#fatal opera

[classyinfur]

[poppingmary]

Helene Stanton

[beatricebidelaire]

opera night starter pack:

la Forza del Destino poster

red shawl (long feathers along the edges)

box of poison darts

[lilmissromanticgirl777]

[ladyamericanasstuff]

[stiltonbasket]

nie zhuyan makes soaps on the regular after moving to Gusu to marry a-yu? A lot of them go towards various people or groups in Gusu (family members/friends, the baoshi, etc.) though he sells some of the special ones.

I forgot that Nie Zhuyan actually learned how to make soap at some point, so when I came back to this ask, I thought he was making...soaps.

[everythingisahoax]

Karen Mulder photographed for Vogue France, December 1994.

Upscaled with a couple minor tweaks.

[powdersugarangel]

In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came

[waperaexpert]

a lot of operas exhibit the femme fatale trope, which…i know was created by men and is technically misogynistic because it demonizes female sexuality. however…girl kill boy because girl to sexy and powerful and boy inferior…kinda based.

not to mention these roles look so fun to play, like Salome? she dances naked and then makes out with a severed head, sounds lit as fuck if you ask me.

[femme-fatale-fete]

Femme Fatale Fête Round One, Second Heat

Carmen (Bizet’s Carmen)

Bio: Seduces a soldier away from his post and into a smuggling ring, then throws him away for a bullfighter, to tragic results. 

Fans say: 

You've heard her aria. Trust me, you have.

One of the most iconic seductresses of the stage with a tragic fate

Mod says: If you don't know the aria (or don't THINK you do) at least listen to the opening bars.

Mirage (The Incredibles)

Bio: Tricks heroes into attempting to fight her boss’s machines in order to kill them, but turns on him when he endangers her life and children’s lives. 

Fans say: Seductive, but with a good heart in the end. "Valuing life is not weakness and disregarding it is not strength."

[yoan-le-grall]

[classyinfur]

[opera-ghosts]

Louise Kirkby Lunn - O don fatale [Don Carlo] - 1911

Louise Kirkby Lunn (1873 – 1930) was a leading contralto who had trained in her native Manchester and studied at the Royal College of Music in 1890 for three years. In 1895 she appeared in the first of Henry Wood’s Promenade concerts and then began her stage appearances, including small roles at Covent Garden.  Then in 1896 she joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company as principal mezzo-soprano until her marriage in 1899 to William Pearson.  In the 1901 census they are living at Hyde Park Mansions, with a year old son named  Louis Kirkby and her aunt Anne living with them. They later lived in St Johns Wood Park. She sang many roles at Covent Garden during the first two decades of the 20th century and first appeared at  the Bechstein (later Wigmore) Hall in 1902, giving her first full recital (with pianist Percy Pitt) on 3 November 1906, followed by many others in subsequent years when her husband was manager there.

She also performed in a charity concert in aid of the Italian Hospital in London in July 1906 and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society for her rare combination of personal artistic achievement added to a richly endowed nature.   She was famous for her Delilah in Samson and Delilah, and for Gluck’s Orfeo. In 1909, she sang Elgar’s Sea Pictures with Elgar conducting  the orchestra. She often toured Europe and made trips to New York and Australia. In 1922 she made her farewell to Covent Garden with her celebrated part of Kundry but continued for some years to appear in concerts and recitals. Sir Henry Wood said she was a singer with a glorious voice and an even tone throughout a compass of well over two octaves, a singer with whom I never found fault in so much as a quaver all the years I worked with her, and who never sang out of tune.

[fdelopera]

Welcome to the 54th installment of 15 Weeks of Phantom, where I post all 68 sections of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, as they were first printed in Le Gaulois newspaper 113 yeas ago.

In today’s installment, we have Part II of Chapter 23, “Intéressantes et instructives tribulations d’un Persan dans les dessous de l’Opéra: Recit du Persan” (Interesting and Informative Tribulations of a Persian in the Underside of the Opera: The Persian’s Narrative).

This section was first printed on Monday, 20 December, 1909.

For anyone following along in David Coward’s translation (the link is to the Kindle edition on Amazon US), the text starts in Chapter 22, “It followed me, went where I went, and it was so silky-smooth on the ear that I felt no fear,” and goes to, “On that occasion, I also discovered the secret tunnel which led to the spring which trickled out of the wall, the cell dug out by the Communards and the trap which acted as Erik's short cut down to the third level.”

