# Just die, already: Operatic death scenes



## graziesignore (Mar 13, 2015)

(I tried to look for an existing thread about this, I really did)

So much to talk about, so little (cough, cough) time...

Are there any opera death scenes which (_come scritto_) just drag on too long? How much disbelief should we be asked to suspend when it comes time for a character to give up the ghost? Should singers cough, retch, gasp or otherwise sprinkle their arias with death rattles, or should they just sing? What is your favorite death aria? Are there any death scenes you want to share (via Youtube etc) that were particularly good or mis-handled in a production?

I got the idea for this thread by watching yet another Don Carlo production, one of my very favorite operas, although the big Rodrigo death aria is not particularly great musically, it's just such a straightforwardly classic death scene that I enjoy comparing all the various exhalations and expirations of the baritones who have played him.

Thomas Hampson: standing up, slow collapse. (starts at 4:15)






Giorgio Zancanaro: mostly supine, a few chaste coughs. (starts at 3:56)






Sherrill Milnes: bears up manfully






Sesto Bruscantini: so filled with nobility, doesn't even seem to know he's gutshot






PS: To clarify, this thread is about death arias where the character is already dying (ie, shot, stabbed, poisoned, burning to death, mortally ill etc) but pauses for a declamatory moment. Arias of condemned persons aren't really the same category


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

The whole last act of Carmen. All the great tunes have been played. She is running around the stage saying "I know that you are going to kill me". Don Jose keeps telling her he is going to kill her. I keep looking at watch and finally say "Will you get it over wth and kill her? We all know that you are going to do it, and I have to go to work in the morning!"


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

deleted, misunderstood


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

La Traviata would be a much better opera if Violetta carked it somewhere in the middle of act 1.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Alfred Hitchcock was a keen theatre goer but I have no idea if he liked Opera. The reason why I mention this is that late on he realised that on film most people expire to quickly and that in real life it takes much longer as people generally don't want to die. Of course his twist was that the audience wanted this death and so he delayed it as long as possible.

To see the full scene with Hermann's score you have to go to 2'30"

[video=dailymotion;xte7y3]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xte7y3_torn-curtain-gromek-s-death-bernard-herrmann-s-cue-addison-s-cue_shortfilms[/video]


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

It can never bee to long  Well there are some...

In opera you can't go quietly or quickly. And usually the dying scene has very beautiful music. Like the end of Lucia di Lammermoor. I think that singers should act like they are dying even if it takes 10 minutes to die and not just stand still and sing. Done right it can be very moving and a beautiful moment.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Itullian said:


> Siegfried or Isolde


Isolde?!? Blasphemy! She is expiring; you cannot expect it to happen at once - whoop! she drops dead.

I would nominate last scene of *Luisa Miller* - one of those slow death scenes you can't help but think "die already!"


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Azol said:


> Isolde?!? Blasphemy! She is expiring; you cannot expect it to happen at once - whoop! she drops dead.
> 
> I would nominate last scene of *Luisa Miller* - one of those slow death scenes you can't help but think "die already!"


oops, misunderstood
withdrawn


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

*Werther* He shoots himself *in the head!* and still keeps on singing!

*Gilda*  (Rigoletto) Gets stabbed and a few minutes later, sings for 10 minutes.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> La Traviata would be a much better opera if Violetta carked it somewhere in the middle of act 1.


I don't think taking pot shots at operas and composers you don't like was part of the OP's brief. Personally I rather wish Lulu hadn't even been born, but I'm not going to bring it up here. Oops, sorry, I have :devil:


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

MAS said:


> *Werther* He shoots himself *in the head!* and still keeps on singing!
> 
> *Gilda*  (Rigoletto) Gets stabbed and a few minutes later, sings for 10 minutes.


