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I'll look about for the identities of Karl, Herzog von Braunsweig and Comte Isouard, so they can be linked if they get articles. (Also there seems to be some question about which Opera this was, with most accounts saying it was Rossini's Barber of Seville, and Morphy's memoires saying Bellini's Norma??) -- Someone else
Would it be correct to refer to the Duke as the Duke of Brunswick or as the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg? I seem to remember that, prior to Queen Victoria, the Sovereign of the United Kingdom was "Elector of Hanover, Arch-Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire, and Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg." I presently assume that Karl, Duke of Brunswick, is a descendent of Ernst August, who inherited the Dukedom due to Salic Law. Lord Emsworth 01:03, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)
I don't know if anybody looking at this speaks Dutch (I'm afraid I don't), but this article (from the Google cache) seems to raise the possibilities of Rossini's La cenerentola (Cinderella) and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro as being the opera in question (in addition to the aforementioned Norma and Barber of Seville). I'm afraid I can't work out what conclusions (if any) it reaches, however. -- Camembert
Wow, there are some very amusing quotes online about this game
An impatient Morphy annihilated his opponents in only 17 moves during The Marriage of figaro, a slaughter that was best described by the great German analyst, Helmut Jüngling, in his pivotal book Matings of the Masters. "This game--if, indeed, it merits the honorable distinction of being called a game--exhibited none of the delicate foreplay of two sensitive virtuosi, but rather the frenzied bestial thumping of an impassioned hart driven to frenzied Wagnerian passions." Morphy, having withdrawn from the world of Chess after only 75 competitive games, suffered from severe bouts of delusions and paranoia before being felled by a stroke while taking a bath on 10 July 1884.
. Almost makes me wish I understood chess well enough to understand what makes this game special>... -- Someone else 02:33, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)~
where is the pgn?
Hello everyone! I've been intrigued by the question of 'which opera house', given that building work on the Palais Garnier didn't begin till 1861. I think I've tracked it down to the Salle Ventadour, because in Winter's discussion [1] of "what opera", he quotes one D.H. Lawson as saying the match(es) took place in "the Duke's box at the Italian Opera", and the Théâtre-Italien used Salle Ventadour for their productions from 1841 to 1878. -- Redpaul1
I can't read the algebraic notation and I don't know much about chess. Morphy won, right?. Maybe this fact could appear somewhere in the first paragraph. Also, I wonder why this match mattered and what was so important about the players. -- Fazdeconta 16:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Morphy won. This game is important because it demonstrates the fundamentals of opening play almost as though he was teaching a class rather then playing a game. I teach chess and this game is taught to all of my students.
I have always refered to this game as the Opera House Massacre. I believe that this is a correct name for this game but I may be mistaken. I recomend that this game is given an alias of the 'Opera House Massacre'. I do not know how to do this. Also can anyone confirm whether or not this is a valid name for this game?
I think that before you make that addition, the onus is on you to find a credible source for this alias. I have studied this game immensely and seen it mentioned many times in many different writings about chess, and I cannot recall it ever being called that. The fact that you know it as such is not enough. You must confim, through credible thrid-party sources, that this game has been referred to by that name, BEFORE you make the change. 210.216.45.65 01:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)Anonymous
Anotating the Game umm... I think it should be noted that Nf6?? loses two pawns. You don't go from a bad postion into dead lost (in a short period of time) without something big happing. This article is not about the art of this game; it is supposed to be an objective look at it. I will leave it as is for now...
It's true ProjChess is weak re having strong notation conventions (e.g. 0-0-0 vs O-O-O has no status like White/Black vs white/black does, and there is no convention for 3...a6 vs 3... a6 vs 3. ...a6 vs 3. ... a6, etc.). But anyone would be hard-pressed to find even a single chess article using × instead of x, or 0–0–0 instead of 0-0-0 among the hundreds or thousands there are. (How many are there, anyway?!)
Why add a format convention now, which has essentially never been used in articles before and inconsistent with the 99.99% that already exist? (Uniform notation presentation is a *good thing* for chess articles across WP. Uniform readability. ProjChess needs *more* standard conventions re notation presentation, not *less*.) IMO the recent change goes in the wrong direction. Ihardlythinkso ( talk) 03:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
This article is a mess. It concerns one of the most well-known historical chess games and it gets many of the facts wrong, inserting extraneous and superfluous information. The problem is that the author extracted information from Frederick Edge's Exploits of Paul Morphy without understanding that what Edge described had nothing to do with the subject game. According to Edge, "We were frequent visitors to his box at the Italian Opera." Edge goes on to describe their first opera encounter. The Opera Game [The usual sobriquet - not the Opera Massacre Game] was played in one of their subsequent visits during which Gioacchino Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia was performed. This is noted by David Lawson [Morphy's primary biographer] and supported by E. Winter, with some supportive documentation:
"On their first visit in October they played chess throughout the entire performance of Norma.... On the second of November they heard The Barber of Seville, during which Morphy played his most famous game, the Duke again consulting with Count Isouard [Count Isouard de Vauvenargue]." -Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess by David Lawson; pp. 159-160.
