Alexa Goes For Hell's Revenge In New Commercial From Amazon

Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant that uses artificial intelligence technology, is activated by voice interaction to control music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports, and other real-time information, such as news. In their latest television commercial, they tap one of Mozart's most famous arias from Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) sung by the Königin der Nacht (Queen of the Night): "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen." Known as the "Vengeance Aria," it is wickedly high and hard to sing. The promo is pushing customers to create playlists with Summer Vibes. The client trying to relax interrupts the performance to request "something more fun" which quickly transforms the scene to Donna Summer singing "I Feel Love." Watch the full Amazon commercial, a performance of Edda Moser singing the complete aria, a video of Donna Summer, and check out the lyrics with translations for the aria after the jump. [Source, Source]

Claritin Allergy Medicine Could Save Escamillo From Spring Allergies

Claritin allows you to get back to your daily activities which may include kicking a soccer ball
into a shopping cart or going to the opera!

The latest commercial for allergy medication product Claritin features the overture from Bizet's Carmen. The tune is from the aria "Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre," more commonly known as Escamillo's "Toreador Song." Watch the commercial, and a video of James Levine conducting the overture, after the jump.

Schubert "Die Forelle" Used To Sell Axe Dry Spray Antiperspirant

Nothing Fishy Here: Ad man promotes the new product from Axe.

The latest product from Axe, White Label Dry Spray Antiperspirant, features the music of Franz Schubert's famous lied "Die Forelle" in the commercial promoting the product. "Introducing the first ever dry spray antiperspirant line from Axe® -- an entirely new way from Axe® to stay dry. Applied to the underarms, this revolutionary new product was specially designed to go on instantly dry with no visible residue, keeping you fresh and protected from sweat for 48 hours. Featuring a cool rush of grapefruit, lavender, cedarwood and praline notes, the Axe White Label Night dry spray will keep you immaculately fresh so you feel your finest." [Source] Watch the commercial for Axe, and hear Renée Fleming sing "Die Forelle," after the jump.

Dominic Purcell Hears Operatic Overtones In Yoplait Whips Ad

"Australian actor Dominic Purcell stars in this Yoplait ad as 'A Man of Yogurt.' Sitting outside in a stylish suit, he describes in his deep, husky voice the experience he had with the Greek 100 Whips! Strawberry Cheesecake yogurt. He gets into detail about the texture, saying it's like "a little fluffy fluffy cloud" in his mouth. Now, cue the opera music as he eats more of the snack." [Source] Although the snippet is not from any particular composed opera, it sounds like something that might be heard in a duet from Lucia di Lammermoor. Watch the commercial after the jump.

You Will Celebrate At The Opera After Getting A Good Night's Sleep

A commercial celebrating the joy of a good night's sleep on a Simmons® Beautyrest® features a woman celebrating with champagne in several locations, including the opera house. It seems as though she may be watching a Gilbert & Sullivan performance or Billy Budd according to the costume of the singer onstage. Watch the commercial after the jump.

Filmmaker Casey Neistat Vlog Gets Operatic Opening From Soprano

Thanks to a diva neighbor, Casey Neistat captures some soaring high notes flying around his Tribeca neighborhood office for the opening of his most recent vlog posting on YouTube. Think you can identify the soprano? Watch the video (titled "The Day I Almost Died"), and see a couple of the most famous commercials (Nike, Mercedes Benz, J Crew) Mr. Neistat has directed, after the jump. Keep up with the rest of his vlog videos by clicking here. 

Pool Time Is For the Birds In Promotional Featuring Aquatic Youth

A group of young people assemble at a swimming pool to create a Bellagio-style water show using water guns. Under the show plays the overture from Rossini's La gazza ladra. "La gazza ladra (Italian pronunciation: [la ˈɡaddza ˈlaːdra], The Thieving Magpie) is a melodramma or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on La pie voleuse by Jean-Marie-Theodor Badouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. The composer Giaochino Rossini wrote quickly, and La gazza ladra was no exception. According to legend, before the first performance of the opera, the producer assured the composition of the overture by locking Rossini in a room, from the window of which the composer threw out the sheets of music to the copyists who then wrote the orchestral parts, to complete the composition of the opera. As such, The Thieving Magpie is best known for the overture, which is musically notable for its use of snare drums." [Source] Watch the video after the jump.

