Opera stars of the 1880s: where are they now? (Dead)

Content warning: white people

Emma Engdahl-Jägerskiöld

The omlaut-tastic star of the Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian stages opened her own opera company at the tailend of the 1880s. Nowadays, she struggles to keep up with the rigours of the job, because she is dead.

Sir George Power, 7th Baronet

Sir Power, the Kilkenny-born Gilbert & Sullivan star, is the only entry on this list to have been awarded a knighthood. A whole lot of good it did him, seeing as he is dead.

Emma Howson

The Australian soprano is another Gilbert & Sullivan veteran, renowned for creating the principal role of Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore. Like a lot of veterans, she is dead.

Marcella Sembrich

A native of Vyshnivchyk, a tiny village in what is now western Ukraine, the coloratura soprano came from humble beginnings. More recently, she met an even more humble ending. She is dead.

Adolf Kozieradski

We’re not entirely sure if he was big on the opera scene of the 1880s, but we wanted to include him because of his funny name. Whoever heard of a Kozieradski?

This Polish bass-baritone sang the lead in the world premiere of Stanisław Moniuszko’s The Haunted Manor in 1860s Warsaw. Now, the only thing he’s haunting is a cemetery. He is dead.

Lorenz Nikolai Achté

This next entry requires plenty of introduction. Born in Pori, on the west coast of Finland, Achté was one of the first artists attached to the Finnish National Opera and Ballet. His dedication to his homeland is such that he now fertilises some of it. He is dead.

Ernestine Schumann-Heink

Enrapturing audiences professionally since the age of just 15, we’re glad Schumann-Heink, raised in the environs of Bohemia, got started early. She is dead.

Klementina Kalašová

Following her shock eviction from the Big Brother house, the Czech opera singer successfully transitioned into a career as a media personality and pop star one-hit wonder.

That was a bit of levity. She is dead.

Francisco D’Andrade

I wonder if anyone’s made it this far. How much information is buried at the end of listicles? How many acutely personal truths are gathering dust at the bottom of blogposts, met with the same apathy that greeted the 1853 premiere of La traviata?

Anyway, he is dead.

Fyodor Petrovich Komissarzhevsky

Komissarzhevsky is best known for his versatility, proving adept not only as a leading tenor, but also for giving skull-splitting headaches to any critic trying to spell his name. Now comfortably into his twilight years, he divides his time equally between the Protestant Cemetery in Rome and nowhere else. This is because he is buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. He is dead.

Featured image: Openclipart

Comedy is about free speech, says comic best known for material about dick and balls

Comedy is a bastion of free speech and expression, according to a comic best known for a set about his dick and balls. More recently, the comedian is known for bemoaning the rise of cancel culture, after spending the 2010s berating feminists for focusing on problems that don’t exist.    

The comic agreed to speak to us, after we told him that The Toon Lampoon is a podcast.

“Stand-up can be used to accomplish powerful things, like giving a stadium full of women the ick simultaneously,” he said.

“I mean, no wonder comedy was banned by the Nazis.”

“Sorry, did I say Nazis? I meant to say feminists,” he continued, before raising his eyebrows at our reporter until she forced a laugh.

“I would be nothing without the penis and testicle soliloquy. Creatively, it’s my bread and butter.”

“Or should that be bread and boner?” he asked, before scribbling what he’d just said into a notebook labelled ‘Gold dust’.

Earlier this year, the comic had declared he had been cancelled, which, funnily enough, made headlines.

Featured image: 4753994 on Pixabay

Hero father of three resists googling Ariana Grande nude leaks during Christmas lunch

In an act that has been described as showing an inhuman level of restraint by several Cabinet ministers, a father of three today resisted the urge to covertly search for leaked nudes of popular music star Ariana Grande.

“To be honest, when I saw the news alert pop up on my phone, I was all set to slam on Incognito and get down to some serious cracker-pulling, right under the table,” Darren Smike, 37, told The Lampoon.

“But then, I thought about how it’s the kids’ first Christmas without their mum, what with Covid and everything, and I realised I had to be there for them, rather than grabbing a fistful of cranberry sauce for lubricant and painting the underside of the table as white as the first new snow.”