Stab wounds can last for an indeterminate amount of time. There is no set "stabbed in the stomach - you have 4 minutes to live". Not to mention, that death by stabbing has a low success rate and also requires enormous efforts -- contrary to everything seen on television and movies - one of the prime reasons I watch art house films and not cheesy operas or movies.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Lord Lance said:


> Stab wounds can last for an indeterminate amount of time. There is no set "stabbed in the stomach - you have 4 minutes to live". Not to mention, that death by stabbing has a low success rate and also requires enormous efforts -- contrary to everything seen on television and movies - one of the prime reasons I watch art house films and not cheesy operas or movies.


I know nothing of stab wounds, but I suspect an assassin like Sparafucile, the one that stabbed Gilda, would know his craft and stabbed her efficiently and fatally. In which case, singing would be impossible, which is the whole point of this thread. 
Anyway, most movies, even art house ones, and operas require *suspension of disbelief!*


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MAS said:


> I know nothing of stab wounds, but I suspect an assassin like Sparafucile, the one that stabbed Gilda, would know his craft and stabbed her efficiently and fatally. In which case, singing would be impossible, which is the whole point of this thread.
> Anyway, most movies, even art house ones, and operas require *suspension of disbelief!*


Exactly! Suspension of disbelief. Anyone who has seen someone in the last stages of TB knows they cannot move or speak, let alone sing! But then we wouldn't have the opera. Reminds me of the director John Ford in the movie Stagecoach. When asked why the Indians didn't do the obvious thing and shoot the horses, Ford replied: " Because that would have ended the movie!" :lol:


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

No character ever took longer to expire than poor little Gilda. Why in god's name didn't Rigoletto stop wasting time moaning and scream loud for a doctor instead?? She might be alive today.
Another one is Desdemona. Get a medic, quick, she's choking.
And how about those deadly violets in Adriana. That gal took a really long time when she should have had her stomach pumped an aria ago.
Violetta takes a back seat to no one. She gets an aria in and even reads an entire letter where she has the strength to yell at the top of her lungs, "e Tardi!!"
As for the guys: Rodrigo gets a lot out of his "Io morro" and I swear I almost thought the King in Ballo was actually going to recover at the end, he had so much energy.
But I guess the 1st prize goes to Boris for his long lingering death.


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## Cesare Impalatore (Apr 16, 2015)

I am a fan of Wagner, there is no such thing as an operatic death scene that is too long for me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Cesare Impalatore said:


> I am a fan of Wagner, there is no such thing as an operatic death scene that is too long for me.


Tristan is run through by Melot at the end of Act 2. Refusing to die without Isolde, he proceeds to spend the whole of Act 3 performing the most arduous music ever written for a tenor, until Isolde finally arrives and he can give his voice a rest. Isolde, the ungrateful wench, gets upset with him for not putting it off a little longer and dying with her. She waits until a couple of other people have killed each other, which fortunately they do without singing much, and then sings for another eight minutes before dying of unknown causes. In this opera you can stay alive for as long as you want while mortally wounded, or die when you want although there's nothing wrong with you at all. I don't think this is explained anywhere in Schopenhauer.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Triplets said:


> The whole last act of Carmen. All the great tunes have been played. She is running around the stage saying "I know that you are going to kill me". Don Jose keeps telling her he is going to kill her. I keep looking at watch and finally say "Will you get it over wth and kill her? We all know that you are going to do it, and I have to go to work in the morning!"


Heh, I have always felt that Carmen runs twenty minutes too long. But I try not to blame poor Don Jose and Carmen. I blame all the scene setting fluff that the Opera Comique made Bizet add in order to water down the racy story, i.e.: the children's march, the smugglers' chorus, even the matadors' parade. Lovely stuff to be sure, but it takes its toll by the end of the evening. Mozart and Rossini have already convinced us that Seville makes a colorful setting for an opera, you don't need to knock us over the head with it Mr. Bizet.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> No character ever took longer to expire than poor little Gilda. Why in god's name didn't Rigoletto stop wasting time moaning and scream loud for a doctor instead?? She might be alive today.
> Another one is Desdemona. Get a medic, quick, she's choking.
> And how about those deadly violets in Adriana. That gal took a really long time when she should have had her stomach pumped an aria ago.
> Violetta takes a back seat to no one. She gets an aria in and even reads an entire letter where she has the strength to yell at the top of her lungs, "e Tardi!!"
> ...


