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The Jewel Song is really beautiful... Yes it is "powerful stuff", lol, but it's very VERY beautiful. I love every bit of it. :D

I disagree that Castafiore is a "one trick pony." For one thing, the newspaper article at the end of The Casafiore Emerald said that she was performing in La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie).

Another thing, she seems to have an extremely large following, considering the fact that the press follows her around. Not to mention the crowd that greeted her in The Picaros.

My take on Bianca Castafiore is that she grew up in poor circumstances. Her singing brought her fame and fortune. That would explain her fixation on the Jewel Song, as it's basically about a poor girl who unexpectedly became rich and can't believe that she's the same person that she used to be.

This is an interesting topic, and sorry if I wander off a little bit from the subject.

Castafiore's performance had always been nagging me since I was a little child. Back then, I only heard instrumental classical music, and I didn't listen to classical music as much as I do now. And now, since I listen to it very often (and sometimes listen to few opera arias, haha), this song somehow became more interesting than it was (and I think this is also caused by my interest on Goethe's Faust).

What makes me curious though, why Castafiore choose this aria as her favorite performance piece? Why not another aria? (Carmen's Habanera perhaps?) What is so special with this aria, that makes Castafiore chooses this aria as her key piece in her performances? There must be a reason behind it...

Actually, there's nothing in the books to say that Castafiore is a bad singer – in fact, as seen, she is held in such high regard by so many adoring fans, in so many places, that it is highly unlikely that she is anything but excellent.

The joke in the books is that, like Hergé, Haddock doesn't like opera, and he (personally) can't stand to listen to it (the same goes for Snowy); Tintin, while sometimes startled by the volume of her singing, doesn't seem to regard her as a bad performer.

In fact, if you look, there are usually more people round about who are put off by the antics of the Captain and Snowy, than are put out by the Milanese Nightingale!

I think one of the funniest bits from The Castafiore Emerald when they're watching Calculus' "colorized" television.

The show they're watching airs the interview with Bianca and she says of her own singing, "Is that me? Oh, how horrible!"

(Of course the sound quality might not be the best, but still...)

I don't think she was referring to her singing, I believe she meant the distorted image of herself on the screen. With her face squashed like that and broken into those colour separations she does actually resemble a chorus line of parrots!

One funny part in The Castafiore Emerald is where she hits a bum note during her scales practice with Wagner. In the music notation (which continues above Haddock's altercation with the parrot), at one point we see a broken up quaver and "HAA" followed by some stars and a "Hum Hum" where she recovers herself. So, whilst she's obviously one of the world's greatest opera singers, she's not immune to the odd mistake!

Yes there is. The real person behind Bianca's character is Finnish opera diva Aino Ackté (Maria Callas was hardly born when Ottokar's Sceptre was published).

Aino made her break through in Paris, singing Gounod's Faust, and Faust was maybe the most popular opera in the early 20th century in France.

Here's Aino:

http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/aino_ackte_faust_-_jalokiviaaria _16064.html#media=16067

(This has been talked about previously some years ago.)

I think it's better to say "possibly the person behind the character" – while a good candidate, I'm not certain the theory has been traced back to Hergé as yet; It's not impossible, but it isn't definitive either.

The discussion about her was here.

Very simple: Castafiore is portrayed as a vain character obsessed with her jewelry. L'air des bijoux is a perfect choice for her.

In case people who havent played it don't know, Ubisoft - hardcore fans that they are - have included The Jewel Song in the video-game version of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

It can be heard in the background on some levels, and uninterrupted during the end credits.