Opera is a dangerous business, because in almost every performance characters die an untimely death, mostly in front of an frenetic audience. The mezzo-soprano Kristen Seikaly has compiled statistics about deaths in opera in her blog www.kristenseikaly.com. A graphics shows murder as the top cause of death with 52 percent, followed by suicide (24 %), illness (17 %), and other causes (7 %). Other statistics inform us about the ways characters are murdered in opera (with stabbing as the surprise winner with 59.3 %), ways characters commit suicide as well as the illnesses they contract.
Of course, if administered in German opera all these stage deaths must be performed in German. No character will ever die successfully without uttering their last words in proper grammar. The use of a wrong case, a wrong article or – even worse – wrong verb conjugation prolongs the suffering of the character unnecessarily. To help the characters to finish their drop-dead gorgeous performance I included in my book “Ach ich fühl’s – German for Opera Singers” a brief glossary of theater weaponry.
Here is an excerpt:
You live (and kill) and die by…
Degen m rapier
Gewehr n gun, rifle plural: –e
Kanone f cannon plural: –n
Messer n knife
Pistole f pistol, gun plural: –n
Revolver m revolver
Schwert d sword plural: –er
Waffe f weapon plural: –n
The verbs of killing and dying are …
present simple past perfect
bluten bluteten geblutet to bleed
verbluten verbluteten verblutet to bleed to death
bombardieren bombardierten bombardiert to bomb
fechten fochten gefochten to fence
schießen schossen geschossen to shot
erschießen erschossen erschossen to shot to death
stechen stachen gestochen to stab
erstechen erstachen erstochen to stab to death
sterben starben gestorben to die
töten töteten getötet to kill
You can read more about the German language on the opera stage in my book “Ach ich fühl’s – German for Opera Singers in Three Acts: Studying, Speaking, Singing.” Lulu Press, 373 pages, ISBN: 978-1-312-46345-5
More information about my book: Click.
Here is the link to Kristen Seikaly’s article “Death in Opera: A Visual Represetation”:
http://www.kristenseikaly.com/death-in-opera-a-visual-representation/?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=6717dbcf0b-Blog_Posts1_17_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ba88b144fb-6717dbcf0b-282063121