Anna Russell Im Not Making This Up You Know

Anna Russell (born Anna Claudia Russell-Brown, 27 December 1911 – 18 October 2006) was a gifted English language vocalizer-comedienne-pianist-satirist-composer-parodist who made fun of Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, Classical Music, Advertising, Jazz, and pretty much annihilation else she could get her easily on. Audiences loved it.

Some of Madame Russell'south most notable routines:

• "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera"
• "A Practical Banana Promotion"
• "The Decline and Fall of the Pop Vocal"
• "The Ring of the Nibelungs: An Assay"

Discographical annotation: most of her routines were recorded live in concert and released on short records (with baroque names like Anna Russell Sings?, Anna Russell in Darkest Africa and Anna Russell Sings! Over again?). All of these concert recordings are currently available collected on three CDs: ^note The i major exception is her "Guide to Concert Audiences," which was released on vinyl but never fabricated it onto CD.

• The Anna Russell Album?
• Anna Russell Encore?
• Anna Russell Once again?

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Anna Russell's works display examples of:

• Affectionate Parody: Her spoofs of popular and classical music varied widely in their sincerity. In "Survey of Singing from Madrigals to Modern Opera," though the parodies of madrigals and coloratura arias are also airheaded to exist true, "Wir gehen in den Automaten" could be mistaken for a Bach cantata if the lyrics weren't well-nigh ordering bacon at the Automat, and "Aria from 'The Psychiatrist'" only sounds insane when compared with Magda'due south aria from The Consul and its repetition of the question "What is your name?"
• All for Nothing: Her interpretation of the Band des Nibelungen.
• Anti-Dear Song: "Miserable," a Torch Song parody on how awful information technology is to be happy without her lover and how she'd much rather exist miserable (or as she renders it, "mizz-urr-ubb-ull") with him.
• Birthmark of Destiny: In "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera," the fat contralto graphic symbol of Dandelion reveals (in song, assisted by chorus) that the rich tycoon Claude Billy Bunion was born with a mark "merely like a Spanish onion" behind his ear, just being a stupid Gilbert and Sullivan character she switched the bassinets. Such a mark is discovered on the tenor, whom the soprano tin can now marry instead of the patter baritone, who has to marry the contralto.
• Blowing a Raspberry: A vital component of "The Old Sow Vocal".
• Brawn Hilda: Lampshaded.

  And [Siegfried] makes the classic understatement of all time: he says "This is no man." I hateful—accept y'all seen the average Brunhilde?!

• Christmas Songs: Lampooned with "Please Santa Claus."
• Damned by Faint Praise: Describes Pneumonia Vanderfeller every bit "very sweet." The tone in which this compliment is given suggests that information technology'southward not exactly meant as a compliment.
• Decease past Woman Scorned: "Dripping With Gore" and "Two Fourth dimension Man" are (mild) parodies of this trope equally used in state music.
• Diseased Name: "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera" has Pneumonia Vanderfeller, a typical "British piercing-type soprano," and Claude Billy Bunion the Rich Tycoon. And then, of class, there's the heroine of "Anaemia'southward Decease Scene."
• Exactly What I Meant to Say: From "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera":

  "As y'all know, you always have to first with a homogenous chorus. I know a lot of people are going to say that isn't homogenous, that's homogeneous. Simply that isn't what I mean: I mean homogenous, as in milk."

• Fate Worse than Death: In the classic sense.

  (Pamina) thinks she'southward about to suffer a Fate Worse Than Death (at Monostatos' hands). Which she is. So she faints.

• Freudian Alibi: Parodied in "Jolly Sometime Sigmund Freud".

"That everything I practise that's incorrect/Is/Someone else's fau-ault!"

• Hooked Upward Later on: "How to Write Your Ain Gilbert and Sullivan Opera" spoofs (along with every other G&Southward trope) the tendency of "the piffling human who sings the patter vocal" to end up with "the large fatty contralto". Dandelion (the aforementioned "large fat contralto") even sings about it in the final number, although it appears it will come as a surprise to Claude Billy Bunion ("the little man who sings the patter vocal").
• Idiot Hero: Siegfried in "The Ring of the Nibelungs: An Assay."

