title: Tower of Hanoi

text: For large enough "n", only the first and second terms do not converge to zero, so we get an asymptotic expression: formula_23, as formula_24. Thus intuitively, we could interpret the fraction of formula_25 as representing the ratio of the labor one has to perform when going from a randomly chosen configuration to another randomly chosen configuration, relative to the difficulty of having to cross the "most difficult" path of length formula_26 which involves moving all the disks from one peg to another. An alternative explanation for the appearance of the constant 466/885, as well as a new and somewhat improved algorithm for computing the shortest path, was given by Romik.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: In Magnetic Tower of Hanoi, each disk has two distinct sides North and South (typically colored "red" and "blue").


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: Disks must not be placed with the similar poles together—magnets in each disk prevent this illegal move.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: This variation of the famous Tower of Hanoi puzzle was offered to grade 3–6 students at "2ème Championnat de France des Jeux Mathématiques et Logiques" held in July 1988.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: The rules of the puzzle are essentially the same: disks are transferred between pegs one at a time. At no time may a bigger disk be placed on top of a smaller one. The difference is that now for every size there are two disks: one black and one white. Also, there are now two towers of disks of alternating colors. The goal of the puzzle is to make the towers monochrome (same color). The biggest disks at the bottom of the towers are assumed to swap positions.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: A variation of the puzzle has been adapted as a solitaire game with nine playing cards under the name Tower of Hanoy. It is not known whether the altered spelling of the original name is deliberate or accidental.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: The Tower of Hanoi is frequently used in psychological research on problem-solving. There also exists a variant of this task called Tower of London for neuropsychological diagnosis and treatment of executive functions.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: Zhang and Norman used several isomorphic (equivalent) representations of the game to study the impact of representational effect in task design. They demonstrated an impact on user performance by changing the way that the rules of the game are represented, using variations in the physical design of the game components. This knowledge has impacted on the development of the TURF framework for the representation of human–computer interaction.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: The Tower of Hanoi is also used as a backup rotation scheme when performing computer data backups where multiple tapes/media are involved.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: As mentioned above, the Tower of Hanoi is popular for teaching recursive algorithms to beginning programming students. A pictorial version of this puzzle is programmed into the emacs editor, accessed by typing M-x hanoi. There is also a sample algorithm written in Prolog.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: The Tower of Hanoi is also used as a test by neuropsychologists trying to evaluate frontal lobe deficits.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: In 2010, researchers published the results of an experiment that found that the ant species "Linepithema humile" were successfully able to solve the 3-disk version of the Tower of Hanoi problem through non-linear dynamics and pheromone signals.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: In 2014, scientists synthesized multilayered palladium nanosheets with a Tower of Hanoi like structure.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: In the science fiction story "Now Inhale", by Eric Frank Russell, a human is held prisoner on a planet where the local custom is to make the prisoner play a game until it is won or lost before his execution. The protagonist knows that a rescue ship might take a year or more to arrive, so he chooses to play Towers of Hanoi with 64 disks. This story makes reference to the legend about the Buddhist monks playing the game until the end of the world.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: In the 1966 "Doctor Who" story "The Celestial Toymaker", the eponymous villain forces the Doctor to play a ten-piece 1,023-move Tower of Hanoi game entitled The Trilogic Game with the pieces forming a pyramid shape when stacked.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: In 2007, the concept of the Towers Of Hanoi problem was used in "Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box" in puzzles 6, 83, and 84, but the disks had been changed to pancakes. The puzzle was based around a dilemma where the chef of a restaurant had to move a pile of pancakes from one plate to the other with the basic principles of the original puzzle (i.e. three plates that the pancakes could be moved onto, not being able to put a larger pancake onto a smaller one, etc.)


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: In the film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011), this puzzle, called in the film the "Lucas Tower", is used as a test to study the intelligence of apes.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: The puzzle is featured regularly in adventure and puzzle games. Since it is easy to implement, and easily recognised, it is well-suited to use as a puzzle in a larger graphical game (e.g. "" and "Mass Effect"). Some implementations use straight disks, but others disguise the puzzle in some other form. There is an arcade version by Sega.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: A 15-disk version of the puzzle appears in the game "Sunless Sea" as a lock to a tomb. The player has the option to click through each move of the puzzle in order to solve it, but the game notes that it will take 32767 moves to complete. If an especially dedicated player does click through to the end of the puzzle, it is revealed that completing the puzzle does not unlock the door.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: In "Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS", a hacking group called "Knight of Hanoi" create a structure named "Tower of Hanoi" within the eponymous VRAINS virtual reality network.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: This was first used as a challenge in "Survivor" Thailand in 2002 but rather than rings, the pieces were made to resemble a temple. Sook Jai threw the challenge to get rid of Jed even though Shii-Ann knew full well how to complete the puzzle.


