiness, the final scene of _Ernani_ has got to rank up there: Silva shows up at Ernani's wedding celebration with a dagger and a cup of poison and calls on Ernani to honor his previous pledge to immediately off himself at the sound of Silva's horn.


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## Signor Crescendo (May 8, 2014)

Donizetti's _Gabriella di Vergy_, where the jealous husband Fayer presents Gabriella with the still beating heart of her lover. Ugh.

Act III of _Vasco da Gama_, where Don Pedro orders Nélusko to flog Sélika.

And the humiliation of Beckmesser in _Meistersinger_.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Signor Crescendo said:


> And the humiliation of Beckmesser in _Meistersinger_.


Beckmesser's humiliation is entirely self-wrought as he voluntarily stole Walther's song and then made a fool of himself misinterpreting it. I find Beckmesser's exaggerated marking and interruption Walther's song in Act I the more nasty and vicious act because he attempts to humiliate Walther.


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## SilenceIsGolden (May 5, 2013)

Couchie said:


> Beckmesser's humiliation is entirely self-wrought as he voluntarily stole Walther's song and then made a fool of himself misinterpreting it. I find Beckmesser's exaggerated marking and interruption Walther's song in Act I the more nasty and vicious act because he attempts to humiliate Walther.


Not only is it self-wrought, but set in it's comic context and light-hearted proceedings I've never felt there was anything vicious about it. He confuses the lyrics in a humorous mish-mash, and the audience laughs, as well they should. More importantly, the treatment eventually meted out to him is _required_, on whatever level we read the opera. If the opera is a fairy tale, and in part it is, then the dragon must be slain by the knight in shining armor in order that the maiden in distress is rescued; that is what happens in stories about knights. If the opera is a comedy true to comic traditions, and it is very much that, then, as in Shakespeare the braggart Falstaff must be plucked and tickled and the arrogant Malvolio must be utterly humiliated, as in Italian opera the malicious Doctor Bartolo must be outwitted and the presumptuous Don Pasquale must be bamboozled, as any number of comic villains get their comeuppances, so the foolish Beckmesser must be outwitted and humbled; that correcting is what comedy is all about, and always has been.

As far as nasty, vicious scenes go: I think of the very disturbing opening scene of Act II of _Parsifal_, with the gruesome dialogue between Klingsor and Kundry, and what I consider one of the most powerful expressions in art of the hateful bondage in which one person can be to another.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

My own near suicide from witnessing _Help, Help, the Globolinks!_


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> The scene in Salome where she kisses the severed head and caresses it and is being crushed to death with the shields!


It's tough being a teenager.


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## Signor Crescendo (May 8, 2014)

SilenceIsGolden said:


> Not only is it self-wrought, but set in it's comic context and light-hearted proceedings I've never felt there was anything vicious about it. He confuses the lyrics in a humorous mish-mash, and the audience laughs, as well they should. More importantly, the treatment eventually meted out to him is _required_, on whatever level we read the opera. If the opera is a fairy tale, and in part it is, then the dragon must be slain by the knight in shining armor in order that the maiden in distress is rescued; that is what happens in stories about knights. If the opera is a comedy true to comic traditions, and it is very much that, then, as in Shakespeare the braggart Falstaff must be plucked and tickled and the arrogant Malvolio must be utterly humiliated, as in Italian opera the malicious Doctor Bartolo must be outwitted and the presumptuous Don Pasquale must be bamboozled, as any number of comic villains get their comeuppances, so the foolish Beckmesser must be outwitted and humbled; that correcting is what comedy is all about, and always has been.
> 
> As far as nasty, vicious scenes go: I think of the very disturbing opening scene of Act II of _Parsifal_, with the gruesome dialogue between Klingsor and Kundry, and what I consider one of the most powerful expressions in art of the hateful bondage in which one person can be to another.


Well, I have reservations about the treatment of Falstaff too, but it's more excusable from Shakespeare, given that he lived a couple of centuries before Wagner, at a time when bear-baiting, cock-fighting and executions were all public entertainments. But it says something about Wagner that his sense of humour is based in humiliation. Beckmesser is beaten up, and then publicly shamed? What larks!

The only performance I've seen which avoids this cruelty is the 1990 Opera Australia production: Beckmesser shakes hands with Sachs at the end, and so is reconciled to the others (as the Count is in _Figaro_ or Don Magnifico and his daughters are in _Cenerentola_), with the implication that he will learn from his mistakes. This goes against Wagner's original libretto, in which Beckmesser rushes offstage; he is an outsider, not part of the community.

