Hi there. @TheEdVerse ! I’m wondering if there are any famous operas performed at theatres in the Realms?
— ErikWaddell (@WaddellErik) September 8, 2020
1)
Oh, yes. There are four really famous human operas that get performed many times and in many places across Faerûn, every year: The Lovelorn Knight, Alvaericknar, The War Of Three Castles, and Downdragon Harr. 2)
The Lovelorn Knight:
A knight falls in love with haughty woman after haughty woman who doesn’t love him. Sad and despondent, he is heartbroken when he discovers THE woman, only to discover she prefers the company of women, so…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
3)
…he goes to an evil sorcerer to be made into a woman so he can woo her. The magic works, the courtship succeeds, and they are happy together until the sorcerer tries to slay them both and steal their castle and riches; he… 4)
…succeeds, but as ghosts they defeat him, and continue their love match in the crumbling castle they now haunt.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
5)
Alvaericknar:
The merry misadventures of a rascal who outwits foe after foe, swindling them in the process, until he robs a lich who slays Alvaericknar. But the merry rogue has played a trick, and arranged that his horrible… 6)
…demise takes place in a spot of active enchantments, so he’s magically forced into undeath. As an undead, he goes right on being a swindling, fun-loving rascal, only now he doesn’t need food or drink or shelter.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
8)
The War Of Three Castles:
THE opera for those who love heavy, martial marches and triumphant horncalls and heroic deaths in battle, this saga concerns three warring kingdoms whose kings hate each other, and each decide to…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
9)
…obliterate their rivals and conquer their realms, no matter what the cost. Each hurls his warrior princes and princesses into battle, at the heads of the realms’ armies, and of course they fight each other, wound each other, … 10)
…plunge into the Underdark when the ground beneath them collapses, and there, amid the tombs of long-dead kings, they nurse each other back to health and fall in love with each other in so doing: two princes and one…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
11)
…princess, who can’t choose between the princes but is adamant that she shall have them both, equally, or neither. She prevails, and they decide to wed each other in a three-crowns union, even if their fathers execute them… 12)
…for it. Yet when they struggle back to the surface, fighting loathly worms to do so, they discover all three kings dead, the kingdoms laid waste by marauding monsters after their armies had annihilated each other, and the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
13)
…few surviving peasants only too happy to have peace—in a new, united, three-crowns realm (where everyone seems to sing in melodious chorus). 14)
Downdragon Harr:
A princess, the only heir to a throne, is transformed into a dragon by a wicked sorceress who uses magic to transform herself, and take the place of the princess. Only to murder the king, and so succeed him as…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
15)
…a ruling, unwed queen. Her first royal decree is to command all knights of the realm to go forth and slay every dragon they can find (the dragons are all basso profundos). There is much slaughter of wyrms, but the knight who… 16)
…happens upon the transformed princess wields a magic sword, and as he gravely wounds her, it shatters the magic upon her, and she returns to her true form. They fall in love (in a famous duet, “Too Long Apart, United Now, …#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
17)
…One Heart”) and the knight persuades Harr, the oldest, most powerful dragon of all, who has slept for the last century, to act as their steed as they fly to the royal castle to confront the queen. She sees their approach and… 18)
…uses mighty sorcery, that drains the life from most of her courtiers and all of her guards, to slay the dragon as it dives down on the castle—but in death, it slays her, crashing into the castle and crushing her to pulp…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
19)
…under its great bulk as it slides to a (dead) stop. (It sings in death, and so does the queen from somewhere under it.) The princess and the knight begin their happy rule, and wedded bliss, atop the carcass of the… 20)
…great dragon (right away, before it begins to stink).#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
21)
…There are also half a dozen halfling comic operas (think bawdy Gilbert & Sullivan; dwarves and gnomes love these, too) that are constantly performed, with patter song lyrics altered to fit the locale and the latest news, all… 22)
…of them with utterly improbable plots involving mistaken identities, misunderstandings in bedchambers, executioners running about missing everyone who can sing with their axes, and hairy male singers who end up in feminine…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020
23)
…lingerie. Their titles are Ravalar’s Roister In The Cloister; Yeomen, Bowmen, and The Taming Maiden; The Seven Drunken Swordswingers Of Silverymoon; The Haunted Bedpan; The Laughing Statue Of Beltragar; and… 24)
…The Night Six In-Use Beds Fell Into The Castle Moat.
Someday (I should live so long) I’ll write them all, and try to persuade @TheOperaGeek to star in them.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 9, 2020