title: Tower of Hanoi

text: The problem is featured as part of a reward challenge in a . Both players (Ozzy Lusth and Benjamin "Coach" Wade) struggled to understand how to solve the puzzle and are aided by their fellow tribe members.


title: Stigmata

text: Stigmata (, plural of , 'mark, spot, brand'), in Roman Catholicism, are bodily wounds, scars and pain which appear in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ: the hands, wrists, and feet.


title: Stigmata

text: Stigmata are exclusively associated with Roman Catholicism. Many reported stigmatics are members of Catholic religious orders. St. Francis of Assisi was the first recorded stigmatic. For over fifty years, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin reported stigmata which were studied by several 20th-century physicians. Stigmata are foreign to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which professes no official view on them; the only stigmatics have been Catholics who lived after the Great Schism of 1054.


title: Stigmata

text: A high percentage (perhaps over 80%) of all stigmatics are women. In his book "Stigmata: A Medieval Phenomenon in a Modern Age", Ted Harrison suggests that there is no single mechanism whereby the marks of stigmata were produced. What is important is that the marks are recognised by others as of religious significance. Many cases of stigmata have been debunked as trickery. Some cases have also included reportings of a mysterious chalice in visions being given to stigmatics to drink from or the feeling of a sharp sword being driven into one's chest.


title: Stigmata

text: Reported cases of stigmata take various forms. Many show some or all Five Sacred Wounds that were, according to the Bible, inflicted on Jesus during his crucifixion: wounds in the wrists and feet, from nails; and in the side, from a lance. Some stigmatics display wounds to the forehead similar to those caused by the crown of thorns. Stigmata as crown of thorns appearing in the 20th century, e.g. on Marie Rose Ferron, have been repeatedly photographed. Other reported forms include tears of blood or sweating blood, and wounds to the back as from scourging.


title: Stigmata

text: Many stigmata show recurring bleeding that stops and then starts, at times after receiving Holy Communion; a significant proportion of stigmatics have shown a strong desire to receive Holy Communion frequently. A relatively high percentage of stigmatics also exhibit inedia, claiming to live with minimal (or no) food or water for long periods of time, except for the Holy Eucharist. Some exhibit weight loss, and closer investigation often reveals evidence of fakery.


title: Stigmata

text: Some stigmatics claim to feel the pain of wounds with no external marks; these are referred to as "invisible stigmata". Some stigmatics' wounds do not appear to clot, and seem to stay fresh and uninfected. The blood from the wounds is said, in some cases, to have a pleasant, perfumed odor, known as the Odour of Sanctity.


title: Stigmata

text: Individuals who have obtained the stigmata are many times described as ecstatics, overwhelmed with emotions upon receiving the stigmata. No case of stigmata is known to have occurred before the thirteenth century.


title: Stigmata

text: In his paper "Hospitality and Pain", Christian theologian Ivan Illich states: "Compassion with Christ ... is faith so strong and so deeply incarnate that it leads to the individual embodiment of the contemplated pain." His thesis is that stigmata result from exceptional poignancy of religious faith and desire to associate oneself with the suffering Messiah.


title: Stigmata

text: Differently from the Five Holy Wounds of Christ, some mystics like Francis of Assisi and father Pio of Petralcina reported a spontaneous regression and closure of their stigmata in the days following their death. Both of them claimed to have received the divine stigmata in their hands as well as in their feet.


title: Stigmata

text: St. Francis of Assisi is the first recorded stigmatic in Christian history. In 1224, two years before his death, he embarked on a journey to Mount La Verna for a forty-day fast. The legend states that one morning, near the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, a six-winged angel appeared to Francis while he prayed. As the angel approached, Francis could see that the angel was crucified. He was humbled by the sight, and his heart was filled with elation joined by pain and suffering. When the angel departed, Francis was left with wounds in his hands, feet, and side as if caused by the same lance that pierced Christ’s side. The image of nails immediately appeared in his hands and feet, and the wound in his side often seeped blood. In traditional artistic depictions of the incident, Francis is accompanied by a Franciscan brother.