Ever read Adorno on Wagner?


> His villains are turned into comic figures by means of the denunciation they are subjected to: misshapen dwarfs like Alberich and Mime, a maltreated bachelor like Beckmesser. Wagner's humour metes out cruel treatment. He revives the half-forgotten humour of the early bourgeois who once upon a time had inherited the devil's grin, but now remains frozen ambiguously between pity and damnation. Malvolio and Shylock are his theatrical forebears. It is not simply that the poor devil is ridiculed; in the excitement caused by the laughter at his expense the memory of the injustice that he has suffered is obliterated. The use of laughter to suspend justice is debased into a charter for injustice. When Wotan dupes the giants who had been promised Freia in the contract, he does so by pretending that the contract had been all a joke:
> _How cunning to take in earnest what was agreed only in jest!_ (_Rhinegold_, sc. 2)
> The insistence that something is all a joke is a time-honoured device for rationalising the worst. Wagner finds precedents for this in the fairy-tales of the German tradition. None is more apposite than the story of the Jew in the bramble-bush. 'Now as the Jew stood there caught in the bramble-bush, the worthy lad was overcome by a mischievous idea: he took up the fiddle and began to play it. At once the Jew's feet started to twitch and he began to leap about; and the more the lad played, the better the Jew danced.' Wagner's music, too, is a worthy lad that treats the villains in like manner, and the comedy of their suffering not only gives pleasure to whoever inflicts it; it also stifles any questions about its justification and tacitly presents itself as the ultimate authority. In his personal relationships, this aspect of Wagner's humour repelled both Liszt and Nietzsche. He himself provides evidence of this: 'Wagner said to Nietzsche's sister: "Your brother is just like Liszt; he doesn't like my jokes either."' When once, in a scene that has become notorious, Wagner fell into a rage with Nietzsche and the latter remained silent, Wagner remarked that Nietzsche, so refined were his manners, would certainly go far in life; he, Wagner, had felt the absence of this all his life. This is the sort of witticism that puts its object completely in the wrong and allows of no reply; it deforms sensitivity into pushiness and transfigures coarseness, presenting it as the vitality of genius.


It's a very far cry from the humane comedy of Mozart, the wit and warmth of Rossini, or the exuberance of Offenbach, none of whom have any _contempt_ for their characters.

Whereas Beckmesser is held in contempt; he is a caricature who exists only to be mocked. He is both a parody of Eduard Hanslick ("Veit Hanslich"), and, arguably, of a _Jewish_ musician, of the sort described in "Das Judenthum in Musik". (Indeed, Wagner claimed that the real reason Hanslick disliked his music was that he was Jewish.) His travesty of the prize song is an "intolerably jumbled blabber"; the unsuccessful wooing song in Act II (booed at the premiere as a spoof of synagogue chant) is a "creaking, squeaking, buzzing snuffle", incapable of expressing true passion or writing 'proper' music. That is for the impeccably Aryan Walther von Stolzing to do.

And what follows Beckmesser's humiliation? Sachs's monologue about the the need to keep German music pure from foreign influences.
To quote Charles Osborne (_The Complete Operas of Richard Wagner_, Michael O'Mara Books, 1990, p. 177):


> The blatant appeal to German nationalism of Sachs's outburst is a stunning example of Wagner the politician dominating Wagner the artist, for it has no rightful place, aesthetically, in the opera. At the time of the premiere of _Die Meistersinger_, it must have sounded like a clear invitation to launch a racial war against Germany's neighbours. Not only is _'heil'ge deutsche Kunst'_ upheld as the great ideal, but the means of achieving and maintaining it are spelt out as clearly as Wagner elsewhere in his writings spelt out how to get rid of the Jews. The people - to whose judgement, as the libretto makes clear, art must in the end bow - are exhorted to obliterate the influence of French culture with its ephemeral and un-Germanic values: a project which was eventually to be implemented by Hitler, who also took action on one or two of Wagner's other hints. Sachs's address to the crowd aroused that first Munich audience to a frenzy of enthusiasm, and led a Bayreuth audience in the 1930s to rise to its feet and stand with hands raised in the Nazi salute until the end of the opera.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

what about the ending of Hindemith's Sancta Susanna?


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

^ now we're cooking with oil!


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

the whole of die soldaten.


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## JCarmel (Feb 3, 2013)

This Thread is Grim, Grim, Grim?!....


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Outside of La Scala?