I know you're half-joking, but as for Rigoletto you do have to consider that it's after midnight in the unsavory section of the city. There's probably no doctor within hearing distance, and even if there were he'd then have to explain how Gilda came to be in such a state, which would hardly make him look innocent. He'd be arrested for the attempted murder of the Duke. So no, he can't call for a doctor, and besides he's too overwhelmed with shock and grief to do so.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

To answer one of the OP's questions: if it's an _audio_ recording, then I'd rather not hear the chokes and gasps that would realistically accompany a death scene; I'd rather enjoy it simply as music. So as much as I love Sherrill Milnes, I don't particularly care for that cough thing he does on the 1970 studio version (the famous recording conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini) of the scene you posted above. IMO, it would have been fine in a live performance but on audio-only it sounds overdone. Another example is Pavarotti as Edgardo on his studio LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR: after he stabs himself you hear this big gasp that to me sounds more comic than tragic.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> I know you're half-joking, but as for Rigoletto you do have to consider that it's after midnight in the unsavory section of the city. There's probably no doctor within hearing distance, and even if there were he'd then have to explain how Gilda came to be in such a state, which would hardly make him look innocent. He'd be arrested for the attempted murder of the Duke. So no, he can't call for a doctor, and besides he's too overwhelmed with shock and grief to do so.


Well you make some interesting points except for the fact that 1) that father is absolutely panic stricken that he is going to lose the only thing he cares about in life and his first reaction would likely be to bang on the door of Sparafucile for help and 2) frankly, he couldn't care less if he would be arrested for attempted murder because if she is gone, he has nothing to live for anyway. In fact, so devastated is he, he probably takes his life anyway after she dies.


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

James Cagney should have been an opera singer, his movie death scenes were some of the most protracted in movie history. I exclude White Heat from this in which he went out with a bang.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> To answer one of the OP's questions: if it's an _audio_ recording, then I'd rather not hear the chokes and gasps that would realistically accompany a death scene; I'd rather enjoy it simply as music. So as much as I love Sherrill Milnes, I don't particularly care for that cough thing he does on the 1970 studio version (the famous recording conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini) of the scene you posted above. IMO, it would have been fine in a live performance but on audio-only it sounds overdone. Another example is Pavarotti as Edgardo on his studio LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR: after he stabs himself you hear this big gasp that to me sounds more comic than tragic.


I agree. I usually hate interpolated laughs, cries, shrieks, whatever, on recordings. Maria Callas was asked why, on her recording of Carmen, she doesn't cry out when Jose stabs her. She said, simply, that it isn't in the libretto and, besides, everyone knows she's been stabbed. So take that, Mr. Interviewer.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> I know you're half-joking, but as for Rigoletto you do have to consider that it's after midnight in the unsavory section of the city. There's probably no doctor within hearing distance, and even if there were he'd then have to explain how Gilda came to be in such a state, which would hardly make him look innocent. He'd be arrested for the attempted murder of the Duke. So no, he can't call for a doctor, and besides he's too overwhelmed with shock and grief to do so.


Unless it is a regie version I don´t think a doctor could have helped that much in that time.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I agree. I usually hate interpolated laughs, cries, shrieks, whatever, on recordings. Maria Callas was asked why, on her recording of Carmen, she doesn't cry out when Jose stabs her. She said, simply, that it isn't in the libretto and, besides, everyone knows she's been stabbed. So take that, Mr. Interviewer.


If I remember correctly, Don Jose doesn't say anything, either, like: "Die, then! Or "take that!"