Winter's Chess Note #2895 reported that "Christian Sánchez has consulted the fortnightly magazine L’Univers Musical of October and November 1858. He reports that although Morphy’s name did not appear, the 16 October and 1 November numbers mentioned that the October performances at the Théâtre-Italien included Norma, while the 15 November issue stated that The Barber of Seville had been performed that month. This schedule is in line with the information quoted from Lawson’s book." [The Opera Game was played on Nov. 2, 1858] -- Batgirl ( talk) 13:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Could I ask whether the commentary (which is especially appropriate for this extraordinary and iconic game) is OR by WPians, or whether it's based on a source? Tony (talk) 05:39, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The move 8.Bxf7+ mentioned in the notes isn't actually any good. As Edward Lasker notes in "Chess Secrets", Black gets some nice counterplay by 8...Qxf7 9.Qxb7 Bc5! when either 10.Qxa8 O-O or 10.Qc8+ Ke7 11.Qxh8 Bxf2+! gives Black a dangerous attack for the material. Besides it wasn't Morphy's style to move his Q several times in the opening chasing material at the expense of the initiative. I doubt he even gave serious consideration to the move. MaxBrowne ( talk) 09:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
The article wrote; On several occasions, the Duke invited Morphy to the Italian Opera House in Paris, Salle Le Peletier, where the former kept a private box which was, according to Morphy's associate Frederick Edge, so close to the stage that one "might kiss the prima donna without any trouble", and which always contained a chess set, the Duke being a keen player as well as an opera lover.
Morphy was extremely fond of music and opera and was eager to see Norma, which played on his first visit. Unfortunately, his host had seen Norma countless times, and Morphy found himself forced to play chess, even seated with his back to the stage.
As the game progressed, the two allies conferred loudly enough with each other, debating their moves against the American genius, that it attracted the attention of the opera performers. Madame Penco, who had the role of the Druidic priestess in Norma, kept looking into the Duke's box, to see what all the fuss was about, even as she was performing the opera. The performers who were the Druids marched about the stage, "chanting fire and bloodshed against the Roman host, who, they appeared to think, were in the Duke's box", Edge recounted.
It is doubtful if the distracted opera singers had a good enough view into the box to know what the noise was about. Comically, Morphy created this brilliant game while spending his time trying to overcome his blocked view of the opera, while the performers tried to catch glimpses of what was going on in the Duke's box.
Norma was performed at the Italiens de Paris on 21 October 1858, with Rosina Penco in the title role, L. Graziani as Pollione and Cambardi as Adalgise. [1] Some commentators who? would rather have the chess game taking place with The Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, or else The Marriage of Figaro on stage. [2] clarification needed
While certainy colourful, this sounds like storytelling and relevant sources are lacking, as noted for a long time. The story went through many hands. Have a look at what Edgar Winter writes, for instance. By the way, it makes little sense that Morphy's opponents talked loudly in his company about their plans. -- Zz ( talk) 20:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
References
It's not as simple as White winning a pawn. After 11.Qxb4 Bxb4+ 12.Nc3, Black has 12...Nxe4. This doesn't look very advantageous for White.-- Jasper Deng (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
It's hard to imagine that 3. ...Bg4 is really standard theory, when it is instantly refuted by what Morphy played, and dxe5 is a rather obvious move to consider. There is a link to a chess book from 1843 to prove the contention of the article, but I did not see the book actually recommend Bg4. Morphy, in his matches with professional players, faced the Philidor several times, and they did not play ...Bg3. They were obviously well aware it is a terrible move. The claim seems very dubious. 2603:8081:2603:E100:D536:3F91:B697:592B ( talk) 22:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
I see it as illogical to refer to Black as "he" in this game. Black was a team of two players working together, and it does not make sense to refer to a team of multiple people as if it consisted of only one of those people. For example, I imagine one would say, "Though the United States men's basketball team performed poorly in the first half, they managed to pull ahead in the second half," and that the word "he" would be incorrect in this case. ISaveNewspapers ( talk) 10:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
Is it known what chess set morphy used during the famous opera game? His set was a 1849 Jacques of London I believe but the game was 1858 in Europe so did he have his with him or was it another set? If so what was that set? 2600:4808:8C32:1C00:A1B8:816F:E4BB:89C1 ( talk) 12:09, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
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I'll look about for the identities of Karl, Herzog von Braunsweig and Comte Isouard, so they can be linked if they get articles. (Also there seems to be some question about which Opera this was, with most accounts saying it was Rossini's Barber of Seville, and Morphy's memoires saying Bellini's Norma??) -- Someone else