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## SilenceIsGolden (May 5, 2013)

Signor Crescendo said:


> Well, I have reservations about the treatment of Falstaff too, but it's more excusable from Shakespeare, given that he lived a couple of centuries before Wagner, at a time when bear-baiting, cock-fighting and executions were all public entertainments. But it says something about Wagner that his sense of humour is based in humiliation. Beckmesser is beaten up, and then publicly shamed? What larks!
> 
> The only performance I've seen which avoids this cruelty is the 1990 Opera Australia production: Beckmesser shakes hands with Sachs at the end, and so is reconciled to the others (as the Count is in _Figaro_ or Don Magnifico and his daughters are in _Cenerentola_), with the implication that he will learn from his mistakes. This goes against Wagner's original libretto, in which Beckmesser rushes offstage; he is an outsider, not part of the community.
> 
> ...


Interesting. I have to say, despite all your arguments, I still find that attempting to place Beckmesser's eventual undoing (which as I said before, is very much necessary if the story is to reach any sort of fulfilling conclusion) alongside other truly repulsive and savage acts in the operatic repertoire requires a case of special pleading. I would express the same bewilderment if someone told me they considered the treatment of Falstaff in Shakespeare to be on the same level as a _truly_ vicious scene in his oeuvre, like the one where Gloucester's eyes are gouged out in _King Lear_. I can honestly say I don't find there to be anything remotely _cruel_ about Beckmesser's treatment; perhaps if he endured some sort of physical torture, or was grossly insulted, or was exorcised from the community altogether then I could understand where you're coming from. In fact, I don't even feel that your contention that Beckmesser is somehow made to be an outcast at the end of the opera to be justified by the libretto. Earlier in the act, after he takes Walther's song, Hans Sachs comments that "He won't keep up his malice for long. Many a man throws away his reason and yet, even with that, he eventually finds his way home. An hour of weakness comes for everyone - and then he sees how foolish he is and allows himself to be spoken to." So just because a reconciliation isn't acted out on the stage like it is at the end of _The Marriage of Figaro_ doesn't mean that it won't happen, and it doesn't mean that Beckmesser won't learn from his mistakes. On the contrary, the implication of Hans Sach's quote is that he will.

This is not at all to say that it's impossible that we feel discomfort at certain points during _Die Meistersinger_ -- but that's nothing to do with something particularly pernicious about Wagner, or some special contempt he feels for Beckmesser (because frankly, I've never gotten that impression in all my experiences watching and listening to the opera), or even that Beckmesser is a caricature of some sort (I couldn't disagree more, he is as splendidly diverse and captivating as the other characters in the opera). Rather, I would argue that it's got something to do with the nature of the great comic tradition of Western Civilization, a tradition that _Die Meistersinger_ is very much a part of. As the great comic playwright Molière noted, the function of comedy is "to correct men by amusing them, I believed that in my occupation I could nothing better than attack the vices of my age by making them ridiculous". And so comedy can deal with some pretty serious issues, and leave an audience feeling uncomfortable about both the subject matter and treatment or actions of a particular character. One can find just as much potentially objectionable material in an opera by Rossini or Mozart, let alone a play by Shakespeare or Molière or Beaumarchais. So to say that _Die Meistersinger_ lacks the humanity, warmth, wit and exuberance of an Offenbach or Mozart is incorrect in my mind; not only does it possess all those qualities in spades, but it is incredibly moving in its demonstration of our need for art to deal with the sadness in our lives, as well as the need to sing like songbirds from the sheer joy of being alive.

Finally, I find any attempts to try to link the fate that befalls Beckmesser with any of Wagner's nationalistic or antisemitic views to be incredibly misguided.

P.S. To answer your question, yes I have read Adorno on Wagner, and found his writings on the subject to be extraordinarily naïve, especially for a thinker who so relentlessly parades his sophistication.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

SilenceIsGolden said:


> P.S. To answer your question, yes I have read Adorno on Wagner, and found his writings on the subject to be extraordinarily naïve, especially for a thinker who so relentlessly parades his sophistication.


Adorno was (to judge from what I have read) remarkably perceptive about things that appealed to his sensibilities, and remarkably obtuse about things that didn't. His writings on Mahler display both.


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## Revenant (Aug 27, 2013)

SilenceIsGolden said:


> [...snip...] As far as nasty, vicious scenes go: I think of the very disturbing opening scene of Act II of _Parsifal_, with the gruesome dialogue between Klingsor and Kundry, and what I consider one of the most powerful expressions in art of the hateful bondage in which one person can be to another.


