7 Operas That Deserve To Be Massacred

As we get ready for TOSCATASTROPHE!, I’d like to propose a few other operas that deserve to get massacred:

7. Carmen

Between a collection of utterly self-absorbed characters and smugglers singing about how stealthy they’re being, Car Men is an obvious candidate for a Transformers-style massacre. Does anyone have Michael Bay’s number?

6. The Magic Flute

(via https://xkcd.com/819/)

Squeezing 22 characters into a three-hour advert for the original theatre’s special effects department, this inexplicably-named-after-a-flute-that-only-appears-in-three-scenes opera does prominently feature lions and fire. A massacre beckons.

5. Die Fledermaus

Good: One character gives it the gloriously B-movieish name ‘THE REVENGE OF THE BAT’

Bad: That’s not its actual name.

Worse: Literally nobody dies.

However, given the incredible amount of time the characters spend drinking, I think it’ll be easy to find volunteers for this massacre.

4. The Ring Cycle

I refuse to believe that anyone’s watched to the end of this 15-hour monster. With two good tunes – the wedding march, and that one from Apocalypse Now – the Ring then makes the bizarre choice to have its hero fight a dragon offstage.

This one’s ripe for cutting. Bilbo fights Smaug, Sam marries Rosie, and the Valkyries take Frodo to the Undying Lands.

3. Madama Butterfly

Is it racist and orientalist? Yup.

Is its Humming Chorus not as good as the one in Tosca? Yup.

Is it possible to cut the first two acts and vastly improve the opera? Yes. Time to get out the knives.

2. La Boheme

Originally a gritty soap opera about a Christmas one night stand gone wrong, La Boheme is now treated as a sickly-sweet mess, only redeemed by the post-show massacre where they all die of Mimi’s TB. Fortunately, Tête à Tête’s already massacred this one.