Blind Guardian - A Night At The Opera
| Release date: | 1 March 2002 |
| Style: | Power metal |
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Owners: |
1049 have it 38 want it |
01. Precious Jerusalem
02. Battlefield
03. Under The Ice
04. Sadly Sings Destiny
05. The Maiden And The Minstrel Knight
06. Wait For An Answer
07. The Soulforged
08. Age Of False Innocence
09. Punishment Divine
10. And Then There Was Silence
11. Harvest Of Sorrow [acoustic version] [Japanese bonus]
12. Mies Del Dolor [Spanish bonus]
13. La Cosecha Del Dolor [Argentinean bonus]
14. Frutto Del Buio [Italian bonus]
15. Moisson De Peine [French bonus]
Featured in "Getting Into: Blind Guardian"
02. Battlefield
03. Under The Ice
04. Sadly Sings Destiny
05. The Maiden And The Minstrel Knight
06. Wait For An Answer
07. The Soulforged
08. Age Of False Innocence
09. Punishment Divine
10. And Then There Was Silence
11. Harvest Of Sorrow [acoustic version] [Japanese bonus]
12. Mies Del Dolor [Spanish bonus]
13. La Cosecha Del Dolor [Argentinean bonus]
14. Frutto Del Buio [Italian bonus]
15. Moisson De Peine [French bonus]
Featured in "Getting Into: Blind Guardian"
Guest review
Lyrics Hansi Kürsch - vocals
Marcus Siepen - guitars
André Olbrich - guitars
Thomas "Thomen" Stauch - drums
Additional musicians:
Mathias Wiesner - keyboards
Oliver Holzwarth - bass
Thomas "Hacky" Hackmann - backing vocals
Olaf Senkbeil - backing vocals
William King - backing vocals
Michael "Mi" Schüren - piano
Pad Bender - keyboards and sound effects
Boris Schmidt - keyboards and sound effects
Sascha Pierro - keyboards and sound effects
Additional info
Produced and mixed by Charlie Bauerfeind.
Lyrical references
The album features the concepts and themes familiar to Blind Guardian fans, such as historical battles and religious references.
* "Precious Jerusalem" is based on the final days of Jesus of Nazareth
* "Battlefield" is based of the Hildebrandslied, an old German tale of a father and son who find themselves in a duel to the death.
* "Under The Ice" also has connections to the Iliad, but focuses more on Cassandra and what happened to her after the Trojan War, particularly from The Oresteia.
* "Sadly Sings Destiny" contains many references to Jesus, and seems to be told from the perspective of Pontius Pilate.
* "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight" is about the story of Tristan und Isolde.
* "Wait for an Answer" is inspired by the situation in Germany during the Nazi reign.
* "The Soulforged" is based on the Dragonlance saga's tales of the mage Raistlin Majere.
* "Age of False Innocence" is about Galileo Galilei.
* "Punishment Divine" is about Nietzsche's decline into insanity.
* "And Then There Was Silence" is inspired by the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid.
* "Harvest of Sorrow" is based on Tolkien's tragic story of Túrin Turambar, which appears in the Silmarillion.
The album's title may be a reference to the Marx Brothers' 1935 film A Night at the Opera, or Queen's 1975 album A Night at the Opera.
"Harvest of Sorrow" has seven different versions in addition to two live versions: two in English, two in Spanish ("Mies Del Dolor, La Cosecha Del Dolor"), one in Italian ("Frutto Del Buio") , one in French ("Moisson de Peine"), and one in a mix of all of the versions except the English acoustic and Italian.
Guest review by
Emalaith
Emalaith
Rating:
10
10
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Rating: 10 |
They're back! Yes, finally we are getting more from Hansi and friends. Be warned, this album is brilliant but it takes some work to get into it. Going to the opera with Blind Guardian truly requires some effort on the part of the listener, so this is not something you want to play in the background! Let me explain... Listening to the album for the first time, I knew I had just listened to something grand and outstanding, but I could not grasp onto anything. No song, melody, chorus, or guitar riff particularly stuck in my head to make me want to revisit that particular piece. However, being a loyal Blind Guardian fan, I just listened to the album whenever I could, and after about the third time around, things started to take shape, melodies and guitar work began to crystallize, and the album began to reveal its beauty. Read more ›› |
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Comments
Comments: 24
Visited by: 1013 users
| qlacs "The Quaker" Posts: 1547  |
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| qlacs "The Quaker" Posts: 1547 |
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| Zmaj Ognjeni Vuk To Mega Therion Posts: 330  |
It's underrated with 8.4? That's a fucking good rating  Maybe it's a tab bit less "accessible" than the other ones (NIME, or even IFTO), therefore a lover average rating, but still an awesome album.
