How Chicks Die in Operas
I really like operas. Each one is different. Some you see for the music, some have amazing singing, some have laughs and some are all about the action. Some operas even have nudity. All of them are about love. It turns out that I have racked up about eleven operas thus far and hope for far more. But the thing that has intrigued me since my very first opera, is why the heroine has to die.
In the operas I have seen, there have been two where no one dies. These are usually the comic operas like Die Fledermaus and the Barber of Seville. Don Giovanni is the only opera I’ve seen where it’s the guy who gets it (rather oddly by a concrete statue that has come to life).
But overwhelmingly, it’s the chick who has to die for love and the list of dying options is fairly varied. Here’s just a few:
Tosca – by throwing herself off the battlements.
Madame Butterfly – Stabs herself.
La Boheme – Consumption (Tuberculosis).
La Traviata – TB again.
AIDA – sealing herself in a vault so she can be buried alive with her fella. There’s devotion for you.
Lakme – Eating some poisonous Datura leaf.
Turandot – stabbing herself for love.
I haven’t seen Il Travatore and Rigoletto but the chicks in these operas sacrifice themselves to save their lovers. And if that wasn’t enough, one then takes poison from her ring and the other one is mortally wounded.
Maybe we just don’t believe in romance like the old days or maybe RSVP is just so handy we don’t need to go to these extremes to prove ourselves. But if you really want to impress your fella next Valentines Day ladies you may want to re-think the chocolates and cards and say it with TB!