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## Cesare Impalatore (Apr 16, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Tristan is run through by Melot at the end of Act 2. Refusing to die without Isolde, he proceeds to spend the whole of Act 3 performing the most arduous music ever written for a tenor, until Isolde finally arrives and he can give his voice a rest. Isolde, the ungrateful wench, gets upset with him for not putting it off a little longer and dying with her. She waits until a couple of other people have killed each other, which fortunately they do without singing much, and then sings for another eight minutes before dying of unknown causes. In this opera you can stay alive for as long as you want while mortally wounded, or die when you want although there's nothing wrong with you at all. I don't think this is explained anywhere in Schopenhauer.


This post made my day! :lol:


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## graziesignore (Mar 13, 2015)

With Rodrigo I can never quite tell if these singers are standing up because it's a character thing (noble, idealistic Rodrigo, gallant to the end), or if it's just because it's too hard for them to belt it out lying down. (Though that didn't seem to be an issue for Zancanaro who also took it lying down in other productions). I imagine that literally dropping dead from a standing position has to be a bit of a chore, too. 

I wonder if any singers have ever gotten injured dropping dead. ( let's not discuss Leonard Warren tho because that wasn't a death scene)

Madama Butterfly: do you prefer it bloody, or stylized? Stage blood in general: discuss


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

graziesignore said:


> I wonder if any singers have ever gotten injured dropping dead


In this production of _Simon Boccanegra_,










when Boccanegra dies, Domingo falls from a standing position to flat on his back which is very impressive for a man of his age.

When it was performed semi-staged at the Proms, this happened.


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## Diminuendo (May 5, 2015)

sospiro said:


> In this production of _Simon Boccanegra_,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


He does some amazing things for his age. I have to admit that I like him singing baritone roles. I have never seen him live, so I can't say how he sounds live neither as a tenor or a baritone, but from video I like his interpretation of baritonee roles. And if you don't like him singing baritone roles, like Callas said "All I can say, those who don't like it shouldn't come to hear me". Wise words.

I'm sorry for going of-topic, but I couldn't help myself


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Lord Lance said:


> Stab wounds can last for an indeterminate amount of time. There is no set "stabbed in the stomach - you have 4 minutes to live". Not to mention, that death by stabbing has a low success rate and also requires enormous efforts -- contrary to everything seen on television and movies - one of the prime reasons I watch art house films and not cheesy operas or movies.


The same with gunshots.
In real life it took nearly two weeks for Gustav III to die. In Un ballo in maschera it it takes a few minutes.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Polyphemus said:


> James Cagney should have been an opera singer, his movie death scenes were some of the most protracted in movie history. I exclude White Heat from this in which he went out with a bang.


And he could sing and tap dance at the same time!

They dont' make em like that anymore. Sadly.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> To answer one of the OP's questions: if it's an _audio_ recording, then I'd rather not hear the chokes and gasps that would realistically accompany a death scene; I'd rather enjoy it simply as music. So as much as I love Sherrill Milnes, I don't particularly care for that cough thing he does on the 1970 studio version (the famous recording conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini) of the scene you posted above. IMO, it would have been fine in a live performance but on audio-only it sounds overdone. Another example is Pavarotti as Edgardo on his studio LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR: after he stabs himself you hear this big gasp that to me sounds more comic than tragic.


I see what you are saying, and I agree that audible death gasps without the accompanying visuals to help us make sense of it, risk sounding silly. I also think that you argue very well for an audio recording being different from a live performance in the theatre in the sense that it's closer to being simply music. However, I like sound recordings to reflect as closely as possible what the singer would do in the theatre- and if these gasps are part of the vocal (if not strictly 'musical') performance, they should stay. Francesco Tamagno, who could do no wrong IMO, included an 'Aaargh! Aargh! Aargh!' at the end of 'Niun mi tema', so for that reason alone I would say that death noises are allowed on sound recordings. I wonder whether this was also Tamagno's considered opinion, or whether it had even occurred to anyone in 1903-4 to question whether such extra-musical aspects of a vocal performance belonged on a sound recording or not.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

*Graziesignore:* I've wondered that too about why Rodrigo so often stands up for "Io morro." I tend to think it has less to do with singing position and more to do with the fact that it looks much more dramatic to _fall_ down at the end rather than just to drop your head or slump back.

