Question of the Day: What’s The Bit of Opera from The Shawshank Redemption?

As the mother of a five-year-old who’s never gotten over her “why?” stage, I answer a lot of questions. I’ll start to occasionally post the more interesting ones here. I’ll always cite sources and make no guarantees that the answer is complete, or even, you know, right (though I will do my best). This one actually comes from my brother (again).

According to IMDB, it’s the “Canzonetta sull’aria” from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. An aria is a song within the opera that showcases the singer’s talent. The overture is the sort of summary of all the major themes of the opera that’s played at the beginning before the action starts.

New Arctic Monkeys

I like the Arctic Monkeys, and they’ve got a new album coming out later this month. They’ve (or someone has) posted a track from it, Fluorescent Adolescent. You might want to listen. =)

Holly Cole

Why is it that I can’t seem to drive down 101 at night without listening to Holly Cole? I mean, I can, but it just doesn’t feel right.

Opera!

I haven’t been to see an opera since my daughter was born — not to mention that the San Francisco Opera isn’t close by. So this decision by the Met to open up their archive *and* broadcast live operas to movie houses makes me really happy.

Dissonance

The nice thing about having mp3-ized my (and my husband’s) entire CD collection is that, when I get the (rare) urge to listen to Moxy Fruvous, Bob Dylan, and Nine Inch Nails in a row, I can.