or, even worse,One character in this work sings a ballatella about the freedom of the birds in the scene following the "Bell Chorus." In another scene, a character shouts "Name of God! Those same words" after hearing a woman say "I will always be yours!" for the second time. After discovering his wife's infidelity, one character tells himself to "laugh at the grief that poisons your heart" and perform the aria's title action "because people have paid money and want to be amused." That aria, "Vesti la giubba," is sung by Canio, who stabs Nedda while she is playing the role of Columbine. For 10 points, name this Leoncavallo opera frequently performed alongside Cavalleria Rusticana.
I can certainly buzz on the clue "Ha! Welch ein Augenblick!" but the extra step of having to process "In des Lebens Frühlingstagen" in English turned this question into a buzzer race for the first character named in the question. Obviously, question writers find "Vesti la giubba" and "Casta Diva" more buzzable than "Put on the Jacket" and "Chaste Goddess."One character in this work gives orders for a trumpeter to watch the road from Seville from a tower, and then sings the aria “Ha! What a moment!” The first act ends with the chorus bidding farewell to warm sunlight, and the second act begins with a tenor singing an aria about the “spring days of life.” After singing an aria about the necessity of money, Rocco allows the title character to come and help him dig a grave for a man who was imprisoned by Don Pizarro. Marzelline falls in love with the title character, unaware that "he" is actually a woman in disguise, on a mission to save her husband Florestan. For 10 points, name this work about Leonore, the only opera by Beethoven.
This kind of question writing to me seems to reward people who read summaries without listening to the music, seeing the opera, or studying a full score (which rarely if ever contains a word-for-word translation)—it is natural to reward actually knowing what the singers are saying, but the vagaries of translation make this less useful. Googling "name of god those same words" displays purely wikipedia-based results—this is not the behavior we want to encourage.
I can understand that writers want to avoid narrowing down the range of answers by language, but these examples are a bit ridiculous. This, I think, applies to poetry, too—Baudelaire and Neruda are particularly egregious offenders. I can't see an easy solution, but we certainly should not be punishing players who experience these works in the original languages.