Packet 10: Tossup 10

James Gray asked William Friedkin for advice on directing this opera as his debut for the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and LA Opera. The lines “Is it a crime to change? If Cupid was given wings, was it not to flitter?” from the literary source of this opera are the epigraph to Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game. Upon hearing a piece from this opera played on a tiny keyboard, Mrs. Teavee confidently says, “Rachmaninoff.” (-5[1])Elmer (15[1])Bernstein’s arrangement of this opera’s overture plays over a montage of (*) blue-collar life and rich life in Philadelphia in the opening credits of Trading Places. Ironically, two Swiss and Austrian sopranos (10[1])recorded a piece from this opera that elicits the narration, “I have no idea to this day what those two (-5[1])Italian ladies were singing about.” For 10 points, Andy Dufresne (10[1])uses the Shawshank Prison speakers to play an aria (10[1])from what Mozart opera? ■END■ (10[2]0[4])

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