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The Operatic Occupations Puzzler

Jose Carbo (left) is the wily title character in a Sydney Opera House production of Rossini's <em>Il barbieri di Siviglia</em>.
Patrick Riviere
/
Getty Images
Jose Carbo (left) is the wily title character in a Sydney Opera House production of Rossini's Il barbieri di Siviglia.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. Who needs them, who's going to get them and who might lose them? It's a hot topic on the campaign trail. With the addition of only about 80,000 jobs last month, the June unemployment rate remained at a stubborn 8.2 percent.

Thankfully, economic factors like these don't weigh heavily in opera — at least for the characters themselves. Although, come to think of it, Leporello is left unemployed when his boss Don Giovanni is dragged down to hell. And then there's poor Canio, star of Pagliacci, who won't be getting many more acting gigs after stabbing two colleagues to death.

Below are six operatic characters with relatively steady employment. Your own job is to listen to each music clip, identify the character and his or her occupation, then drag the clip to the corresponding image. Score high, and look for that bonus in your paycheck. Screw up, and beware the pink slip.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tom Huizenga is a producer for NPR Music. He contributes a wide range of stories about classical music to NPR's news programs and is the classical music reviewer for All Things Considered. He appears regularly on NPR Music podcasts and founded NPR's classical music blog Deceptive Cadence in 2010.