Would it be correct to refer to the Duke as the Duke of Brunswick or as the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg? I seem to remember that, prior to Queen Victoria, the Sovereign of the United Kingdom was "Elector of Hanover, Arch-Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire, and Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg." I presently assume that Karl, Duke of Brunswick, is a descendent of Ernst August, who inherited the Dukedom due to Salic Law. Lord Emsworth 01:03, Oct 23, 2003 (UTC)
I don't know if anybody looking at this speaks Dutch (I'm afraid I don't), but this article (from the Google cache) seems to raise the possibilities of Rossini's La cenerentola (Cinderella) and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro as being the opera in question (in addition to the aforementioned Norma and Barber of Seville). I'm afraid I can't work out what conclusions (if any) it reaches, however. -- Camembert
Wow, there are some very amusing quotes online about this game
An impatient Morphy annihilated his opponents in only 17 moves during The Marriage of figaro, a slaughter that was best described by the great German analyst, Helmut Jüngling, in his pivotal book Matings of the Masters. "This game--if, indeed, it merits the honorable distinction of being called a game--exhibited none of the delicate foreplay of two sensitive virtuosi, but rather the frenzied bestial thumping of an impassioned hart driven to frenzied Wagnerian passions." Morphy, having withdrawn from the world of Chess after only 75 competitive games, suffered from severe bouts of delusions and paranoia before being felled by a stroke while taking a bath on 10 July 1884.
. Almost makes me wish I understood chess well enough to understand what makes this game special>... -- Someone else 02:33, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)~
where is the pgn?
Hello everyone! I've been intrigued by the question of 'which opera house', given that building work on the Palais Garnier didn't begin till 1861. I think I've tracked it down to the Salle Ventadour, because in Winter's discussion [1] of "what opera", he quotes one D.H. Lawson as saying the match(es) took place in "the Duke's box at the Italian Opera", and the Théâtre-Italien used Salle Ventadour for their productions from 1841 to 1878. -- Redpaul1
I can't read the algebraic notation and I don't know much about chess. Morphy won, right?. Maybe this fact could appear somewhere in the first paragraph. Also, I wonder why this match mattered and what was so important about the players. -- Fazdeconta 16:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Morphy won. This game is important because it demonstrates the fundamentals of opening play almost as though he was teaching a class rather then playing a game. I teach chess and this game is taught to all of my students.
I have always refered to this game as the Opera House Massacre. I believe that this is a correct name for this game but I may be mistaken. I recomend that this game is given an alias of the 'Opera House Massacre'. I do not know how to do this. Also can anyone confirm whether or not this is a valid name for this game?
I think that before you make that addition, the onus is on you to find a credible source for this alias. I have studied this game immensely and seen it mentioned many times in many different writings about chess, and I cannot recall it ever being called that. The fact that you know it as such is not enough. You must confim, through credible thrid-party sources, that this game has been referred to by that name, BEFORE you make the change. 210.216.45.65 01:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)Anonymous
Anotating the Game umm... I think it should be noted that Nf6?? loses two pawns. You don't go from a bad postion into dead lost (in a short period of time) without something big happing. This article is not about the art of this game; it is supposed to be an objective look at it. I will leave it as is for now...
It's true ProjChess is weak re having strong notation conventions (e.g. 0-0-0 vs O-O-O has no status like White/Black vs white/black does, and there is no convention for 3...a6 vs 3... a6 vs 3. ...a6 vs 3. ... a6, etc.). But anyone would be hard-pressed to find even a single chess article using × instead of x, or 0–0–0 instead of 0-0-0 among the hundreds or thousands there are. (How many are there, anyway?!)
Why add a format convention now, which has essentially never been used in articles before and inconsistent with the 99.99% that already exist? (Uniform notation presentation is a *good thing* for chess articles across WP. Uniform readability. ProjChess needs *more* standard conventions re notation presentation, not *less*.) IMO the recent change goes in the wrong direction. Ihardlythinkso ( talk) 03:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
This article is a mess. It concerns one of the most well-known historical chess games and it gets many of the facts wrong, inserting extraneous and superfluous information. The problem is that the author extracted information from Frederick Edge's Exploits of Paul Morphy without understanding that what Edge described had nothing to do with the subject game. According to Edge, "We were frequent visitors to his box at the Italian Opera." Edge goes on to describe their first opera encounter. The Opera Game [The usual sobriquet - not the Opera Massacre Game] was played in one of their subsequent visits during which Gioacchino Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia was performed. This is noted by David Lawson [Morphy's primary biographer] and supported by E. Winter, with some supportive documentation:
"On their first visit in October they played chess throughout the entire performance of Norma.... On the second of November they heard The Barber of Seville, during which Morphy played his most famous game, the Duke again consulting with Count Isouard [Count Isouard de Vauvenargue]." -Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess by David Lawson; pp. 159-160.
