Killer Opera

[Enola_Straight]

I have a vague memory of some book or magazine recalling a certain turn-of-the-century opera, musical, or play:

Opening Night- The protagonist points to another member of the troupe and exclaims the line “Oh, God, CRUSH HIM!”…or words to that effect…and that actor pointed to DROPS DEAD for real!

Next night, The Protagonist decides to instead simply point into the audience, one of who suddenly drops dead in his seat.

The third night…really scared of this trend…the protagonist recites the line and points “safely” at the ceiling. Horrifyingly, a set worker manning a spotlight slips and falls to his death.

This Opera is now played NOWHERE.

True, or Urban Legend?

[Cunctator]

I asked a similar question a couple of years ago in relation to Fromental Halévy’s opera Charles VI, which I think is the one you mean.

As you can see I didn’t get much of a response. I’d guess that it’s a myth.

[don_t_ask]

I don’t know anything about the supposed 3 deaths but The Opera Lover’s Companion by Charles Osborne says of Halévy, “Of the thirty-three operas he completed, a few remained unperformed at his death, while others. among them *Clari *(1828), La Reine de Chyphre (1841) and Charles VI (1843), were successful in their day.”

So it sounds like it at least ran longer than 3 performances.

[Sage_Rat]

If you google for “cursed opera” it seems like there’s at least a couple in the running:

@La Forza del Destino

“Forza” is an opera that many old school Italian singers felt was “cursed” and brought bad luck.

On 1960-03-04 at the Metropolitan Opera, in a performance of La Forza del Destino with Renata Tebaldi, the American baritone Leonard Warren was about to launch into the vigorous cabaletta to Don Carlo’s act III aria, which begins “Morir, tremenda cosa” (“to die, a momentous thing”), when he started coughing and gasping. His final words were “Help me, help me!”, then he pitched face-forward down to the floor. A few minutes later he was pronounced dead of a massive heart attack, and the rest of the performance was canceled. Warren was only forty-eight.

@Tristan und Isolde

Despite all of this, the planned premiere on May 15th 1865 had to be postponed because Isolde, Malvina Schnorr, had gone hoarse. It was only on June 10th 1865 that the work finally premiered. Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld sang the role of Tristan and Malvina, his wife, sang Isolde. Three weeks after the fourth performance, Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld died suddenly – prompting speculation that the exertion involved in singing the part of Tristan had killed him. The stress of performing Tristan has also claimed the lives of conductors Felix Mottl in 1911 and Joseph Keilberth in 1968. Both men died after collapsing while conducting the second Act of the opera.

I’d guess that there are more, but that was already two different cursed operas from the first two links on Google so I stopped looking.

[don_t_ask]

Actually another of his operas was associated with two famous deaths.

The role of Éléazar was the last thing Caruso ever sang in public. A few hours after appearing in “La Juive” at the Met he doubled over screaming due to pleurisy. He died seven months later.

A few decades on, Richard Tucker urged the Met to mount the opera for him. One week after the Met finally relented, Tucker died of a heart attack. Tucker’s on stage funeral at the Met was only the second ever permitted. The first was of course Caruso.