PS. This got me thinking to Victoria and opera-I see there are many references by googling-I've just scratched the surface. Regards, Len
1. "I puritani, to which she referred as "dear Puritani", was Queen Victoria's favourite opera and the first which she attended in the company of Prince Albert before their marriage.[26] The 2009 film The Young Victoria includes an episode in which Albert and Victoria discuss the opera, as well as a scene showing Victoria attending a performance.[27] In the film Fitzcarraldo, the cast of I puritani are being transported on Fitzcarraldo's boat. They perform parts of the opera in full costume and sing "A te, o cara" (from act 1, scene 3) as Fitzcarraldo makes his triumphal return to Iquitos.[28]"
2. Scott portrays Queen Victoria in Atlanta Opera’s ‘The Pirates of Penzance’
http://www.daily-tribune.com/stories/sc ... ance,13922?
3. "VICTORIA WAS NATURALLY MUSICAL.. The year before her accession to the throne she began singing lessons with the operatic bass Luigi Lablache, whom she adored and with whom she sang many a duet form her favourite Italian operas. These lessons would continue for the next twenty years, and the Queen’s voice would be genuinely admired by Felix Mendelssohn. “She sang with very nice feeling and expression and the last long C I have never heard better, or purer or more natural”
IN THE WORLD OF OPERA she admired Giulia Grisi, greatest singer of her day and beautiful into the bargain. (Together with a keen eye, Victoria had a passion for beauty in all forms.) Much later she would enjoy music by Wagner, in particular LOHENGRIN."
http://www.karinfernald.com/illustrated ... -the-arts/
4. "“The Young Victoria” alludes to the couple’s joint adoration for the arts, including a few passages from a few noted operas in exploring their courtship.
The film notes that Victoria’s favorite opera was Bellini’s “I Puritani,” a work which she often referred to as “dear Puritani.” The sequence takes place while Albert is preparing for meeting Victoria. Albert is questioned on what Victoria’s favorite work is, to which he replies, “Norma.” He is corrected and the film cuts to a scene of Victoria enraptured in a performance of “Vieni, vieni fra queste braccia” in a recording featuring the voice of Giuseppe Di Stefano. The choice of the love duet in the scene hints at what is to come between the two and the text of the opera itself is almost Albert himself speaking to Victoria across the opera. The fact that we don’t hear Elvira (as performed by Callas) in the excerpt, emphasizes the disconnect between Victoria and Albert at the present moment of the film.
The choice of “Puritani” in the film is interesting in this context as well – it was the first opera that Victoria attended with Albert prior to their marriage. We don’t see this in the movie, however.
Opera returns to connect them yet again later in the film, albeit in a different manner. We don’t see them go to an opera together or perform music together (Victoria took voice lessons with bass Luigi Lablache a year before her accession to the throne). Instead, they dance to Adina’s first aria from “L’Elisir d’Amore.”"
https://operawire.com/opera-meets-film- ... bel-canto/