Winter's Chess Note #2895 reported that "Christian Sánchez has consulted the fortnightly magazine L’Univers Musical of October and November 1858. He reports that although Morphy’s name did not appear, the 16 October and 1 November numbers mentioned that the October performances at the Théâtre-Italien included Norma, while the 15 November issue stated that The Barber of Seville had been performed that month. This schedule is in line with the information quoted from Lawson’s book." [The Opera Game was played on Nov. 2, 1858] -- Batgirl ( talk) 13:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Could I ask whether the commentary (which is especially appropriate for this extraordinary and iconic game) is OR by WPians, or whether it's based on a source? Tony (talk) 05:39, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The move 8.Bxf7+ mentioned in the notes isn't actually any good. As Edward Lasker notes in "Chess Secrets", Black gets some nice counterplay by 8...Qxf7 9.Qxb7 Bc5! when either 10.Qxa8 O-O or 10.Qc8+ Ke7 11.Qxh8 Bxf2+! gives Black a dangerous attack for the material. Besides it wasn't Morphy's style to move his Q several times in the opening chasing material at the expense of the initiative. I doubt he even gave serious consideration to the move. MaxBrowne ( talk) 09:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
The article wrote; On several occasions, the Duke invited Morphy to the Italian Opera House in Paris, Salle Le Peletier, where the former kept a private box which was, according to Morphy's associate Frederick Edge, so close to the stage that one "might kiss the prima donna without any trouble", and which always contained a chess set, the Duke being a keen player as well as an opera lover.
Morphy was extremely fond of music and opera and was eager to see Norma, which played on his first visit. Unfortunately, his host had seen Norma countless times, and Morphy found himself forced to play chess, even seated with his back to the stage.
As the game progressed, the two allies conferred loudly enough with each other, debating their moves against the American genius, that it attracted the attention of the opera performers. Madame Penco, who had the role of the Druidic priestess in Norma, kept looking into the Duke's box, to see what all the fuss was about, even as she was performing the opera. The performers who were the Druids marched about the stage, "chanting fire and bloodshed against the Roman host, who, they appeared to think, were in the Duke's box", Edge recounted.
It is doubtful if the distracted opera singers had a good enough view into the box to know what the noise was about. Comically, Morphy created this brilliant game while spending his time trying to overcome his blocked view of the opera, while the performers tried to catch glimpses of what was going on in the Duke's box.
Norma was performed at the Italiens de Paris on 21 October 1858, with Rosina Penco in the title role, L. Graziani as Pollione and Cambardi as Adalgise. [1] Some commentators who? would rather have the chess game taking place with The Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, or else The Marriage of Figaro on stage. [2] clarification needed
While certainy colourful, this sounds like storytelling and relevant sources are lacking, as noted for a long time. The story went through many hands. Have a look at what Edgar Winter writes, for instance. By the way, it makes little sense that Morphy's opponents talked loudly in his company about their plans. -- Zz ( talk) 20:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
References
It's not as simple as White winning a pawn. After 11.Qxb4 Bxb4+ 12.Nc3, Black has 12...Nxe4. This doesn't look very advantageous for White.-- Jasper Deng (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
It's hard to imagine that 3. ...Bg4 is really standard theory, when it is instantly refuted by what Morphy played, and dxe5 is a rather obvious move to consider. There is a link to a chess book from 1843 to prove the contention of the article, but I did not see the book actually recommend Bg4. Morphy, in his matches with professional players, faced the Philidor several times, and they did not play ...Bg3. They were obviously well aware it is a terrible move. The claim seems very dubious. 2603:8081:2603:E100:D536:3F91:B697:592B ( talk) 22:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
I see it as illogical to refer to Black as "he" in this game. Black was a team of two players working together, and it does not make sense to refer to a team of multiple people as if it consisted of only one of those people. For example, I imagine one would say, "Though the United States men's basketball team performed poorly in the first half, they managed to pull ahead in the second half," and that the word "he" would be incorrect in this case. ISaveNewspapers ( talk) 10:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
Is it known what chess set morphy used during the famous opera game? His set was a 1849 Jacques of London I believe but the game was 1858 in Europe so did he have his with him or was it another set? If so what was that set? 2600:4808:8C32:1C00:A1B8:816F:E4BB:89C1 ( talk) 12:09, 28 June 2024 (UTC)