title: Stigmata

text: St. Francis' first biographer, Thomas of Celano, reports the event in his 1230 "First Life of St. Francis":


title: Stigmata

text: When the blessed servant of God saw these things he was filled with wonder, but he did not know what the vision meant. He rejoiced greatly in the benign and gracious expression with which he saw himself regarded by the seraph, whose beauty was indescribable; yet he was alarmed by the fact that the seraph was affixed to the cross and was suffering terribly. Thus Francis rose, one might say, sad and happy, joy and grief alternating in him. He wondered anxiously what this vision could mean, and his soul was uneasy as it searched for understanding. And as his understanding sought in vain for an explanation and his heart was filled with perplexity at the great novelty of this vision, the marks of nails began to appear in his hands and feet, just as he had seen them slightly earlier in the crucified man above him.


title: Stigmata

text: His wrists and feet seemed to be pierced by nails, with the heads of the nails appearing on his wrists and on the upper sides of his feet, the points appearing on the other side. The marks were round on the palm of each hand but elongated on the other side, and small pieces of flesh jutting out from the rest took on the appearance of the nail-ends, bent and driven back. In the same way the marks of nails were impressed on his feet and projected beyond the rest of the flesh. Moreover, his right side had a large wound as if it had been pierced with a spear, and it often bled so that his tunic and trousers were soaked with his sacred blood.


title: Stigmata

text: From the records of St. Francis' physical ailments and symptoms, Edward Frederick Hartung concluded in 1935 that he knew what health problems plagued St. Francis. Hartung believed that he had an eye ailment known as trachoma and quartan malaria.


title: Stigmata

text: Quartan malaria infects the liver, spleen, and stomach, causing the victim intense pain. One complication of quartan malaria occasionally seen around Francis' time is known as purpura, a purple hemorrhage of blood into the skin. According to Hartung "If this were the case of St. Francis, he would have been afflicted by "ecchymoses", an exceedingly large "purpura". The purple spots of blood may have been punctured while in the wilderness and there appear as an open wound like that of Christ."


title: Stigmata

text: A later medical hypothesis was proposed in 1987 to explain the wounds, it claimed that St. Francis may have contracted leprosy.


title: Stigmata

text: For over fifty years, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina reported stigmata which were studied by several 20th-century physicians, whose independence from the Church is not known.


title: Stigmata

text: The observations were reportedly inexplicable and the wounds never became infected. His wounds healed once, but reappeared. The wounds were examined by Luigi Romanelli, chief physician of the City Hospital of Barletta, for about one year. The physician Angelo Maria Merla noted that the wounds were not tubercular in origin but could not make an official diagnosis without further tests. The surgeon Giorgio Festa, a private practitioner, also examined them in 1920 and 1925. Professor Giuseppe Bastianelli, physician to Pope Benedict XV, examined the wounds, but no report of his examinations was made. Pathologist Amico Bignami of the University of Rome also observed the wounds, describing them as shallow. Festa, who had originally agreed with Bignami, later described the wounds as superficial when covered with a scab. Giorgio Festa noted that "at the edges of the lesions, the skin is perfectly normal and does not show any sign of edema, of penetration, or of redness, even when examined with a good magnifying glass". Alberto Caserta took X-rays of the hands in 1954 and found no abnormality in the bone structure. Giuseppe Sala who worked as a physician for Pio between 1956 and 1968 commented that tests revealed his blood had no signs of abnormality.


title: Stigmata

text: There were both religious and non-religious critics who accused Padre Pio of faking his stigmata, saying he used carbolic acid to make the wounds. The historian Sergio Luzzatto recounted that in 1919, according to one document in the Vatican's archive, Pio had requested carbolic acid from a pharmacist. She said it was for sterilizing syringes used for vaccination.


title: Stigmata

text: Amico Bignami in a report wrote that the wounds were caused by "neurotic necrosis". He suggested they had been inflicted unconsciously by suggestion and artificially maintained by iodine that Pio had used as a disinfectant. In 1922, physician Agostino Gemelli wrote that Pio was an hysteric and his stigmata were self-induced, not of supernatural origin. Gemelli also speculated that his wounds were kept open with carbolic acid. Giorgio Festa, who examined the stigmata of the friar on October 28, 1919, wrote in his report that they "are not the product of a trauma of external origin, nor are they due to the application of potently irritating chemicals".


title: Stigmata

text: Throughout his life, Pio had hidden his wounds by wearing fingerless gloves. At death there were no wounds, only "unblemished skin".


title: Stigmata

text: The first saint from India with stigmata was nun Mariam Thresia Chiramel. She was canonised on 13 October 2019 by Pope Francis.


title: Stigmata

text: In the late nineteenth century, a French physician named Dr. A Imbert-Goubeyre began compiling a census of known stigmatics from the thirteenth century to his own time. This census includes 280 female and 41 male stigmatics, meaning women comprise a little over 87% of the list. Additionally, the University of Antwerp released a database of information on 244 stigmatics in April 2019. 92% of the stigmatics in the database are female. In some cases, convent sisters have attempted to shield stigmatic women from public scrutiny, often out of fear of how their condition would affect the convent's reputation. So, the amount of women stigmatics may be even higher than historical record shows.