Oh, and I think I know what must be the two _quickest_ death scenes in all opera: those of Salome and Elektra.


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## graziesignore (Mar 13, 2015)

Sometimes there might be very specific directions in a libretto, such as "Character falls dead," though I don't know if that's the case with Rodrigo.


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## DarkAngel (Aug 11, 2010)

Another variant on the long death scence is the miraculous "mystery antidote" that can be given to a poisoned victim magically bringing them back to life and extending the plot......opera zombies can live again!

A prime example is poor Gennaro in "Lucrezia Borgia" seems everyone is putting poison in his drinks, the first time he accepts the antidote from Lucrezia, the 2nd time in a group poisoning he has had enough and refuses the antidote and mercifully accepts that it is time for him to go......


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## graziesignore (Mar 13, 2015)

Yeah. That's why I like it how Simon Boccanegra just dies. No suspense (and why is there no confrontation scene between him and Paolo? he doesn't even get to laugh in the face of his victim), but such a dignified ending. (and again, this is another one where the baritone always seems to drop dead from a standing position!)


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

graziesignore said:


> Yeah. That's why I like it how Simon Boccanegra just dies. No suspense (*and why is there no confrontation scene between him and Paolo?* he doesn't even get to laugh in the face of his victim), but such a dignified ending. (and again, this is another one where the baritone always seems to drop dead from a standing position!)


I suppose it's because his real enemy is and always was Fiesco. In fact Fiesco was furious with Paolo that he wasn't able to exact his revenge himself.

Act III Scene II

FIESCO (solo):
_Inorridisco!... no,
Simon non questa
Vendetta chiesi, d'altra meta degno
Era il tuo fato. -Eccolo... il Doge. - Alfine
È giunta l'ora di trovarci a fronte!_


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## graziesignore (Mar 13, 2015)

You can now see Rodrigo die in German over at the Youtube thread. (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who fakes us out by appearing to die immediately but then gives us a death scene of the supine/gasping variety. No standing up for him!)


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## ma7730 (Jun 8, 2015)

As much as I like Don Carlo, the final duet, while pretty, I am always just waiting for them to kill him. (I know it's not part of his actual death scene, but I just think it has to be mentioned).


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

I can't resist quoting Homer & Jethro:



> Then ol' PAL-YAT-CHEE finds the guy he's seekin'
> Cheek-to-cheekin' with his wife, he grabs a knife
> And stabs the louse who stole his spouse,
> An' then he stabs the lady and himself - tain't very sanitary.
> ...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Cesare Impalatore said:


> This post made my day! :lol:


Deleted post.......


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Tristan is run through by Melot at the end of Act 2. Refusing to die without Isolde, he proceeds to spend the whole of Act 3 performing the most arduous music ever written for a tenor, until Isolde finally arrives and he can give his voice a rest. Isolde, the ungrateful wench, gets upset with him for not putting it off a little longer and dying with her. She waits until a couple of other people have killed each other, which fortunately they do without singing much, and then sings for another eight minutes before dying of unknown causes. In this opera you can stay alive for as long as you want while mortally wounded, or die when you want although there's nothing wrong with you at all. I don't think this is explained anywhere in Schopenhauer.


Don't forget that two conductors have died while conducting Tristan. Felix Mottl, 56, collapsed in 1911. Legend has it that he fell just as his wife, Zdenka Fassbender, was singing Isolde's death. Joseph Keilberth, 59, died in Munich in July 1968, moments after conducting Tristan's, Let me die, never to awake. These fatalities so alarmed Herbert von Karajan, Keilberth's exact contemporary, that he endowed a unit at Salzburg University to study the effects of physical stress on conducting.