Mr Smike has been recommended for an OBE in the New Year’s Honour 2021 list by a Government insider who wished to remain anonymous, who told The Lampoon, “I have to applaud this individual’s restraint. I, for one, plunged the clunge at least seven times to that story about the drowning migrants over my starter.”

When approached for comment, Prince Andrew stated that he would, for one, would never feel the barest hint of arousal at the haggard visage of Miss Grande, and that he pitied any individual who would.

Featured image: Pxhere

Boris Johnson’s appearance on Would I Lie To You branded a catastrophe

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent attempt to boost his flagging approval ratings by appearing on popular panel show Would I Lie To You? has been lambasted as “a catastrophe” by his own MPs. The issue lay in the fact that the Prime Minister seemed to fail to grasp the concept of the game.

The broadcast started well enough, with Johnson engaged in light banter with his teammates, comedian Lee Mack and celebrity chef Delia Smith. However, things went downhill for the embattled PM after being given the statement “I never hosted a Christmas party whilst the rest of London was in lockdown”.

Seemingly unable to grasp the premise of the game, the PM initially claimed that he had never even read the card, before accusing the other team of “playing politics“ when they attempted to question Johnson about the statement. In a startling turn of events, the Prime Minister then apologised unreservedly about jokes made by his teammate Lee Mack earlier in the program, despite remaining adamant that no jokes ever took place. Lee Mack was later seen in tears resigning from the show.

“Frankly I think it was a preposterous idea to even begin with,” opposition team captain David Mitchell told The Lampoon. “He’s the prime minister during a global pandemic, why is he appearing on a panel shows? This seems like the sort of ludicrous thing only invented in the minds of bored satirists, not real life.”

Featured Image: Ali Plumb on Twitter and Number 10 on Flickr, edited by Joe Molander (in a drug-induced haze)

“Spencer” director looks forward to upcoming Prince Andrew biopic: “Nonce”

Though Spencer is still in the opening days of its theatrical release, Pablo Larraín has spoken enthusiastically with The Lampoon about his next planned project, which will examine the life and legacy of Prince Andrew, the Duke of York: Nonce.

“With Spencer, we took an imaginative approach to might have transpired during those days at Sandringham,” Larraín told The Lampoon’s Culture and Dogging Correspondent. “It’s such an intimate, almost secretive setting, that we were forced to jump to some conclusions to create a cohesive narrative.”

“Thankfully, when it comes to Andrew, there are all these useful legal documents that we can use. It’s going to make piecing together a story so much simpler.”

Prince Andrew, who still faces the threat of civil action in American courts, has not issued a statement since the relinquishing of his public duties. His whereabouts are unknown, though it is rumoured that the Duke of York is currently trapped within a large labyrinth under Buckingham Palace, feeding on the unwary as well as regular deliveries from Pizza Express.

Speaking about the differences between the two cinematic endeavours, Larraín noted the required difference in tone.

“Spencer, due to its content, is a taut, psychological drama that really opens up a private life to see the emotions within, and the filming reflected that.”

“Nonce, on the other hand, will have elements of a survival horror, as well as the occasional jump scare when… well, we don’t want to give anything away, but there are some scenes that are really going to make audiences sweat.”

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons

Report: single piano notes at beginning of movie trailer suggests it’s about to get real

An investigation into a trailer for the latest Hollywood blockbuster has confirmed suspicions that the piano notes at the start mean some serious shit is about to go down. The investigation into the trailer was launched by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), after The Lampoon’s film critic pirated it.

The Lampoon’s film critic agreed to share her thoughts from her private study, or – as it is known in the business – prison cell.

“I knew this trailer was gonna be a rollercoaster right from the get-go. As soon as I heard that first piano note, I just knew it would end with a violent action scene set to an upbeat song from the 1970s.”

“That’s the issue with us movie-buffs, you can’t fool us. Can you uncuff me?”

A representative for Warner Bros. Pictures confirmed “We’ve been trying to keep this under wraps for as long as possible, but yes, we can confirm it gets pretty gnarly in this trailer.”

