Statuesque puzzle
La Cieca invites the newly reunited cher public to participate in an archeological dig scavenger hunt puzzle quiz promoting the new “Sacrificium” CD from Cecilia Bartoli.
Ready to play? Well, first you have to answer this question:
Farinelli’s remains were exhumed in 2006 from this cemetery in Bologna?
Most of you surely know the answer, of course, and those of you who don’t certainly know how to google. So, anyway, once you’ve identified the cemetery, you go to the puzzle site, enter that name, and get a piece of the puzzle. Whee!
After that, you may ask Daniel Stephen Johnson for the next clue.
Note: leave off the “La” when you type this answer in.
Also: WHERE is question #6? Supposedly on the OperaNews website? But it isn’t up yet?
Johnson’s site sends me back here for question 3, so I’m all confused.
Pelleas, you can figure this one on your own, I promise. Try reading paragraph 3.
“True?”
Since the thread about Nadja Michael’s Salome is now closed, I want to add this:
On the Sieglinde’s Dairies/ Future Seasons at the Met site, I found this entry for the 2011-2012 season:
MACBETH with Nadja Michael*, Gunther Groissbock, c. Gianandrea Noseda
I guess we’ll find out if she can sing, or not???
I have the same question as grrg. If I’m overlooking something that’s really there on the Opera News page, just tell me so.
I have all the clues EXCEPT #8
When is Nico Muhly blogging it?
Does anyone have the clue?
I can’t find Nico Muhly’s clue for #8.
I can’t find the Opera News one (#6) or Nico’s (#8). I found #9, but since I’m missing #6 and #8 haven’t found #7…
Muhly is #8 but he poses #7 again and provides no link to #9. Modernist hijinx!
OK, I’m sorry but i try imputing Certosa and La certosa and neither works
Still waiting for Nico Muhly to put in the right question but #9 can be found at http://irontongue.blogspot.com/2009/10/making-ultimate-sacrificium-virtual.html
And that second pic of Cecila is frightening
Do I have to answer all 9 questions or will the pieces unlock as i answer them one by one?
Lindoro – Certosa worked for me.
I have 1-7 and 9 unlocked, so I would say they will unlock out of sequential order
Is this a viral free promotion for La Ceci’s album?
Opera News got its act together since I posted several hours ago, Muhly is still out to lunch.
9 didn’t unlock for me. neither did 8.
OK, on question 7, do I put the letter, the number or both? I have tried every answer and it will not give it to me.
This Nico guy fucked up. but there is no question on his tweet
tHIS IS FRUSTRATING ME. i HAVE THE ANSWERS AND IT IS GIVING ME INCORRECT MARKS FOR AT LEAST 3 OF THEM, AND i KNOW i HAVE THEM RIGHT
HAHAHA this game sounds like it’s going to be a big embarrassment to Bartoli’s record company…
Nico has admitted his error but not published the correct question.
No shit. I can’t get the fucking puzzle pieces to blend together, I have answers that I know are correct and it is giving me incorrect signs. Hell I have tried every city Porpora lived in and neither is coming up correct. At least one of them has to be correct.
How do i make the pieces fit together? I am having the same problem in both Explorer and Firefox
Try Naples – works for me in Explorer, Firefox, Opera & Chrome
And the picture made by the pieces isn’t the picture on the cover
The problem is that with statements like these in wiki:
After a rebuff from the court of Charles VI at Vienna in 1725, Nicola Porpora settled mostly in Venice
Then Porpora returned in 1759 to Naples.
not the best question….
Lindoro – I think you have to type the answers precisely as they want them. Make sure the first letter is upper-case and the rest lower-case. The number of castrations should be written as numerals only (no letter). The real name of Farinelli works when you use the first and last (but not middle) name. Oh, and use the English name for Porpora’s city.
Final question now @NicoMuhly
question 8 is up!
http://twitter.com/nicomuhly
Muhly’s question is finally up.
Oops, I should have refreshed before posting that…
Now, how do i make the pieces turn around so they fit? I spend 8 hours a day in front of a coputer, so when a game like this is making me feel like I have never searched the web, it is not good.
Now that I have all the items unlocked, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do next…
Use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard
Use your up/down/side arrows to make the pieces rotate.
Once you solve the puzzle, you get to listen to a piece from berenice
It’s fun!
It was SOOOOOO not worth the effort.
This is awful. Wow. Lots of screaming and cooing all at once. Hard to accomplish, yet she does.
Not trying to ursurp any of the great Opera Chic’s thunder, but there she has posted this promo video of Netrebko wishing Deutsche Gramophone “many many more years of great musing”
I got the rest of it to work, and as marketing ideas think it’s pretty nifty, but the reward could be a bit more…. rewarding. Let us download it?
Some of us like the screaming and cooing all at once, or as I like to call it, AMAZING SINGING. Totally worth it. (Although yeah, I too was hoping for a download…)
RARE _ NEW CALLAS VIDEO!!!
Those hoping for a download should go to
NPR for a free download.
That must’ve been Callas after 1980…
Actually – there’s a resemblance to Carol Vaness in that video – not in voice of course.
thanks QPF – great Netrebko porn there! Squirrel salivates.
Though Opera Chic never had much thunder. Was it she who called Bernard Haitink’s baton “luscious” the other day? Puhleeeeeeez
I totally gave up out of complete disinterest.
I don’t know about this puzzle business but from the photo at the top of this page I’d say La Cecilia has become Michael Jackson, in honor of Farinelli.
Re: New Callas Video
All I can say is that the voice might be in shambles, but the phrasing and artistry remain unparalleled. Brava Diva!!!
I listened to the complete Bartoli album on NPR. There are 5 really good FAST arias with all that quasi-yodeling coloratura. The geek in me loves that kind of meaningless mindless display. I guess I need to watch my Farinelli dvd again.
Rysanekfreak, I don’t think you can get an idea of what Farinelli sounded like from the movie. The singing is mostly by Derick Lee Ragin , a countertenor. The engineers cobbled on the voice of a German soprano(Schultze?) to lengthen the phrases and add the higher range that Ragin didn’t have.
The result just sounds strange to me.
For myself, countertenors singing attributes
don’t really match up with what I’ve read in terms of descriptions what the castrati could do. I’m thinking primarily of the endless breath most of the castrati seemed to have as well as the fullness and powerfulness of tone that had throughout their range.
It’s a poor example, but the only one we have is of the recordings of Moreschi, the last Vatican castrati. I doubt that he was really ever all that great but at the time he made recordings, ca 1905, his voice was a wreck.
The lower part of his range sounds comical, it’s so bad, but even then it has more color than most of the lower reaches of today’s countertenors. The high notes are perilous but what fascinates me are the notes around D-E-F-G. The notes are very firm and very rich with color and this is the point at which so many countertenors start to thin out.
The closest we can come to a castrato sound today is probably Michael Maniaci. Unlike countertenors, he doesn’t sing falsetto (his voice never changed). And he has a higher-placed voice and a more powerful (and interesting) instrument than countertenors.
OK, just because I like to complete puzzle challenges:
I can guess from the comments what answer #9 is, but how does one find question #9? Nico Muhly doesn’t give a link to it, does he? So many seem to have found 9 without 8 being posted makes me think I’m missing something obvious.