So, now I see: that scene is about some marriages.


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

_The Fiery Angel_ is pretty rough-going, especially when, at the end, we learn Renata is going to be tortured and then burned at the stake. It very much reminds me of _The Devils of Loudon_.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

For me it was seeing the second act of Die Walkure in DC's American Ring set amidst dumped sofas and street people underneath a highway overpass. That was very cruel to me and I left.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

As I've been on a Wozzeck jag lately - how about when the Doctor and the Captain taunt Wozzeck about Marie and the Drum-major. It's sophisticated musically and dramatically and incredibly nasty and vicious


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

The phantom scene in Don Giovanni, it's the classical terror scene in opera.
The Verdi's phantom scene in Macbeth is very good too.
The mass suicide in Les Troyens, very brutal!
The massacre in the church in the Les Hugonots, very brutal too!

For me, the most terrible scene ever, is the mad scene in Lucia di Lammermoor: Bloody, crazy, and very very sad.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Michaelion, from _Mittwoch aus Licht_. It was only when I saw it live two years ago that I realised how disturbing it was to see a camel void its bowels onstage, before crushing a trombonist alive. Evil, evil stuff


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Having recently contributed to a thread on _Tosca_, I want to cite that opera as having one of the cruelest stories ever put upon the lyric stage. Only a master composer like Puccini could make us (but not me, except in the greatest possible performance) tolerate the sight of a psychopathic, power-hungry, womanizing sexual sadist (Scarpia) using his political power to subject a man (Cavaradossi) to physical torture in front of the man's lover (Tosca) in order to force her to submit to his lust, promising to spare her lover's life with every intention of killing him anyway. Yes, Scarpia gets what he deserves, but not in time to save Cavaradossi and Tosca; she cheerfully watches him being shot by a firing squad, having been told it would be a mock-execution, and when she discovers the truth she throws herself off a parapet into the Tiber.

I mean, really! 

P.S. _Madama Butterfly_ runs _Tosca_ a close second - or maybe beats it by a hair, I don't know. I'm sure you recall what happens to the faithful, trusting Cio Cio San when she learns that that utter cad, Pinkerton, will be returning to Japan only to collect the child she has borne him so that he can make a nice little family with his real wife in America.

My God, how are we expected to watch this stuff? And these operas are _popular_! _What_ is the _matter_ with people?!


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> P.S. _Madama Butterfly_ runs _Tosca_ a close second - or maybe beats it by a hair, I don't know. I'm sure you recall what happens to the faithful, trusting Cio Cio San when she learns that that utter cad, Pinkerton, will be returning to Japan only to collect the child she has borne him so that he can make a nice little family with his real wife in America.
> 
> My God, how are we expected to watch this stuff? And these operas are _popular_! _What_ is the _matter_ with people?!


I sometimes thing that Pinkerton is not such a cad, simply a thoughtless young man who acts without considering consequences. That nice young men can behave so thoughtlessly and cruelly is one of the tragedies of life. What happened in Japan must have preyed on his conscience though, otherwise he would not have written to Sharpless about Butterfly. The true ogre would have forgotten about her completely. It is only when he learns about his son that he is confronted with the consequences of his actions. That he and his wife ask Butterfly to give up her son is as much about Western Imperialism as anything else.

It is interesting that in its modern re-telling _Miss Saigon_, the authors seek to make the Pinkerton character more sympathetic, adding to the story scenes where he tries to find the young Vietnamese girl he left behind. They also flesh out the character of his wife, in an attempt to make her more sympathetic too, but, in my opinion, it completely destroys the dramatic balance. In Puccini, our concentration is all on Butterfly, as it should be, his instinct for what works on stage as usual impeccable.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

GregMitchell said:


> I sometimes thing that Pinkerton is not such a cad, simply a thoughtless young man who acts without considering consequences. That nice young men can behave so thoughtlessly and cruelly is one of the tragedies of life. What happened in Japan must have preyed on his conscience though, otherwise he would not have written to Sharpless about Butterfly. The true ogre would have forgotten about her completely. It is only when he learns about his son that he is confronted with the consequences of his actions. That he and his wife ask Butterfly to give up her son is as much about Western Imperialism as anything else.
> 
> It is interesting that in its modern re-telling _Miss Saigon_, the authors seek to make the Pinkerton character more sympathetic, adding to the story scenes where he tries to find the young Vietnamese girl he left behind. They also flesh out the character of his wife, in an attempt to make her more sympathetic too, but, in my opinion, it completely destroys the dramatic balance. In Puccini, our concentration is all on Butterfly, as it should be, his instinct for what works on stage as usual impeccable.