----  Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one, and they all stink.
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| mikeprado30 Posts: 1284  |
The only trouble with this AMAZING GEM is the overproduction it had. If wouldn't had soooo many choruses, guitars overlapped and other stuff that make some songs almost imposible to perform it live, then most people would accept it.
---- BARDS WE ARE, BARDS WE WILL BE!
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| jacut Posts: 67 |
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| CobiWan1993 Secundum Filium Posts: 1365  |
My favorite Blind Guardian album, and one of my favorite albums of all time!
---- Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe (Lao Tzu).
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| mikeprado30 Posts: 1284 |
Written by jacut on 22.06.2011 at 23:44 If more people would think as you  Cause this album is great!
---- BARDS WE ARE, BARDS WE WILL BE!
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| Patrick. Posts: 249  |
I'm joining the choir, this album is incredible!  I'd go even further, this is one of the greatest albums ever. 
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| Ellrohir Heaven Knight Posts: 8669  |
"And Then There Was Silence" is their most complex and epic song ever
---- My rest seems now calm and deep Finally I got my dead man sleep 
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| Rulatore Posts: 1108  |
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| fandango68 Posts: 194  |
I'm listening to this one again now, and I must admit, I really never get tired of it.... a symphonic power metal masterpiece...
---- First gig was Manowar (loincloths 'n' all), Bristol Colston Hall in March 1983, on the 'Hail to England' tour. Tickets were £3.75, 300 in the audience, Mercyful Fate never showed, but my hearing still got seriously trashed..
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 62022  |
So few comments since band has new album out I already judged it in the place, now I decide listen all from this to last , well Euro PM yes, epic I don't know, well melodic yes, somehgow they play good, but it has no BG soul, all is lost , uinfprunatly magic what this band had in 80's is lost, maybe grow up is bad thing?
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| mikeprado30 Posts: 1284 |
Written by Bad English on 08.02.2015 at 02:45 Or maybe you don't accept yet the band goes for another way in their musical style. Maybe this one doesn't fit into your tastes, but the work given for it (only ATTWS lasted THREE MONTHS to be recorded and produced) and the songwriting (at least for myself) makes it worth. As nowadays is a trend, most of the albums are good for some people, and not good for another people. In my case this album is very worth (not in vain I got the Japan version  )
---- BARDS WE ARE, BARDS WE WILL BE!
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| MeloMania Posts: 17 |
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| Ziom Posts: 640 |
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| Erudon Posts: 19 |
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| JoHn Doe Posts: 5107  |
I've always found this album patchy at best, I wonder if I would be listening to such an album if there was another singer. But Hansi makes the whole thing listenable. Three songs stood out for me, Sadly Sings Destiny, Punishment Divine and And Then There Was Silence. I don'tknow how to rate this (or maybe I do but do not want to upset anyone  )
---- I thought the two primary purposes for the internet were cat memes and overreactions.
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| majormalfunction Posts: 1507  |
Still my favourite of theirs. For a album clocking in at 67 minutes it has surprisingly good flow and the extremely exaggerated production suits the concept well. Also nice how everytime I listen to it I find new intresting things and my favourite songs change all the time.
---- Everything's twice as bright with money in your hands
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| TSRodriguez Posts: 57  |
Not Blind Guardian's best, but still quite excellent, and it has the best song in Power metal history (And then there was silence)
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| Redel Moderator Posts: 2250  |
Written by TSRodriguez on 12.06.2020 at 10:18 And then there was silence is the best song on this album, by far. It is among my all-time favourite songs by them. I do like the entire album though. Not many more excellent songs, Battlefield maybe, but consistently enjoyable throughout. Their last great album for me. 
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| Athenar Posts: 27  |
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| GrimReaper85 Posts: 123 |
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| Majesty1911 Posts: 194  |
A slightly controversial album, 20 years ago people hated it, and now it's praised a lot by many. For me, production and songwriting here is a little off, not bad, but overcomplicated. Though, it definitely has its super cool moments, like the main melody in "Battlefield", the chorus hook in "Under the Ice" and the second part of the epic "And Then There Was Silence". Also, I like "The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight" and "The Soulforged" very much. The band tried to compress together tones of different ideas with mixed results. Some complex and curious work indeed.
---- Glory to the Nation!
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| musclassia Staff Posts: 7633  |
I got really into this album when I first discovered BG; after a while, I found myself cooling slightly on most of the songs here, but Battlefield is obviously killer, and And Then There Was Silence is absolutely the pinnacle of power metal IMO (only song that might contest that for me is Halloween by Helloween)
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And then there was silence is epic.
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