Bachtrack Christmas Quiz

1. Which famous choreographer turned Lorca’s play La Casa de Bernarda Alba into a ballet?:

Wayne McGregor

Kenneth MacMillan

Pina Bausch

Sasha Waltz

2. According to Willem Mengelberg, to which of these did Mahler NOT bid a symphonic farewell?:

His life

His art

His music

The whole world

3. In how many ways was rain recently depicted in New Zealand?:

4

14

8

2

4. With which contrasting composer did Arnold Schoenberg play tennis?:

Charlie Chaplin

Igor Stravinsky

Paul Hindemith

George Gershwin

5. What is the highest number of simultaneous tempi that Kent Nagano has conducted this season?:

2

5

20

100

6. Which of these instruments has NOT been featured as soloist in a concerto we’ve reviewed this year?:

Sackbut

Bandoneón

Sheng

Bassoon

7. Which conductor dedicated a concert to everyone in the world suffering injustice?:

Vladimir Jurowski

Daniel Barenboim

François-Xavier Roth

John Storgårds

8. Which of these adjectives has NOT been used by one of our reviewers to describe the music of John Adams?:

Repetitious

Ironic

Eclectic

Freudian

9. Who has NOT provided music for a ballet we’ve reviewed this year?:

Dave Brubeck

The Rolling Stones

Arnold Schoenberg

Noël Coward

10. Valery Gergiev has had as busy a year as ever. Where have we NOT reviewed him?:

London

Montreal

Rotterdam

Toronto

11. Which opera does NOT feature a plot involving a father wishing to marry off his daughter to a suitor of whom he does not approve:

Arabella

The Bartered Bride

La cambiale di matrimonio

Le nozze di Figaro

12. Madama Butterfly always ends in a suicide. In whose production in 2012 did the opera also begin with a suicide?:

Lillian Groag, for Boston Lyric Opera

Anthony Minghella, for English National Opera

Stephen Langridge, for Norwegian National Opera

Moffat Oxenbould, for Opera Australia

13. In which production did the translation of Italian into English rhyme “animosity” with “pomposity” and “verbosity”?:

Mozart’s Così fan tutte by NYC Opera

Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi by Fulham Opera

Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia by English Touring Opera

Rossini’s La scala di seta by Sydney Independent Opera

14. In which 2012 opera production was a normally seaborne hero turned into a traveller “at sea in a corporate miasma”?:

Billy Budd at English National Opera

Der fliegende Holländer at Bayreuth

Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria at Theater an der Wien

Moby-Dick in San Francisco

15. Which composer had the most Bachtrack opera reviews in 2012 (up to and including November)?:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Giacomo Puccini

Giuseppe Verdi

Richard Wagner

16. What was the name of opera’s first heroine?:

Daphne

Eurydice

Leonora

Poppea

17. In which Verdi opera is the heroine’s name changed to support a fraud?:

I due Foscari

I masnadieri

Simon Boccanegra

Stiffelio

18. In Siegfried, what device does Wagner specify should be used by the singer of Fafner in the form of a dragon:

He should go into the audience and yell as loudly as possible

He should sing through a megaphone

He should be supported by a chorus singing the same notes in unison

He should sing from high above the stage

19. In Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, from which regions are the wines that are lauded in the brindisi?:

Asti and Chianti

Abruzzo and Veneto

Burgundy and Sicily

Cyprus and Madeira

20. In Dulcamara's entering aria "Udite, Udite rustici" in L'elisir d'amore, which of the following ailments does NOT feature in the list that he promises his elixir will cure?:

Diabetes

Infertility

Lovesickness

Rickets

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