Oh, Greg! You're such a softie! :kiss:

Of course you're right about young B.F. Pinkerton. He does get to feel bad once it's too late! But it's really the composer's treatment of Butterfly and her operatic sisters that concerns me. Puccini had an impeccable instinct for subjecting innocent girls to maximum pain, drawing it out to maximum length, and expressing it in music of maximum pathos (thus making himself the eternal benefactor of the Kleenex coorporation). Scarpia tells Tosca outright that her suffering turns him on. I've always been unable to shake the feeling that he speaks for the composer; and although I wrote my comments with tongue somewhat in cheek, I really do get a queasy feeling about his treatment of women. I know he didn't invent this sort of thing; apparently Sardou, author of the play I]Tosca[/I], proffered "torture the women" as a formula for theatrical success. Other Italian composers of the verismo era jumped happily on the bandwagon; look at Mascagni's Iris, another naive little Japanese girl, who is abducted into a brothel, is renounced by her father, and throws herself into a sewer, there undergoing some sort of mystical transfiguration with sunshine and flowers blooming around her as she expires! The sentimental music these composers gave their sad little victims to wallow in caused me for years to think that the Italian word "morbidezza, as applied to singing, meant what it sounds like to a speaker of English. The sufferings of women were classic fare for opera, it's true, reflecting the position of women in society; even Mozart gets accused of misogyny, citing the plights of the women in _Don Giovanni_, _Cosi fan tutte_ and _Zauberflote_. But stories dwelling primarily on the degradation and destruction of women were not typical in opera before Puccini; Beethoven, Verdi and Wagner all had more complex matters on their minds, giving their males as many problems as their females. And it wasn't until the late 19th century that the harmonic vocabulary of music allowed composers to explore the deepest levels of human suffering: once Wagner had torn the dressing from the wounds of Tristan and Amfortas (both males, be it noted!), the way was clear for Puccini, a close student of Wagner, to aim the full arsenal of musical pain at the little women whose hopeless plights he could not resist gazing upon.

Needless (I hope) to say, my observations are not meant to disparage Puccini as a composer. Quite the opposite: as a composer he succeeded only too well at making thrillingly effective what I find unpalatable. I'm just grateful to him for giving us Minnie in _La_ _Fanciulla del west_. Nothin' gets that filly down!


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## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

In Mascagni's opera Iris the title character leaps from a window into a sewer where she dies.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Radames said:


> In Mascagni's opera Iris the title character leaps from a window into a sewer where she dies.


After her father throws dirt at her.
And still it has one of the most beautiful endings of any opera.

And considering tormented women . I think what happens to Brünnhilde is worse than any thing what happens to the women in the operas by Puccini she is rejected by her father. Her loved one marries another woman and he dies also and she commits suicide by throwing herself on a pyre.


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

I've already posted on this thread a couple of times (wonder what that says about me), but last night, I had the most disturbing experience of an opera ever, Britten's _Turn of the Screw_. I have had several friends who were survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and that theme was treated so honestly (but not in an exploitative manner) that I got almost physically ill. The text made things worst by not being upfront about it, by leaving it to our imaginations, and the music - especially with its touches of children's folk song and almost a hymn - just dragged me down even deeper.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

msegers said:


> I've already posted on this thread a couple of times (wonder what that says about me), but last night, I had the most disturbing experience of an opera ever, Britten's _Turn of the Screw_. I have had several friends who were survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and that theme was treated so honestly (but not in an exploitative manner) that I got almost physically ill. The text made things worst by not being upfront about it, by leaving it to our imaginations, and the music - especially with its touches of children's folk song and almost a hymn - just dragged me down even deeper.


Britten himself was abused as a child, which undoubtedly colored many of his works, as well as his obsession with childhood innocence and purity (or idealism) as contrasted with harsh reality.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Britten himself was abused as a child, which undoubtedly colored many of his works, as well as his obsession with childhood innocence and purity (or idealism) as contrasted with harsh reality.


First I've ever heard of that. Can you expand, or provide a source for follow-up?

Note: Britten attended two schools headed by disciplinarians, but I've seen nothing suggesting "abuse."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> First I've ever heard of that. Can you expand, or provide a source for follow-up?
> 
> Note: Britten attended two schools headed by disciplinarians, but I've seen nothing suggesting "abuse."