“There’s action, dark action, quippy action, action on a roof, and more actors than your dad can ask ‘now what have I seen her in?’.”

A spokesperson for FACT said “Who pirates a trailer?”

Featured image: Warner Bros. Pictures on YouTube

Breaking: The Toon Lampoon staff have better things to do than just write satire for you

In a statement screamed at a trembling intern with a notebook, the Toon Lampoon editorial team confirmed the growing rumours that they had lives, loved ones, and hobbies.

“We simply cannot fathom the arrogance and lack of self-reflection of our reader base, who seem to believe we have nothing better to do than create middling satire for their mild amusement,” said Editor Joe Molander, shaking the weeping intern by the jacket lapels.

“We’ve been extremely clean on our publishing schedule, which is ‘when we want, when we say’. If that’s good enough for us, which it damn sure is, then it should be enough for the wheezing incompetents that it’s our fate to call ‘readers’.”

This is not the first time that a light has been shone on the lives of the Toon Lampoon staff outside of satire’s dank cocoon. Writer David Spain has been placed in satirist-mandated rehab following the reveal of his addiction to water on three separate occasions.

Another writer, Jon Deery, has been charged of demanding money with menaces or, as he described it, formally requesting a pay review.

“With all of these many and diverse activities, it is frankly inhumane that our readers can apparently expect a continuous output,” stated Molander, felling the luckless intern with a crane kick.

“Whether it’s our services to the arts, our highly decadent heroin buffets, or our work being used in the deposition of the CEO of MyPillow, we all have a world outside of the windows of this ramshackle sex shop, dusty and glazed with unspeakable humours though they may be.”

JSTOR undergoes minimalist logo redesign

Digital library and – somehow – the most annoying gatekeeper on the internet JSTOR has today unveiled a new minimalist logo. The Lampoon understands this is in anticipation of the site’s upcoming Supreme collab.

JSTOR’s graphic design team agreed to speak about the facelift with The Lampoon’s arts critic, who usually just reviews pornographic literature.

The JSTOR team insisted the redesign was not part of a cynical ploy to stay relevant.

“Relevant? We’re academics,” a spokesperson said.

The spokesperson continued “We needed a way to appeal to younger demographics, and what else were we gonna do? Lower our prices?”

“It’s not like we’re greedy. By the way, if you don’t have university access, these quotes are gonna cost you $85 to rent for 48 hours.”

The spokesperson continued, quickly becoming incensed at the idea of being more open.

“No, fuck you. In fact, if students think we’re gonna be more accessible, we’re gonna add three more institutional log-ins!”

“Hope you hippies like shibboleths.”

Featured Image: UCL

Media still not sure if it can talk about Prince Andrew again

The media has been left in a tailspin following the failure of the necromantic rituals sustaining Prince Philip’s 1000 year long unlife. As such, it has hesitantly decided not to publish Ghislaine Maxwell’s recent confession that she saw Prince Andrew attending one of Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous Bacchanoncia parties.

Although currently unproven, the allegations are widely considered true, due to her testimony that the man she saw “did not sweat at all, almost as if his skin was some kind of rubber suit hiding his real reptilian skin”.

Normally, the tabloid press would of course just say that no one in the Royal Family ever liked Randy Andy, and find a way to blame Meghan Markle for it. However, printing the revelations in the same paper as another article about the Royal Family could cause readers to conflate the two.

As such, no-one except The Toon Lampoon will be reporting on this. This is because showing respect to Big Liz and her family would be antithetical to our ethos of seeking cheap controversy at every opportunity.

For us, this is a golden opportunity to be the only news source reporting the event. As such, we can force anyone who’s interested to read through our overly lurid version of events. Readers are assured this will include unnecessary and arguably unethical levels of detail about what happened on the nonce island.

In other news, the Daily Express is pushing for a similar agreement against reporting on systemic racism. Supposedly, it would cause the Royals deep pain to know that the thing Philip loved so dearly is under attack.

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300th Article Special: The Very Best of The Toon Lampoon

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