# Dead? Yes. Voiceless? No!!



## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

I never emerge from a 'Wagner Society of New York' seminar without at least one new fun thread-idea. Last time, when the focus-opera was _Dutchman_, I created the thread She chooses the Baritone!. Well, on this occasion, the focus-opera was _Parsifal_. Here, we eventually encounter the fact that the character Titurel has a song (if not a pulse) in his heart.

At any rate, I thought of a couple of other examples... but here I'll turn it over to you. What characters do you think of when you recognize that (to paraphrase that famous line from "Sixth Sense"): "I hear dead people?"


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## Dankrakafoon (May 16, 2011)

My vote goes for Alberich appearing in Hagen's dream in Götterdämmerung Act II.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Die Tote Stadt is all about hearing a dead person and dreaming that she lives again.


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## suteetat (Feb 25, 2013)

Antonia's mother in Tales of Hoffman and Commendatore in the last scene of Don Giovanni.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

The Countess in Act III of the Queen of Spades.

oops, forgot Miss Jessel and Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

That mysterious monk who shows up in the tomb scenes at the beginning (depending on the version) and the end of Don Carlo...is it Charles/Carlos/Carlo V or isn't it?

Oh, and the entire cast of Ghosts of Versailles.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Cavaradossi said:


> Oh, and the entire cast of Ghosts of Versailles.


ha, you win!


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

No, Titurel in the first act of Parsifal is still alive, but extremely weak and on the way out . He is not dead until the third act .


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

superhorn said:


> No, Titurel in the first act of Parsifal is still alive, but extremely weak and on the way out . He is not dead until the third act .


I know. That's why I said "eventually."


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

There are all the evil demons and weird things that go bump in the night in Prokofiev's "The Fiery Angel", which must be the weirdest and creepiest opera of all time . Britten's Turn of the Screw is a picnic by comparison ! 
In the scene where the knight Ruprecht tries in vain to interrogate the sorceror Agrippa von Nettesheim, who was a historical figure, Agrippa says that he is not a sorceror,merely a philosopher and scientist .
But the skeletons on the wall rattle their bones and say "You're lying "! 
Is the Fiery Angel just a figment of Renata's imagination from her childhood when he was her imaginary friend , or is it a demon possessing her ? Beware of this opera -it may give you nightmares !


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

^ a must see, then!


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