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Hergé: Did he like opera?

RicardoOlcese
Member
#1 · Posted: 30 Dec 2018 01:20
I have the impression he liked opera very much!
I can offer several opera references in Tintin...
For instance, The Castafiore Emerald is expressely (p. 60) based on Rossini's opera La gazza ladra, in which a housekeeper is blamed for the disappearance of valuable silverware, and ultimately acquitted when they discover the culprit was... a bird.\
Also, at the end of The Calculus Affair, the unbearable Joylon Wagg and his family are expelled from Capt. Haddock's house with the excuse of an outbreak of scarlet fever.
This was also employed by Rossini in Il barbiere di Siviglia, even naming the same unusual illness, when the main characters expel the also unbearable Don Basilio (calling him "maledetto seccatore" which means "damn nuisance").
Opera composer Gounod is also mentioned: his opera "Faust" (Castafiore's favourite, for sure), The Calculus Affair, p. 54.
The same goes for Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov: Red Rackham's Treasure, p. 2.

I am almost sure there are more opera references.
snowybella
Member
#2 · Posted: 31 Dec 2018 23:34
RicardoOlcese
Those comparisons are interesting! All I knew about his relationship with opera is that he didn't like his auntie's singing...
RicardoOlcese:
scarlet fever
Is that what Wagg is afraid of in French? In the English version, I think it's chicken-pox.
Shivam302001
Member
#3 · Posted: 1 Jan 2019 03:23
RicardoOlcese:
I have the impression he liked opera very much!

Hergé didn't like opera and said so himself. In fact, he said that opera made him laugh.

It maybe that he put in those opera references to make the character of Castafiore authentic and as a sense of responsibility to his opera-loving readers.
However, it may indeed turn out that Castafiore had managed to convince Hergé to change his mind about opera!?
RicardoOlcese
Member
#4 · Posted: 1 Jan 2019 20:17
Shivam302001
I didn't know he said he didn't like opera - thanks for the info!
In any case, opera is an element very much present in his work. He had, for sure, a certain operistic culture.

snowybella
Thanks!
Yes, the French version (and at least the Spanish translation) mentions scarlet fever; I found online that the symptons of scarlet fever are like a... super powerful chickenpox. =)

Moderator Note: Scarlet fever isn't a rare or unusual disease, but it may be that it has lost some of its power to scare people since anti-biotics made it treatable; before then it was a major cause of death in children. It is possible that it will become resistant to antibiotics too, so it may still prove to be deadly.
It's a bacterial disease, unlike chickenpox, which is viral, but both cause rashes; both are also sometimes fatal, so one is not like a "super powerful" version of the other.

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