title: Stigmata

text: Despite the high number of women stigmatics throughout history, the best-known and least contested stigmatics, such as Francis of Assisi and Padre Pio, have been men.


title: Stigmata

text: Many stigmatics have been exposed for using trickery. Magdalena de la Cruz for example confessed before she died that her stigmata was deliberate deception.


title: Stigmata

text: Early neurologist Désiré-Magloire Bourneville published works which stated that saints claiming to produce miracles or stigmata, and those claiming to be possessed, were actually suffering from epilepsy or hysteria. Some modern research has indicated stigmata are of hysterical origin or linked to dissociative identity disorder.


title: Stigmata

text: There is a link between dietary constriction by self-starvation, dissociative mental states and self-mutilation, in the context of a religious belief. Anorexia nervosa cases often display self-mutilation similar to stigmata as part of a ritualistic, obsessive–compulsive disorder. A relationship between starvation and self-mutilation has been reported amongst prisoners of war and during famines.


title: Stigmata

text: The psychologist Leonard Zusne in his book "Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking" (1989) has written:


title: Stigmata

text: In his "Stigmata: A Medieval Phenomenon in a Modern Age", Ted Harrison suggests that there is no single mechanism whereby the marks of stigmata were produced. Harrison found no evidence from a study of contemporary cases that the marks were supernatural in origin. He concluded, however, that marks of natural origin need not be hoaxes. Some stigmatics marked themselves in attempt to suffer with Christ as a form of piety. Others marked themselves accidentally and their marks were noted as stigmata by witnesses. Often marks of human origin produced profound and genuine religious responses.


title: Stigmata

text: Harrison also noted the male-to-female ratio of stigmatics, which for many centuries had been of the order of 7 to 1, had changed since the late 1800s to a ratio of 5 to 4. Appearance of stigmata frequently coincided with times when issues of authority loomed large in the Church. What was significant about stigmatics was not that they were predominantly men, but that they were non-ordained. Having stigmata gave them direct access to the body of Christ without requiring the permission of the Church through the Eucharist. Only in the last century have priests been stigmatised.


title: Stigmata

text: One suggestion is that painful bruising syndrome may explain rare cases of non self-induced stigmata.


title: Stigmata

text: Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell, who investigated recent cases of stigmata such as Katya Rivas, commented that they are indistinguishable from hoaxing.


title: Stigmata

text: In 2002, a psychoanalytic study of stigmatic Therese Neumann suggested her stigmata resulted from post-traumatic stress symptoms expressed in unconscious self-mutilation through abnormal autosuggestibility.


title: Stigmata

text: Among the Warao of the Orinoco Delta, a contemplator of tutelary spirits may mystically induce the development of "...(imagined) openings in the palms of his hands."


title: Stigmata

text: Some spiritualist mediums have also produced stigmata. During the séances of German medium Maria Vollhardt, it was alleged that bleeding wounds appeared. However, Albert Moll, a psychiatrist, considered her phenomena to be fraudulent.


title: David Morse

text: David Bowditch Morse (born October 11, 1953) is an American actor, singer, television director, and writer. He first came to national attention as Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison in the medical drama series "St. Elsewhere" (1982–88). His film career has included roles in "The Negotiator", "Contact", "The Green Mile", "Dancer in the Dark", "Disturbia", "The Long Kiss Goodnight", "The Rock" and "12 Monkeys".


title: David Morse

text: In 2006, Morse had a recurring role as Detective Michael Tritter on the medical drama series "House", for which he received an Emmy Award nomination. He portrayed George Washington in the 2008 HBO miniseries "John Adams", which garnered him a second Emmy nomination. He received acclaim for his portrayal of Uncle Peck on the Off-Broadway play "How I Learned to Drive", earning a Drama Desk Award and Obie Award. He has had success on Broadway, portraying James "Sharky" Harkin in "The Seafarer". From 2010 to 2013, he portrayed Terry Colson, an honest police officer in a corrupt New Orleans police department, on the HBO series "Treme". Morse appeared in the WGN America series "Outsiders" (2016–17), in the Showtime miniseries "Escape at Dannemora" (2018) and the Netflix comedy drama series "The Chair" (2021).


title: David Morse

text: Morse was born October 11, 1953, in Beverly, Massachusetts, the son of Jacquelyn Morse, a school teacher, and Charles Morse, a sales manager. He was raised in Essex, Massachusetts and Hamilton, Massachusetts. His middle name, Bowditch, comes from mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch.