Doritos Capitalizes On The Popularity Of Duet By Delibes

Doritos, promoting their "Go For Bold" campaign, created a commercial for the Super Bowl that uses a duet from the opera Lakmé by Delibes. The piece, "Viens, Mallika, les lianes en fleurs....Dôme épais, le jasmin," comes from Act I of the opera and is commonly known as the "Flower Duet." Read more about the opera by clicking here. See several interpretations featuring sopranos Anna Netrebko, Sumi Jo, Joan Sutherland, Renée Fleming, Diana Damrau, Montserrat Caballé, and more, after the jump.

ID Channel Combines Things Some Fear Most: Opera And Kidnapping

The Investigation Channel is airing a commercial for their series House of Horrors: Kidnapped. The spot opens with a man seated with his back to the camera and he slowly drops the needle on an LP. An operatic soprano voice starts to pulsate across the screen. The man slowly turns up the volume as the camera begins to pan down to the basement floor beneath him which indicates he may be hiding his latest victim there. The tagline: "One man's home, can be someone else's hell." It would take some investigating to find actual criminals that were also lovers of opera. In the meantime, learn more about the series by clicking here. Watch the spot after the jump.

Jolly Rancher Bites Gets A Lift From Wagner's Valkyries

A new commercial for Jolly Rancher's Bites candy features the "Ride of the Valkyries" from the opera Die Walküre by Richard Wagner. The bite-sized gummies are available in watermelon, green apple and cherry flavors. Check out their website for more information by clicking here.

Mozart Lends Music For 2015 Turbo Tax Season

"It’s not always easy, but love finds a way. No matter what you went through last year, answering questions about it is simple. Get your taxes done right with TurboTax." The tax company uses "Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen" from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. Watch Lucia Popp (Pamina) and Wolfgang Brendel (Papageno) perform the piece on stage under conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Chris Pine Meets The Barber During Armani Code Commercial

Actor Chris Pine seen here in the elusive cologne commercial for Armani Code. An electronic version of the overture from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia plays under the ad. Watch the clip after the jump.

AHS Makes Clowns More Terrifying Than Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci"

John Carroll Lynch plays the murderous kidnapping 
clown in American Horror Story: Freak Show

"American Horror Story: Freak Show caps off centuries of suspicion towards Bozo & co. 'You know, Dave,' Chicago children's entertainer Pogo reportedly said over dinner with two cops who'd been tailing him, 'clowns can get away with murder.' Pogo would know, because outside of his clown identity he was John Wayne Gacy, the notorious 1970s serial killer and maybe one of the worst things to happen to clowns since the 1892 opera Pagliacci. Clowns, it's fair to say, are not currently having the best time of it, PR-wise. The fourth season of American Horror Story, which debuted Wednesday, features Twisty the Clown as the primary antagonist: a terrifying perversion of the profession with a mask of grinning, oversized teeth and distorted black lips. In the opening episode, Twisty bounds up to a young couple in broad daylight, knocks them both out with juggling clubs, stabs the young man over and over again, kidnaps the woman and locks her up with a young boy in a decrepit old school bus, and forces them both to watch him craft balloon animals (there being clearly no limits to his malevolence).

Even a dandy can turn into an evil clown with the right 
accessories: Finn Wittrock stars as the twisted Mr. Mott

In addition to this new incarnation of the monstrous, murdering clown trope, rogue scary clowns have been spotted recently stalking the streets of Wasco, California. In July, a 'creepy' clown wearing a red wig and clutching a handful of pink balloons was sighted walking through Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. The professional clown industry, for once, isn't smiling. Membership of the World Clown Association, a U.S.-based trade group for performers, has fallen from 3,500 to 2,500 over the last 10 years. In the UK, a similar group, Clown International, has lost almost 90 percent of its members from its peak in the 1980s. Earlier this year, Butlin's holiday camp, in the popular destination of Bognor Regis, withdrew its annual offer to sponsor the group's annual gathering thanks to a decline in overall clown approval ratings....Despite all this, clowns were typically viewed in a positive light for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, even though Leoncavallo's aforementioned 1892 opera, Pagliacci, told the story of a clown who murders his unfaithful wife and her lover with a knife. ('Se il viso è pallido, è di vergogna,' the clown sings, or, 'If my face is white, it is for shame.') The turning point, culture-wise, appears to have been the arrest of Gacy, dubbed "the Killer Clown" by the media, whose grisly string of sexual assaults and murders contrasted so vividly with his alternate clown persona. As Pogo, Gacy