  And he's very immature, and he's very handsome, and he's very stiff, and he's very brave—and he's very stupid... he's a regular Li'l Abner type.

• Impoverished Patrician: The plot of "How to Write Your Ain Gilbert and Sullivan Opera" stems from how Parnassus Q. Vanderfeller has lost all his money but is "much too aristocratic to work."
• Jingle: "A Applied Banana Promotion" includes not merely "Eta Assistant," a parody of the Chiquita jingle, but also "Alas, What Should I Practise," which sounds like only a rather mushy ballad when played the showtime time, but with subliminal advertisement supposedly included. The song is repeated to reveal many contemporary (1950s) commercial jingles and slogans.
  • Non to mention some ads that piggyback off parts of the vocal:

    "For love of you/My center is clogged with feeling/It overflows with passion—" "Phone your Roto-Rooter service man!"

• Jumping-On Signal: As Anna explains, in the opening of Götterdämmerung, the Fates re-tell the story of the outset three operas "right over once again from the get-go. That is, of form, in case y'all couldn't hear it the kickoff fourth dimension. As a matter of fact, y'all can miss out parts one, two, and three, and go in at the showtime of Götterdämmerung and y'all'll be just nigh as far ahead as anyone else is."
• Ladies and Germs: "Introduction to the Concert (By the Women'due south Club President)" begins: "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen...and others."
  • Immediately followed by: "...I'thou sorry, of course I know all our members are ladies and gentlemen. What I meant to say was, some of you take brought friends."
• Terminal-Second Word Swap: In the thousand-opera spoof "Anaemia's Decease Scene," the dying Anaemia refers to her Unwanted Fiancé as a "miserable old...baritone."
• Beloved at First Sight: Russell was admittedly vicious towards this kind of storyline, e.g. betwixt Siegfried and Brunhilde, or Tamino and Pamina.
• Never My Error: Mocked; run into Freudian Excuse.
• "Not Making This Upwards" Disclaimer: "The Ring of the Nibelungs: An Analysis" includes what is probably the Trope Codifier: after describing Gutrune every bit "the only adult female that Siegfried has ever come across who hasn't been his aunt," she says "I'm non making this upwards, you know!" The line became and so associated with her that her autobiography is chosen I'm Not Making This Up, You lot Know.
  • Afterwards mentioning that Mozart'south librettist for The Magic Flute (and the first to play Papageno) was named Emanuel Schikaneder ^notation rhymes with "rutabaga," more or less, she insists "I mean information technology!"
• Oh Expect, This Is My Grocery List: In "Introduction to the Concert (By the Women's Society President)," the speaker introduces "that magnificent pianist, Miss ... er ... Miss Hamburger."
• Old Money: Parodied in the opening chorus of "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera."

  We're in the social register
  (piano riff)
  All lower-course types nosotros shun
  (piano riff)
  But to go along our niche we must stay very rich
  'Cause we'll exist thrown out when nosotros've none
  And it'south very very funny
  When yous've lots and lots of money
  To exist horrible to those with none

• Parenthetical Swearing: In "The Band of the Nibelungs: An Assay", when Siegfried meets the Gibichungs, Russell notes that Gutrune is a Gibich and that her half-brother Hagen is a son of a Gibich, with the accent very much on the second syllable.
• Poirot Speak: "Schreechenrauf," introduced every bit a pastiche of Wagnerian arias for dramatic soprano, is really a parody of the Ring bike, with mangled Anglo-German phrases like "wir fallen in lieber" set up to Richard Wagner'due south music. The aria reaches a climax when it puts down 1 of the characters from Götterdämmerung (Gutrune, girl of Gibich) as "Gutrune, die Götterdämmerung Gibich!"
  • She does the same matter with what can but be described as dog-Italian, in "Canto Dolcemente Pipo", from the opera La Cantatrice Squelante.
• Porky Squealer Pronunciation: The Women's Guild President quotes a line from "Caelius Jusar—I'one thousand pitiful, Sulius Jaesar! ... Macbeth !" (Information technology'due south the famous "food of love" quote from Twelfth Dark.)
• Precision F-Strike: As detailed under Sophisticated equally Hell, simply there's another (relatively mild) one in her summary of The Magic Flute:

  "Is that what she told yous?" says the priest. "Women, huh! Well I tin can tell you something, y'all've got information technology all arse-backwards."