title: David Morse

text: After graduating from high school in 1971, Morse studied acting at the William Esper Studio. He began his acting career in the theater as a player for the Boston Repertory Theatre in the early 1970s. In the mid-1970s, Esquire Jauchem, artistic director of the Boston Repertory Theater, adapted and directed a stage musical version of "The Point!" that starred an 18-year-old Morse as Oblio. The production later toured to the Trinity Square Repertory Company in Providence. He spent some time in New York's theater community in the early 1980s before moving into television and film. During that time, Morse was listed as one of the twelve most "Promising New Actors of 1980" in John A. Willis's "Screen World, Vol. 32". Morse's big break came in 1982 when he was cast in the television medical drama "St. Elsewhere". He played Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison, a young physician who is forced to deal with the death of his wife and the struggles of a single parent professional.


title: David Morse

text: Morse appeared in a number of supporting roles following "St. Elsewhere". He is quoted as saying: "I made the decision that I didn't care if there was any money in the role or not. I had to find roles that were different from what I had been doing." His turn in "Desperate Hours" as antagonist showed a darker Morse. He later starred in "The Indian Runner" and "The Crossing Guard". He has appeared in three adaptations of Stephen King stories: "The Langoliers", "Hearts in Atlantis", and "The Green Mile". He was a guest star on "", playing a racist cousin of Detective Tim Bayliss.


title: David Morse

text: In 2002, Morse starred as Mike Olshansky, an ex-Philadelphia police officer turned cab driver, in the television film "Hack". For his role in the 2002 crime-drama film "Shuang Tong", Morse was nominated as Best Supporting Actor in the Golden Horse Awards, the first ever nomination for an English-speaking actor. He appeared as questionable neighbor Mr. Turner in the 2007 release "Disturbia". Film critic and commentator John Podhoretz wrote that Morse is a "largely unsung character actor who enlivens and deepens every movie fortunate enough to have him in the cast".


title: David Morse

text: In 2006, Morse received a phone call from David Shore, having previously worked with him on the "Hack" series, who asked him if he would be interested in having a guest role on "House". When Morse watched the show, he could not understand why people watched the show, because he believed that "this House guy is a total jerk". When he told some of his friends about the offer, however, their excited reactions convinced him to accept the role. Morse portrayed Michael Tritter, a detective with a vendetta against Dr. House. He earned his first Emmy Award nomination for his work on the series.


title: David Morse

text: In 2008, Morse portrayed George Washington in the HBO miniseries "John Adams", for which his nose was made bigger. Morse commented: "The first thing that comes to mind is my nose; it was my big idea to do that nose. We didn't have a lot of time, because they asked me to do this about three weeks before they started shooting, and I just kept looking at these portraits and thinking 'this man's face is so commanding'. And I did not feel that my face was very commanding in the way his was. So I convinced them that we should try the nose, and we tried it on, and everybody went 'wow, that's Washington'." Morse's portrayal earned him his second Emmy Award nomination. He is currently reprising the role of Washington in voice form as part of The Hall of Presidents show in Walt Disney World Resort's Magic Kingdom.


title: David Morse

text: Morse has stated that out of all of the films he has done, his favorites are "The Green Mile", "The Crossing Guard", and "The Indian Runner". In 2010, he guest starred in two episodes of the HBO drama series "Treme", as Lt. Terry Colson of the New Orleans Police Department. He was promoted to series regular starting with the show's second season, which began in April 2011. Later that year, Morse won the best actor award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for his role in "Collaborator". He played an ex-CIA agent in the film "World War Z" (2013). He played the late NFL player, Mike Webster, in the biographical sports drama "Concussion".


title: David Morse

text: In addition to his film and television career, Morse has continued to appear on stage. For his performance in the 1997 Off-Broadway production of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "How I Learned to Drive", he received an Obie Award, a Drama League Award, a Drama Desk Award, and a Lucille Lortel Award. That same year, he played Father Barry in the play adaptation of "On the Waterfront". From 2007 to 2008, Morse appeared on Broadway in Conor McPherson's play "The Seafarer". He received a Tony Award nomination for his role in the 2018 Broadway revival of "The Iceman Cometh."


title: David Morse

text: Morse has three younger siblings. He has been married to actress and author of "The Habit", Susan Wheeler Duff Morse, since 1982. They have one daughter, Eliza, and twin sons Benjamin and Samuel. After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Morse and his family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they currently live.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: The Filmfare Awards are annual awards that honour artistic and technical excellence in the Hindi-language film industry of India. The Filmfare ceremony is one of the most famous film events in India. The awards were first introduced by the Filmfare magazine of The Times Group in 1954, the same year as the National Film Awards. They were initially referred to as the "Clare Awards" or "The Clares" after Clare Mendonca, the editor of "The Times of India".