Tears of a Clown: Plácido Domingo as
Canio in the opera Pagliacci

performed at parades, parties, and charitable events, even meeting First Lady Rosalynn Carter in 1978 thanks to his role as director of Chicago's Polish Constitution Day Parade. While on death row, he painted a number of portraits of clowns, many depicting himself as Pogo, claiming that he wanted to use the paintings 'to bring joy into people's lives.'" [Source] After the jump, find portraits of over 100 tenors who have sung the role of Canio over the last century and watch tenor Jonas Kaufmann record the famous aria "Vesti la giubba" from Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. An interesting article from 2008 showing how often popular media use the famous aria in advertising can be read here. Most recently Wendy's referenced it in their new "99¢ Right Size Menu" campaign. Watch the video below:

Duke of Mantua Becomes Adman For Visa & Chelsea Ristorante

A new commercial for Municipal Credit Union Visa features New York City's Chelsea Ristorante in order to sell its low-interest card. The music playing under the commercial is the Duke of Mantua's canzone "La donna è mobile" from the beginning of Act 3 of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto from 1851. Judging from the gallery on the restaurants website, it is a favorite for "Sopranos." For more information about the MCU, click here.

Rossini Has As Much "Go Power" As Cheerios Oats From GM

"Many television commercials for Cheerios have targeted children featuring animated characters (such as an animated Honeybee). Bullwinkle was featured in early 1960s commercials; being his usual likably klutzy self; the tag line at the end of the ad being 'Go with Cheerios!' followed by Bullwinkle, usually worse for wear due to his Cheerios-inspired bravery somewhat backfiring, saying '...but watch where you're going!' Also, Hoppity Hooper was featured in ads in the mid-1960s, as General Mills was the primary sponsor of his animated program. Beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing through the early 1960s, 'The Cheerios Kid' was a mainstay in Cheerios commercials. The Kid, after eating Cheerios, quickly dealt with whatever problem presented in the commercial, using oat-produced 'Big-G, little-o' 'Go-power.' The character was revived briefly in the late 1980s in similar commercials. In 2012, The Cheerios Kid and sidekick Sue were revived in an online internet video that showed how Cheerios 'can lower cholesterol.' [Source] The new commercial from General Mills features the Guglielmo Tell (or William Tell) overture as the soundtrack, probably because the music was used for the American television show The Lone Ranger (note the correlation of the cowboy at the beginning of the ad). Watch Riccardo Muti conduct the full Guglielmo Tell overture after the jump.

Tax Slayer Uses Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" In Commercial

Music underlying the advertisement is the "Walkürenritt" from the beginning of Act III in Richard Wagner's Die Walküre. No guarantee if it will help you put Ikea furniture together though.

Top Performers: Carmen, Jenson Button, And Mobil Synthetic Motor Oil

As unsuspecting drivers pull in for a car wash, they are soon met with a pit crew cleaning their cars and a surprise visit from British Formula One race car champion Jenson Button. The overture from Bizet's opera Carmen plays under the action during the commercial.

"To prove the outstanding, all-around performance of Mobil 1™ synthetic motor oil, we authenticate our lab results in some of the toughest, most extreme, real-life conditions anywhere in the world. That’s why:
- More than half of all NASCAR teams choose it
- Many automakers choose it for factory fill
- It has received more automaker and industry approvals
And that’s why Mobil 1 is the world’s leading synthetic motor oil brand. Time after time Mobil 1 delivers. [Source]

Watch the video and read more about Jenson Button after the jump.

Purina Dog Dreams Of Swimming To Rossini's "Largo al Factotum"

In the commercial sequence for Purina's Pro Plan dog food, we see a Cardigan Welsh Corgi deep in sleep dreaming of a swimming race with another dog to fetch a ball. The music playing under the advertisement is the aria "Largo al Factotum" from Rossini's opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia. To learn more about the dog food, click here.

Dairy Queen's Confetti Cake Waffle Cone Inspires Wagnerian Reactions

Anna Netrebko Becomes Official Face Of Austrian Airlines Ads

"Austrian Airlines has launched a new advertising campaign featuring Anna Netrebko and Austrian Olympic gold medal-winning downhill skier Matthias Mayer. Anna’s ad, which portrays her impromptu in-flight encounter with a fellow passenger, can be watched here. The campaign will run in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland on television, in cinemas, in print media, and on the airline’s digital channels. 'I love to fly with Austrian Airlines,' says Anna. 'For this reason, working together with the airline gives me great pleasure. As a frequent flyer for professional reasons, Austrian Airlines is practically my second home when I am traveling.'" [Source] Watch the video advertisements after the jump.