LUCIA DI LAMMERMOORE
Despairing over her arranged marriage, Lucia di Lammermoore stabs her husband to death on their wedding night while the guests wait downstairs. Covered in blood, she staggers down the castle stairs, captivating the audience with the acrobatic mad scene aria from Donizetti’s popular bel canto opera.
TOSCA
Taste Tosca’s kiss is the immortal one-liner that accompanies the aria when Tosca stabs the supervillain, the evil police chief Baron Scarpia, with a knife from the fruit platter, just as he is about to rape her between the candelabra on the dining table in the Palazzo Farnese.
JENUFA
The title character in Janaček’s poignant village drama has been so clumsy as to have a child out of wedlock. Shame looms, and her stepmother Kostelnička solves the problem by suffocating the baby and hiding the body under the ice on the frozen river nearby. The trouble starts when spring arrives, the ice melts, the body reappears and all hell breaks loose.
CARMEN
The irresistible Carmen has lured the naive soldier Don José away from a clean-cut existence in favour of a life of good sex and bad company. Being the trashy gypsy girl that she is, Carmen soon moves on to flirt with the handsome bullfighter Escarmillo. When Don José’s humiliation reaches its peak, he has had enough and kills the bitch in a bloody finale.
SWEENY TODD
Ten men and two women are murdered by the vengeful barber Sweeny Todd from Fleet Street. The flesh from the corpses is used in Mrs. Lovett’s meat pies, which soon become the most sought-after in London.