title: Filmfare Awards

text: A dual voting system was developed in 1956. Under this system, in contrast to the National Film Awards, which are decided by a panel appointed by the Indian Government, the Filmfare Awards are voted on by both the public and a committee of experts. The ceremony has been sponsored by various private organisations in the past as well as in present provisions. During several years in the 1990s, a live ceremony was broadcast to television audiences but was later discontinued due to unknown reasons.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: Since 2001, a recorded and edited version of the awards ceremony was televised on SET a week or two after the ceremony has been held. Since 2018, the ceremony has been televised on Colors. The 65th Filmfare Awards event was held on the 16th of February 2020 at Sarusajai Stadium, Guwahati.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: The Filmfare Awards have been often referred to as the Hindi film industry's equivalent to the Academy Awards in the United States. Until the mid-1990s, Filmfare Awards were the preeminent and most-recognised awards in Bollywood until several other awards sprouted up in Mumbai. This has resulted in poor viewership since the 2000s.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: In addition to the flagship event, Filmfare also has variants for other Indian film industries, such as Filmfare Awards South for South Indian cinema, Filmfare Marathi Awards for Marathi cinema, and Filmfare Awards East for eastern Indian cinema.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: The Filmfare awards were first introduced in 1954. The Clares was the original name of the award ceremony, named after "The Times of India" critic Clare Mendonca. Readers of "Filmfare" were polled to decide the winners, and over 20,000 readers spread throughout India participated in the polls; trophies were given to winners of the popular vote. In the first awards function, held on 21 March 1954 at the Metro Theatre of Mumbai, only five awards were presented: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Music Director.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: "Do Bigha Zameen" was the first movie to win the award for Best Film. The first winners for the other four categories were: Bimal Roy for his direction of "Do Bigha Zameen", Dilip Kumar for his performance in "Daag", Meena Kumari for her performance in "Baiju Bawra", and Naushad Ali for his music in "Baiju Bawra". The Filmfare Awards also introduced the Short Film Category in 2017, with Vidya Balan and Gauri Shinde on the jury. The People's Choice Award for Best Short Film was presented to "Khamakha". Short films like "Chutney", "Matitali Kusti" and "Taandav" won awards as well.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: Hollywood star Gregory Peck was invited to be the guest of honour at the first ever awards on 21 March 1954 at the Metro theatre, Mumbai but could not make it to the function since his flight from Colombo got delayed. However, Peck did attend the banquet that followed the award night at Wellington Club (Gymkhana), Mumbai.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: The winners for the year 1985 were announced in 1986 and the event was scheduled to be held at the Brabourne Stadium in December 1986. Unfortunately, the "Bombay Film Industry" as it was known then, went on strike in 1986 because of its many contentious issues with the Government of Maharashtra. As a result, the ceremony was pushed to the next year. The winners of 1985 were awarded on 28 January 1987. For security reasons, the Filmfare was not awarded for 1986 and 1987.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: The Red Carpet is a segment that takes place before the beginning of the actual ceremony. This is when actors, actresses, producers, directors, singers, composers, and others that have contributed to Indian cinema are introduced. Hosts question the celebrities about upcoming performances and who they think deserves to take the Black Lady home.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: The 2013 Filmfare awards took place in Mumbai at the Yash Raj Studios in Andheri. A special press conference was held just for its announcement and this took place at the Suburban hotel in Mumbai as well. The theme that year was a hundred years in the future. The reason for the theme to be held that year was because it was meant to be continuous from the previous year's theme, where the fraternity celebrated the completion of a hundred years in Indian cinema at the box office.