In addition, Sinopoli died conducting Aida and Giuseppe Patane, crumpled in a heap while conducting the Barber of Seville and died hours later in hospital.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Don't forget that two conductors have died while conducting Tristan. Felix Mottl, 56, collapsed in 1911. Legend has it that he fell just as his wife, Zdenka Fassbender, was singing Isolde's death. Joseph Keilberth, 59, died in Munich in July 1968, moments after conducting Tristan's, Let me die, never to awake. These fatalities so alarmed Herbert von Karajan, Keilberth's exact contemporary, that he endowed a unit at Salzburg University to study the effects of physical stress on conducting.
> 
> In addition, Sinopoli died conducting Aida and Giuseppe Patane, crumpled in a heap while conducting the Barber of Seville and died hours later in hospital.


Naturally, I can't 'like' this post - but it *is* very interesting, and sad.

Of course, a number of actors and comedians (as well as conductors) have died on stage, or very soon after the performance ended.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Don't forget that two conductors have died while conducting Tristan. Felix Mottl, 56, collapsed in 1911. Legend has it that he fell just as his wife, Zdenka Fassbender, was singing Isolde's death. Joseph Keilberth, 59, died in Munich in July 1968, moments after conducting Tristan's, Let me die, never to awake. These fatalities so alarmed Herbert von Karajan, Keilberth's exact contemporary, that he endowed a unit at Salzburg University to study the effects of physical stress on conducting.
> 
> In addition, Sinopoli died conducting Aida and Giuseppe Patane, crumpled in a heap while conducting the Barber of Seville and died hours later in hospital.


It's worth recalling, too, that this handsome if hefty couple, Ludwig and Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld:

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search...olsfeld&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-004

were also alleged victims of _Tristan und Isolde._ They created the title roles in Munich in 1867, and about a month later Ludwig died and Malvina gave up performing. In actuality it was "a chill followed by rheumatic complications which caused an apoplexic event to which the overweight tenor succumbed" (Wiki). But legend has blamed the strenuousness of singing Wagner, a notion that the composer himself is said to have entertained. Who knows?


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## graziesignore (Mar 13, 2015)

Well, I knew this thread would get around to actual deaths eventually... This backstage account of Leonard Warren's death is quite sad...

http://www.alfredhubay.com/new-blog/?category=43+•+1959-60


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## graziesignore (Mar 13, 2015)

Death in opera: breakdowns and pie charts.

http://www.kristenseikaly.com/death-in-opera-a-visual-representation/


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Not exactly death scenes but Janacek comes to mind...

The Makropulos Affair - 300 years and counting!
From the House of the Dead - A while operaful!


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

I posted this in the YouTube thread but I've just watched it again. Mesmerising.
For once I wished there was a doctor in the scene so that she might have been able to sing a bit longer!


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> La Traviata would be a much better opera if Violetta carked it somewhere in the middle of act 1.


Heresy. Bring out the stake. :lol:


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## alan davis (Oct 16, 2013)

The finale from Delius' "A Village Romeo and Juliet".

Sali: Travellers we a passing by.
Shall we also drift down the river?

Vrenchen: And drift away for ever!
O Sali, how I love you!
I've had this thought this many a day
but never dared to ask you
We can never be united,
and without you I could not live.
O let me then die with you.

Sali: Aye, let us die together.
To be happy one short moment
and then to die
were that not eternal joy?


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I've always find strangely moving the death of Lucretia, in Britten's _The Rape of Lucretia_.

Originally, the opera ended just after Lucretia's suicide, with the following words:

_How it is possible that she_
_Being so pure should die?_
_How it is possible that we_
_Grieving for her should live?_
_So brief is beauty_
_Is this all?It is all?It is all?

