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Short Versions of Operas
Don Giovanni
Leporello, waiting outside Donna Anna’s house, complains about his job serving Don Giovanni. His master emerges from the house, struggling with Donna Anna. Answering her call for help, her father the Commendatore comes out in his nightshirt and challenges Don Giovanni to fight. Don Giovanni urges the old man not to fight him, but they duel. The Commendatore kills Don Giovanni, who dies quickly. Everybody goes back to sleep.
Otello
During a dramatic storm, the frightened townspeople watch from shore as Otello’s ship struggles toward its home port. The ship sinks, with no survivors.
Carmen
Soldiers ogle women who are resting from their work in the cigarette factory. After the women sing of the pleasures of smoking, the gypsy Carmen sings seductively. She gives a flower to Don José before returning to work. Micaela arrives with a letter for Don José and a kiss from his mother. Moved by the letter and the kiss, and disgusted by smoking, Don José resigns his commission and leaves to visit his mother and marry Micaela. When a fight breaks out inside the cigarette factory and spills into the street, soldiers try to intervene, and in the tussle Carmen dies. A colorful parade of bullfighters passes by, and the matador Escamillo glances briefly at Carmen’s body as he strides past.
La Bohéme
In their Parisian garret, Marcello and Rodolfo are horsing around with their friends. Everybody leaves except Rodolfo, who has some work to finish. A knock on the door interrupts him, and he opens it to find a young woman with an unlit candle. She faints, collapses to the floor, and dies before he can learn her name.
Tristan und Isolde
The cellos manage to play only the first two notes of the Prelude before an asteroid destroys the opera house.
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