title: Filmfare Awards

text: The statuette, depicting a woman whose arms are upraised in a dance number with her fingers touching, is commonly referred to as "The Black Lady" (or "The Lady in Black"). Originally designed by N.G. Pansare under the supervision of "Times of India"'s art director Walter Langhammer, it is generally made of bronze, its height is 46.5 cm and it weighs around 5 kg. To celebrate the 25th year of the awards, the statues were made in silver and to celebrate the 50th year the statues were made in gold. The Filmfare trophy is manufactured by The Award Gallery since 2000. Until 2012, there had only been a few changes made to the trophy. But more recently, as of 2013, a huge change has been made to give the trophy a 3-D look. There were two reasons given for this change. First of all, the organisers believe that it was necessary to match the many advances in technology in today's world, which will advance a lot more in the coming years as well. This was also an attempt to match the theme of the 2013 set of awards at Filmfare in Mumbai: a hundred years leap into the future.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The first season of the American streaming television series "Daredevil", which is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, follows the early days of Matt Murdock / Daredevil, a lawyer-by-day who fights crime at night, juxtaposed with the rise of crime lord Wilson Fisk. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films and other television series of the franchise. The season was produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios, DeKnight Prods. and Goddard Textiles, with Steven S. DeKnight serving as showrunner, and series creator Drew Goddard acting as consultant.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Charlie Cox stars as Murdock, while Vincent D'Onofrio plays Fisk. They are joined by principal cast members Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Toby Leonard Moore, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Bob Gunton, Ayelet Zurer, and Rosario Dawson. "Daredevil" entered development in late 2013, with Goddard hired in December. DeKnight replaced him as showrunner and Cox was hired to star in May 2014. Filmed in New York City from July to December 2014, the season focuses on the darker, more mature elements of the source material. Stephanie Maslansky designed the costumes for the season, with the final red suit for Daredevil designed by Ryan Meinerding and the costume artists at Marvel Studios. The season features links and references to other MCU projects, including future Netflix series.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The first two episodes of the season premiered in Los Angeles on April 2, 2015, with the full season of 13 episodes released on Netflix on April 10 to an estimated high viewership. Critics praised the performances, particularly D'Onofrio's, and the darker tone and action sequences of the series compared to other properties set in the MCU. However, some of the pacing during the season and the final red Daredevil suit received criticism. The first season received two nominations for Creative Emmy Awards, for the visual effects from Shade VFX, and the sound editing. The series was renewed for a second season on April 21, 2015.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: In October 2013, Marvel and Disney announced that Marvel Television and ABC Studios would provide Netflix with live action series centered around Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage, leading up to a miniseries based on the Defenders. Drew Goddard was hired to serve as executive producer and showrunner for "Daredevil", however, in May 2014 it was announced that Goddard had stepped down as showrunner in order to focus on directing a feature film based on Marvel's Sinister Six for Sony Pictures Entertainment. He was succeeded by Steven S. DeKnight. Goddard, who wrote the first two episodes, remained with the show as a consultant and executive producer. It was also revealed that the series would be titled "Marvel's Daredevil". The first season consists of 13 hour-long episodes, and DeKnight, Goddard, Jeph Loeb, Jim Chory, Dan Buckley, Joe Quesada, Stan Lee, Alan Fine, Cindy Holland, Kris Henigman, Allie Goss, and Peter Friedlander serve as executive producers.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The season does not directly adapt any one storyline from the comics, with DeKnight feeling that it was more important to focus on "nailing the spirit of the comics". He stated that Netflix's support of "the creatives" coupled with Marvel's restrictions on their properties led to him pushing the source material as far as he could while remaining respectful of the characters and their history, and being surprised at "how willing everyone is to take a really fresh look and really push what we're doing." Vincent D'Onofrio compared telling a story on Netflix to more of a "13-hour film" than a television series and noted that time can be taken to tell the story and "be much more specific". Deborah Ann Woll explained that what she saw as one of the most important themes in the series was normal people having an impact in "seemingly insurmountable circumstances", with the focus not being on Daredevil's abilities or the characters' qualifications, but on their willingness to help people.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Though the season was much more violent than previous Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) works, DeKnight felt that sexual violence would be "too far", saying that ""Daredevil" wasn't asking for a lot of sexual situations, especially since Matt Murdock is not really in the position to get into a relationship, and it just didn't fit the story for that season. I think that'll change moving forward, but I never pushed any kind of sexual agenda on the show. I think once "Daredevil" was a hit and people were really responding positively, you can see the progression into more of an adult world in "Jessica Jones"."