_But the composer was not totally pleased, and then the librettist Ronald Duncan added some interventions from the Female and Male Choruses, that were commenting the action from a Christian (and anachronistic, since the rape of Lucretia took place at Rome, in the 6th century BC) point of view. And so, the Female Chorus sings:

_For this did I_
_See with my undying eye_
_His warm blood spill _
_Upon that hill_
_And dry upon that cross?_
_Is this all loss?_
_Are we lost?_
_Answer us_
_or let us_
_die in our wilderness. Is it all? Is this it all?_

And the Male Chorus answers back:

_It is not all. (a magical moment here) _
_Though our nature's still as frail_
_And we still fall 
..._
_for now_
_He bears our sin and does not fall_
_in His Passion_
_Is our Hope_
_Jesus Christ. Saviour. He is all!. He is all! _

And the two Choruses close the opera together after that.


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## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

Since opera involves the suspension of belief anyway, the rather protracted death scenes that many contain shouldn't really occasion any particular comment. Having said this, Desdemona's death at the end of Verdi's Otello deserves particular mention, although I think the fault really lies in Shakespeare's original


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I mostly have happy ending operas, but also a few of Donizetti's queens, which do include death, but the death is only implied and not shown. The only one I have with an actual death scene is Callas Act II of Tosca and this death scene is about perfect, not too long. Callas even encourages Scarpia to die faster ("die, die, die ...). Actual stabbing occurs shortly after 2:15 here:


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Florestan said:


> I mostly have happy ending operas, but also a few of Donizetti's queens, which do include death, but the death is only implied and not shown. The only one I have with an actual death scene is Callas Act II of Tosca and this death scene is about perfect, not too long. Callas even encourages Scarpia to die faster ("die, die, die ...). Actual stabbing occurs shortly after 2:15 here:


I have thought of this before they die almost directly in Puccini operas. There are no arias after they have been striked. Scarpia dies directly so does Cavaradossi and the opera ends with Tosca´s jump.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Sloe said:


> I have thought of this before they die almost directly in Puccini operas. There are no arias after they have been striked. Scarpia dies directly so does Cavaradossi and the opera ends with Tosca´s jump.


Interesting. Never thought of it that way, probably because I don't have a DVD of this entire opera. Maybe I need one. Uh oh. Here we go again. I can feel the urge to start searching out the best Tosca DVD. For me it will have to be an old one, so it is tastefully done and not showing actual gore. Oh, and there was a 4th death, the escaped political prisoner who Cavaradossi was hiding ended up committing suicide when he saw he would be captured.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Florestan said:


> Interesting. Never thought of it that way, probably because I don't have a DVD of this entire opera. Maybe I need one. Uh oh. Here we go again. I can feel the urge to start searching out the best Tosca DVD. For me it will have to be an old one, so it is tastefully done and not showing actual gore. Oh, and there was a 4th death, the escaped political prisoner who Cavaradossi was hiding ended up committing suicide when he saw he would be captured.


You will search in vain for a DVD of _Tosca_ that approaches the power of that second act with Callas and Gobbi, which you must see in its entirety if you haven't already.

But don't let me discourage you from trying. :lol:


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## Autumn Leaves (Jan 3, 2014)

Opera death scenes (and theatrical death scenes in general) are wonderfully played with in Britten's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. Pyramus and Thisbe each have already quite a monologue in the play, and Britten prolongs even that. In the production I've watched, the Athenian spectators signal Pyramus and Thisbe to die quicker and get over with it!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

MAS said:


> *Werther* He shoots himself *in the head!* and still keeps on singing!
> 
> *Gilda*  (Rigoletto) Gets stabbed and a few minutes later, sings for 10 minutes.


True, but still amazing.:tiphat:


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> La Traviata would be a much better opera if Violetta carked it somewhere in the middle of act 1.


I am usually not that fond of slow death scenes but Violettas death is fine. I especially like how she lives up and then just dies.

I like Iris death:


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Akin to World Wrestling Entertainment. :lol:


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