There are some differences between the standard 1st Edition text and the Gaulois text. In this section, these include (highlighted in red above):

1) Each chapter in the Gaulois publication is one number ahead of the chapters in the 1st Edition, due to the inclusion of “The Magic Envelope” in the Gaulois.

2) Compare the Gaulois text:

...je l'avais moi-même trop étudié jadis avec Erik pour ignorer combien quelquefois, avec les trucs les plus simples, quelqu'un qui connaît son métier peut fair travailler la pauvre imagination humaine.

(...in days past, I myself had studied the subject too much with Erik to remain unaware of how much, with the simplest of tricks, one who knows his trade can manipulate the weak human imagination.)

To the 1st Edition:

...je l'avais moi-même trop étudié jadis : avec les trucs les plus simples, quelqu'un qui connaît son métier peut fair travailler la pauvre imagination humaine.

(...I myself had studied the subject too much in days past: with the simplest of tricks, one who knows his trade can manipulate the weak human imagination.)

3) Compare the Gaulois text:

cet air terrible

(that terrifying look)

To the 1st Edition:

cet air de menace enfantine 

(that look of childish menace)

4) Compare the Gaulois text:

demanda-t-il en reprenant son air enjoué 

(he asked, regaining his cheerful air)

To the 1st Edition:

demanda-t-il en prenant un air aimable 

(he asked, taking on an amiable air)

5) Compare the Gaulois text:

fin juillet 1909 

(late July, 1909)

To the 1st Edition:

fin juillet 1900 

(late July, 1900)

NOTE: The 1st Edition incorrectly states that the newspaper article in question was dated July, 1900. The article that Leroux was likely referencing was this front-page piece, "Le Dé-Tham vient de nous tuer," which appeared in Le Matin on 28 July, 1909.

6) This text appeared in the Gaulois, but was removed from the 1st Edition:

au bord d'une rivière 

(on a riverbank)

7) The text, highlighted in blue above, indicates an anachronism in Leroux's narrative. As we recall from Chapter 8, Erik abducted Christine on the same night that he caused the chandelier to crash. In this chapter, however, the Persian accuses Erik of causing the chandelier crash some time before he abducts Christine.

8) Compare the Gaulois text:

Ah ! ricana-t-il, ça, le lustre... je peux bien te le dire !... Le lustre, ça n'est pas moi !... Il était très usé, le lustre... et je n'étais pas chargé, n'est-ce pas ? de le réparer.

("Ah!" he laughted, "the chandelier... I can tell you about that!... The chandelier, that wasn't to do with me!... It was very worn, the chandelier was... and I wasn't responsible for fixing it, was I?")

To the 1st Edition:

Ah ! ricana-t-il, ça, le lustre... je veux bien te le dire !... Le lustre, ça n'est pas moi !... Il était très usé, le lustre...

("Ah!" he laughted, "the chandelier... I will tell you about that!... The chandelier, that wasn't to do with me!... It was very worn, the chandelier was...")

9) Compare the Gaulois text:

fatal nocher

(grim ferryman of the Underworld)

To the 1st Edition (this is a typo):

fatal rocher 

(ghastly rock)

This is the typo to end all typos! Read more about it here.

NOTE: Coward (mis)translated this typo literally as “wrecking rock.” In fact, the other major English translators who worked from the 1st edition text also (mis)translated this phrase. It is baffling why they didn’t sense that this was a typo, because “fatal nocher” was a common French literary phrase used to describe Charon, the ferryman of Hades in Greek mythology. The job of a translator isn’t to highlight an author’s mistakes; it is to make the author look their best in another language. It is not ethical for a translator to translate a typo “literally” without context. The 1st Edition translators should have rendered the phrase correctly, and then mentioned the “fatal rocher” typo in a footnote.

10) Compare the Gaulois text:

S'ils avaient vu seulement ce dont Erik était capable

(If they had only seen what Erik was capable of)

To the 1st Edition:

S'ils avaient su seulement ce dont Erik était capable

(If they had only known what Erik was capable of)

11) Minor differences in punctuation, capitalization, and italicization.

Click here to see the entire edition of Le Gaulois from 20 December, 1909. This link brings you to page 3 of the newspaper — Le Fantôme is at the bottom of the page in the feuilleton section. Click on the arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen to turn the pages of the newspaper, and click on the Zoom button at the bottom left to magnify the text.

[lemonadehtwooh]

trying to design FGO For Funsies AU Phantom of the Opera to be so so so slay and flamboyantly bisexual but unfortunately I am terrible at drawing corsets

[widevibratobitch]

i am so normal about her