Powell's and Kildea's biographies both mention an incident that Eric Crozier claims was related to him by the composer. Powell takes it for granted as true, while Kildea casts aspersions on Crozier's intent.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sloe said:


> And considering tormented women . I think what happens to Brünnhilde is worse than any thing what happens to the women in the operas by Puccini she is rejected by her father. Her loved one marries another woman and he dies also and she commits suicide by throwing herself on a pyre.


Wotan's stripping Brunnhilde of her status as a Valkyrie and making her human as a punishment for breaking the law of the gods is a tragedy but not an act of cruelty. As upholder of that law he had no choice, but by surrounding her with protective fire he showed love and compassion. The emotional power of his farewell to her comes not primarily from her suffering but from the conflict in his soul between his love for her and the thing he has to do.

The _Ring_ is not a slice of life in which pain is inflicted randomly and senselessly but an allegory in which suffering and death represent inevitable consequences of past actions and stages in the growth of human awareness, in which the old must die to allow the new to be born. This is the difference, in drama, between mere pathos and tragedy: in the former, people are victims of circumstance; in the latter, they are participants (even if unknowing participants) in their fates, which proceed inevitably from their own actions. Brunnhilde must undergo tragedy in order to learn; in the course of it she becomes, through her voluntary immolation, the instrument of the destruction of the old order of the gods, and clears the way for the birth of a new and, hopefully, better world. If you listen to the music of the final scene of _Gotterdammerung_, you will hear a powerful Brunnhilde who, far beyond personal suffering, has taken the fate of the world into her own hands. And the last music we hear in the _Ring_ is the glorious phrase Sieglinde had sung to Brunnhilde in Act 2 of _Die Walkure_ when Brunnhilde gave her the broken sword and sent her away to bear the hero Siegfried. He and Brunnhilde would pay the price of their own illusions, their simple-minded attempt to live only for love in a corrupt world; and her ironic spearheading of Siegfried's own death would be necessary to bring her final understanding and to precipitate her final sacrifice, which would lift the curse of the ring, cleanse by fire and water the sins of gods and men, and give the world another chance.

With the heroic saga of Brunnhilde we could not be farther from the irredeemably sad fate of Madame Butterfly!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

[COLOR="#0000CD" said:


> Woodduck;669199]Wotan's stripping Brunnhilde of her status as a Valkyrie and making her human as a punishment for breaking the law of the gods is a tragedy but not an act of cruelty. As upholder of that law he had no choice, but by surrounding her with protective fire he showed love and compassion. The emotional power of his farewell to her comes not primarily from her suffering but from the conflict in his soul between his love for her and the thing he has to do.
> 
> The _Ring_ is not a slice of life in which pain is inflicted randomly and senselessly but an allegory in which suffering and death represent inevitable consequences of past actions and stages in the growth of human awareness, in which the old must die to allow the new to be born. This is the difference, in drama, between mere pathos and tragedy: in the former, people are victims of circumstance; in the latter, they are participants (even if unknowing participants) in their fates, which proceed inevitably from their own actions. Brunnhilde must undergo tragedy in order to learn; in the course of it she becomes, through her voluntary immolation, the instrument of the destruction of the old order of the gods, and clears the way for the birth of a new and, hopefully, better world. If you listen to the music of the final scene of _Gotterdammerung_, you will hear a powerful Brunnhilde who, far beyond personal suffering, has taken the fate of the world into her own hands. And the last music we hear in the _Ring_ is the glorious phrase Sieglinde had sung to Brunnhilde in Act 2 of _Die Walkure_ when Brunnhilde gave her the broken sword and sent her away to bear the hero Siegfried. He and Brunnhilde would pay the price of their own illusions, their simple-minded attempt to live only for love in a corrupt world; and her ironic spearheading of Siegfried's own death would be necessary to bring her final understanding and to precipitate her final sacrifice, which would lift the curse of the ring, cleanse by fire and water the sins of gods and men, and give the world another chance.
> 
> With the heroic saga of Brunnhilde we could not be farther from the irredeemably sad fate of Madame butterfly!


Full marks: 'A.'


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Surprised to see missing the all-time most tragic horror of an ending, "Dialogues des Carmelites".
Second place: "Salome". Gruesome.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

nina foresti said:


> Surprised to see missing the all-time most tragic horror of an ending, "Dialogues des Carmelites".


No, it's on page two:



GraemeG said:


> The mass execution at the end of _Dialogues of the Carmelites_ has the audience shuddering with every gilloutine drop.
> GG


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