• Questioning Championship?: The titles of the three collected CDs: The Anna Russel Anthology?, Anna Russell Encore?, and Anna Russell Again?.
• Rule of Funny: Invoked in "Hamletto, or Prosciuttino":

  As you know, Verdi has made operas out of many of the Shakespeare plays. He has non, every bit a matter of fact, made one out of Hamlet, just I'm non for a moment going to let that stand in my way.

  • Anna Russell's claim that the Norns are Siegfried's aunts is wrong. While they are daughters of Erda, making them Brunnhilde's half-sisters on her mother's side, they are not related to Wotan (Siegfried'due south grandfather and Brunnhilde's father).
  • At the signal in Götterdämmerung when Hagen gives Siegfried the potion, Gutrune is indeed the only woman Siegfried has met who isn't his aunt. However, Siegfried has a afterward scene with the Rhinemaidens (the three daughters of Father Rhine).
• Running Gag:
  • In "The Ring of the Nibelungs: An Assay", Siegfried's tendency to come across women who unbeknownst to him are his aunts.
  • Also, whenever a character or plot element reappears after Wagner has gone an unabridged opera without mentioning them, Russell pausing to cheque with the audience that they nevertheless recollect that character or plot chemical element.
• Shout-Out: "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera" skewers a number of recurring tropes from their works, but the characters and overall plotline have a i-to-i connexion with H.Yard.S. Pinafore.
• Sophisticated as Hell: I of many examples: Anna states that, when one enters the world of opera, one will find, "that the competition will be fierce. The currying favor with the impresario and the visiting conductors, and the Machiavellian plottings and plannings that continue are absolutely legendary. So to be reasonably certain of success in this field, you lot would need be a glorious-voiced, independently wealthy, sexy, politically motivated, backstabbing bitch."
• Standard Snippet: In "The Ring of the Nibelungs: An Assay", when Alberich puts a expletive on the Ring, she plays the standard snippet that commonly accompanies a Dastardly Whiplash up to no good, ^note "Mysterioso Pizzicato" then apologizes — "That's the wrong curse, isn't it?"
• Surprise Incest: Spoofed in "The Ring of the Nibelungs: An Analysis."

  "That'due south the beauty of one thousand opera: Y'all tin can do anything. (Beat) And then long as y'all sing it."

• Take That!: A few, aye. "Introduction to the Concert," for case, makes it clear that "Our organization stands for the better things in art, not expecting either advantage or enjoyment."
• That Came Out Wrong: Possibly a Freudian Slip...

  Of course, [introducing the concert and featured artist] is actually the job of the Chair of Entertainment, but she's awfully deplorable she was unable to be here this evening. She's been in bed all week with the doctor.
  (waits for laughter to die down)
  I think you're very unkind, she'southward having a horrible fourth dimension!

• Victorian Novel Affliction: "Anaemia's Expiry Scene," naturally.
• Victory Is Deadening: Claude Billy Bunion seems to feel this way.

  I got mixed up in politics and found it quite delectable
  I did a lot of chiseling in manners undetectable
  Merely now I'one thousand so conspicuous I'chiliad forced to be respectable
  It's actually very tedious to exist a rich tycoon!

• Vocal Range Exceeded: The coloratura parodies "Canto dolciamente Pipo" and "O gentle bird with feathered breast" terminate with cadenzas that are obviously going to terminate on notes loftier above the staff, except that, after a few seconds of breathing (and, in the case of "Pipo", with an aural mutter of "Oh, the heck with it"), she instead sings her final note two or three octaves lower.
• Wacky Americans Have Wacky Names: In "How to Write Your Own Gilbert and Sullivan Opera", the wealthy American patriarch is named Parnassus Q. Vanderfeller. The Nouveau Riche Romantic Simulated Lead is named Claude Billy Bunion.
• You lot Bounder!: Played for Laughs in "The Rubens Woman": "She is dead, and who killed her? Who killed her? You killed her! You!"

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/AnnaRussell

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