# Operas with high body count (3 or more deaths)



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

In a counterpoint to the http://www.talkclassical.com/19468-operas-happy-endings.html thread, I thought I'd set up a thread about what's virtually the opposite.

*What are some operas you know with high body count?* I'm thinking *at least three deaths *by the final curtain. A bit morbid, maybe? But isn't that the stuff of tragedy in opera? The big things - life, love and death?

If you want to extend on your lists, *do you like this sort of thing or does it largely make you depressed?* I'm in the latter category, to put it in a nutshell.

One I can think of is Verdi's _Luisa Miller _which has three deaths in the final scene. The two lovers poison themselves and the guy kills one of the baddies. So three down.

I'm sure there's plenty operas of this type, right? I made it three deaths at the end because I'd guess that operas with _just_ one or two deaths are not unusual.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Tosca Has four in all although Angelotti's death is described, Scarpia is stabbed to death, Cavaradossi is executed by firing squad and Tosca throws herself of the castle walls.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Looking thorugh my catalogue it seems that often one or two people die, but three is rarer. Here are some:

Macbeth is the bloodiest single opera I can think of - Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Duncan, Banquo, Macduff's wife and children - have I missed anyone out?

The Ring: Fasolt, Fafner, Siegmund, Siegfried, Mime, Hunding, Brunnhilde, Gunther, Hagen

Lucia di Lammermoor, her lover and her husband.

Pique dame - Hermann, Lisa and the Countess


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Poulenc's "Dialogue des Carmelites" has got to hold some kind of record; the finale is at least fifteen nuns beheaded, one by one, at the Guillotine -- You can watch it in the link here ... I may have lost count.





Of all 'tragic' operas, this is the only one I can think of where the audience does not walk away with that odd exhilaration of feeling buoyed up because of some sadness or sympathy which was oddly, as it often works, cathartic and therefore 'transforming.' This one is just bone-chilling, and that is that.

ADD: it is your current avatar which made me think of it, but I voluntarily signed up to attend a performance of Poulenc's opera. On 'the dark side,' you literally could probably not pay me enough to sit through an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical - that would both highly irritate and truly, deeply, depress me, and my nature is fairly 'ebullient.' Different strokes for different folks.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

PetrB said:


> Poulenc's "Dialogue des Carmelites" has got to hold some kind of record; the finale is at least fifteen nuns beheaded, one by one, at the Guillotine -- You can watch it in the link here ... I may have lost count.


Yes, that's a good one, with the sound of the guillotine reflected in the music!


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Having had a Roman catholic education I would not necessarily have an objection to the fate of the Nuns in that opera 
I do seem to remember a production of Nabucco with an onstage battle scene. Not sure of the body count but it may have been substantial! I stand to be corrected as my memory isnt what it was.


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

Birtwistle's Punch & Judy - all the following were murdered by Punch:

Baby (thown into fire)
Judy (stabbed)
Doctor (stabbed with oversized hypodermic syringe)
Lawyer (stabbed with quill)
Choregos (somehow sawn in half with a bass viol case)
Hangman (tricked into lynching himself)


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Tristan, Isolde, Kurwenal, Melot. All in the last 20 or so minutes of the opera.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

mamascarlatti said:


> The Ring: Fasolt, Fafner, Siegmund, Siegfried, Mime, Hunding, Brunnhilde, Gunther, Hagen


Plus *all* the gods at the end of Gotterdammerung


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Couchie said:


> Plus *all* the gods at the end of Gotterdammerung


I think I was subliminally trying to block out the "crumbling statues" staging at the end of the Met Ring:lol:.


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## Dins (Jun 21, 2011)

Lucrezia Borgia:
Maffio Orsini, Gennaro, Jeppo Liverotto, Don Aposto Gazella, Ascanio Petrucci and Oloferno Vitellozzo


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Not any East European or Russian ones mentioned, which I'd guess have high body count. But my knowledge of their operas is slim. One that comes to mind is Ferenc Erkel, three each dead in two of his operas:

_Bánk bán _- Bánk, the main character, kills the German queen of Hungary, but his own wife and child die in a terrible tragedy.

_László Hunyadi_ - Can't remember exactly how many die in this, it's pretty bloody, but I think the two Hunyadi brothers are beheaded at the end, due to a conspiracy, but one baddie is taken out in a duel earlier during the opera.


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## Dins (Jun 21, 2011)

Speaking of Russian opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtzensk district with a body count of "only" four. 

Boris Timofeyevich, his son Zinoviy Borisovich Izmailov and Sonyetka,
all killed by Katerina Lvovna Izmailova before she kills herself.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Meyerbeer's "Les Huguenots" has plenty of violent deaths during the action. On top of which the St.Bartholomew night massacre of the Protestants makes up the background story.
Gounod's "Romeo and Juliet"--Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio and Tybalt all end up dead.


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## rsmithor (Jun 30, 2011)

*Lulu is to Die For...*

Lulu is to die for...

Act 1
1st The Doctor; Lulu's husband dead, sudden heart attack (catches Lulu in a tryst with the portrait painter)
2nd Husband; the Painter... slits his throat (hears the truth about his wife Lulu, from the one doing the cuckolding, Dr Schön)

Act 2
3rd Husband; Dr Schön, editor-in-chief... shot dead by Lulu

Act 3
4th Rodrigo, an athlete; Lulu's black mailer... dispatched by Schigolch, an old man
5th Alwa; Dr Schön's son, a composer killed by A negro (now syphilitic and possibly married to Lulu)
6th Lulu; killed by jack the Ripper
7th Countess Geschwitz; killed by jack the Ripper)

Berg Lulu
The End


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

The entire population of the city of Troy, with the exception of Aeneas and his son, dies in Les Troyens.

In Don Carlos, the death toll includes the title character, Posa, and an unknown number of heretics in the auto da fe. The other famous operatic mass execution of heretics occurs in Khovanschina. Most of the principal characters in this opera die in this gruesome scene.


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

Les Huguenots(slaughters of all the huguenots offstage, and the principals killed on stage)
L'Africaine (slaughter of all the crew, and 2 suicides)
Les troyens (slaughter of all the city and battles off the stage, collective suicide of the principal mothers of the city and Kassandra on stage, suicide of Dido)
Rienzi (a lot of battles and blood, Rienzi's suicide)
Macbeth (Duncan and all the people in his room, Banquo, Macduff's family, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, battle off/on stage)
Der Ring (all the principals)
I Lombardi- Jérusalem (the father of the brothers, slaughters and battles on/off stage in the Middle East, the arab lover, the hermit)


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

Forza isn't bad either - Leonora's dad, countless soldiers, Carlo, Leonora, in the original ending even Alvaro.


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Macbeth?

Dialogue des Carmelites (Poulenc)
Katerina Izmailova (Shostakovich)

Martin


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