Opera Parodies

[Graham1973]

I recently purchased a battered copy of the 1977 edition of the 'Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera'. One of the more interesting section described how between the 18th & 19th century it was popular to stage a parody of an existing opera. The practice died out in 1865 with the appearance of 'Tristanderl & Süssholde' shortly before the first performance of Wagners 'Tristian & Isolde'.

Several other parodies mentioned, including one from France that parodied 'Tannhauser' entitled 'Ya-Mein-Herr, Cacophonie de l'Avenier, en 3 acts ent'racte meleede chants, de harpes et de chiens savants. & two parodies of 'Der Freischutz', one in German entitled 'Samiel, oder die Wunderpille')(Which was apparently so popular it was translated into Danish & Swedish as well.), the other was in English & was entitled 'Der Freischutz: A new muse-sick-all & see-nick per-formance from the new German up-roar. By the celebrated Funny-bear'

I thought it might be worth trying to track down some of these pieces of ephemera (of which more must exist than the examples provieded) and make them available, it might even tempt someone to stage them and so allow future audiences to see just how funny they actually were.

[Lyle Neff]

There's also Borodin's pastiche opera, The Bogatyrs, performed in 1868, I believe -- although I don't think it was published in his lifetime (check Taruskin's Opera and Drama in Russia).