Opera Survey nicked from faire_damsel

Started this a while back, but I never finished it for some wierd reason...

Favorite Opera: Hah, hard to narrow it down to just a few. I'd have to say, in no particular order, Puccini's "Tosca", Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" (Yes, I count all 16 hours of it as one opera; we all know I'm a little wierd) and "Parsifal", Johann Strauss, jr's "Die Fledermaus", Richard Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier", and Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro"

Favorite Role (that you sing): Hm. I'm more suited to "trouser roles" considering my looks and my vocal range, ie. Cherubino in "Marriage of Figaro" and Count Orlofsky in "Fledermaus"

Favorite Role (that you could potentially sing many many years from now): I'd love to sing the role of Baron Scarpia in "Tosca" someday, but I'm the wrong gender and the wrong range!

Favorite Role (that you will never sing): The Queen of the Night, from "Die Zauberfloete": too many freakin' high notes! (Though I once sang "Die Holle Rache" when I was on a mad chocolate high.)

Favorite Aria (to listen to/will never sing): Zerbinetta's aria from "Ariadne auf Naxos" (the one with the, what is it, a high F that very few sopranos can hit)

Favorite Aria (you could potentially sing in the future):

Favorite Aria (to sing right now): "Voi che Sapete" from "Marriage of Figaro"

For Gals : Favorite Tenor and Bari/Bass Roles:

Tenor: Cavaradossi in "Tosca", the title character in "Parsifal", Siegfried in "Der Ring"

Bari/Bass: Scarpia in "Tosca" ('nuff said...)

Favorite Female singers: Jessye Norman, Marilyn Horne, Sarah Brightman (Shuttit, purists!), Marian Anderson, Christa Ludwig, Rosalind Elias... Gad, that's four mezzo-sopranos out of six singers. (Guess why?)

Favorite Male Singers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Mario Lanza, Graham Clark, James Morris, Anthony Laciura (I know, "Who's he?" He's a comprimario tenor at the Metropolitan Opera, always plays the secondary tenor characters, but he's got an interesting voice and he's a great actor, too.)

Favorite Italian Art Songs: Hm. I'm not familiar with any per se...

Favorite Lied(er): Selections from Schubert's "Die Winterreise", but the titles escape my mind

Favorite French art songs: I don't think I know of any (Quelle horreur!)

Favorite Opera Composer: Verdi and (Don't hate me) Wagner

Favorite Musical Period: Romantic through mid-20th Century

Least Favorite Opera: Hmm... Y'know, I try to find something good in every opera I've ever listened to, so the next few questions are tough to answer. Some of Verdi's early operas ("I Lombardi") leave me cold, but I still didn't mind listening to them.

Least Favorite Role (to listen to):

Least Favorite Role (that you see looming in your future):

Least Favorite Aria (To listen to):

Least Favorite Aria (To sing):

Least Favorite Composer:

And all this talk about opera puts me in mind of "Talia", a fanfiction writer over on ff.n (one of the rare great writers on there), who used to translate Mozart's operas into different fandoms. She reworked both "The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Abduction from the Seraglio" into the "Nightmare Before Christmas" universe, and she did an utterly excellent job of both! I'd have to go back and check them, but the "Seraglio" one featured Jack and Harlequin venturing into Valentine's Day Town to rescue Sally and Sally's ghost gal-pal (Harlequin's sweetheart and a non-Mary Sueish OFC) from Cupid. The "Marriage of Figaro" one featured Jack and Sally a few years down the road in the same marital uproar as the Count and the Contessa.

Heh. I even twiddled with a few opera-transmogrifications myself. In the pre-sequels era of the "Matrix" fandom, I toyed with the idea of resetting "Tosca" in that universe, with Neo as Cavaradossi, Trinity as Tosca and Agent Smith as Scarpia, but that somehow didn't seem right. I suppose it would work better if you set the fic in the MxO-era of the universe and had some male Redpill as Cavaradossi, cast Tosca as a Bluepill who's become aware of what's really going on in her world... and the universe has it's own Scarpia, viz. the Merovingian. They might as well be twins, their personalities and tastes are so similar. Even the secondary characters would translate well: Flood would make a perfect Spoletta (ie. Scarpia's 2IC), and I could see the Sacristan as being some goofy Exile who happens to live in/maintain the church in the first act (he even has his own purpose-specific honorific). But I'm glitching on how to translate Napoleon's off-stage victory at the battle of Marengo; would the General stand-in for Napoleon? Only problem is, the bit with Tosca nailing Scarpia would wind up looking like one of those nine jazillion "Mary Sue nails the Merv" fics cluttering up ff.n.

The one opera-reset-in-the-"Matrix"-verse that works right now would be -- Yep! -- "The Marriage of Figaro", with (but of course!) the Merv and Persephone as the Count and the Contessa, and I was seeing Sieges and her boyfriend Nucl3ar as Susanna and Figaro. But who would be Cherubino? Lucien (My OMC from the DegSep-verse)? The idea just tickles me. I might write this one, once I'm finished with "This Shouldn't Be Happening..."

Best statement Re: "Matrix" Mary Sues

This from "Aule5" on the MxO forum:

To be honest i have begun to really hate fanfiction. it is impossible to sort through all the neo's-twin-just-not-mentioned-in-the-movies-goes-and-kills-the-merovingian-and-the-cypherites-and-the-machines-surrender-and-he-is-teh-new-uber-one stories and find good fanfiction.