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Speaking about the way the season reveals the name Daredevil, DeKnight explained that several options had been brought up, such as "one of the versions in the comics where when he was a kid people used to taunt him with the name Daredevil", which did not fit in the world of the series, or having Ben Urich give the character the name, but the timing for that did not work due to Urich's death before the final Daredevil suit was introduced. It was decided that instead of having the name Daredevil said onscreen, it would be easier to introduce it through the media as a newspaper headline. On why this was not done for Wilson Fisk as Kingpin, DeKnight stated that he felt it would "get a little bit silly...[if] we went, 'Oh they called him Daredevil! Oh they called him Kingpin!'," and was unable to come up with another natural way for the name Kingpin to come up, so it was decided to leave that for a later time.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The main cast for the season includes Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Toby Leonard Moore as James Wesley, Vondie Curtis-Hall as Ben Urich, Bob Gunton as Leland Owlsley, Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, and Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: In July 2014, Peter Shinkoda was reported to have a recurring role in the season, portraying Hashiro. In March 2015, this character was revealed to actually be Nobu Yoshioka, while recurring opponents for Daredevil – Madame Gao, Vladimir Ranskahov, and Turk Barrett – were also announced, portrayed by Wai Ching Ho, Nikolai Nikolaeff, and Rob Morgan. Additionally, the following also recur throughout the season: Geoffrey Cantor as Mitchell Ellison; Judith Delgado as Elena Cardenas; Daryl Edwards as Carl Hoffman; Royce Johnson as Brett Mahoney; Adriane Lenox as Doris Urich; Peter McRobbie as Father Paul Lantom; Amy Rutberg as Marci Stahl; Chris Tardio as Christian Blake; Susan Varon as Josie; and Tom Walker as Francis.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Costume designer Stephanie Maslansky read the first two episodes' scripts and some outlines of future scripts, and developed a "solid understanding" of the character arcs and overall story to begin the advanced planning needed for costume design. She also asked questions to prepare for character's stunt requirements and the building or retro-fitting of more complex costumes.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Murdock begins the season wearing a black costume (called the "vigilante outfit" by production), inspired by the one worn by the character in Frank Miller's "The Man Without Fear", rather than the more traditional red, horned suit. This was done to highlight the formation of Matt Murdock as Daredevil, with the costume evolving over time as the character develops. Marvel Comics' Chief Creative Officer Quesada conceptualized the look based on DeKnight's specifications. On the design process, DeKnight revealed that "we tried practically everything, design-wise. We experimented with a lot of different head pieces. One version was a ski mask with the eyes sewn shut. We tried everything until we found something that just felt right." DeKnight and Quesada explained that the idea was for Murdock to start out with a homemade outfit that fits more in the "real-world" of the series, and to then evolve it into the classic Daredevil suit. Maslansky noted that they wanted the outfit to "look like something that Matt Murdock could put together himself, that he could either order off the Internet or shop around town...we wound up with pretty practical choices for him. His shirts are compression shirts and his pants wound up being from an army/navy store." Concerning the black mask, Maslansky noted that a balance between aesthetic and safety was required, and that it was made of layers of cotton mesh that "really conform to his head" but also allowed Cox to see through the mask.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: On the red suit, Maslansky said, "We wanted something that looked militaristic and functional, but also dramatic and sexy" adding that it was "tricky" making it practical. To begin the process of creating the suit, Quesada contacted Ryan Meinerding and the costume artists and design team at Marvel Studios, who all contributed design ideas, with one of Meinerding's ultimately being picked. Quesada, who previously worked as an artist on "Daredevil" comics, gave several suggestions, including the incorporation of some of how New York was created into the suit, which led to the use of rivets and "architectural" shapes. The suit is intended to look like a Kevlar vest, and the black sections are an homage to comic panels where the artists highlighted certain areas with red, with "deeper portions" in shadow. On the mask, Meinerding noted the difficulty in designing the entire top half of a face that is intended to match the bottom half of an actor's face, "because half of his face has to be covered and has its own expression and the actor's face is going to be doing something else". For the billy clubs used by Daredevil in the series, which were designed by Andy Park, discussions were had about having them holstered on the right leg, given that both Cox and his stunt double Chris Brewster are right handed, but it was ultimately decided to have the holster on the left hand side as it is in the "classic profile" of the comics. DeKnight explained that Murdock's Daredevil suit does not have the "DD" emblem on the chest as seen in the comics, because Murdock receives his moniker only after the suit is introduced. He also felt that the emblem was "one of the more problematic emblems in superhero-dom", and that Daredevil's suit in the comics was "very difficult to translate to screen, especially in this world that is grounded and gritty".


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Many of the male characters in the series are often seen wearing suits, which Maslansky was comfortable with after working as the costume designer on "White Collar". Murdock's suits are differentiated more by texture than color, with a limited palette, given that the character cannot see what color his clothing is. Cox's size changed throughout the series as he continued to work out. For Murdock's sunglasses, Maslansky worked with series prop master Michael Jortner to make something that fit into the modern world, but paid homage to "what was familiar to fans". Close to 100 different versions of the prop were created for Cox to try. For the women of the series, Maslansky looked to their backstories in the show, with Page having dreams and fantasies of a life in New York along the lines of Katharine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall, and dressing according to those thoughts ("retro, slim skirts, tighter fitting tops and slim dresses"), while Marianna coming into the series as a mysterious yet glamorous femme fatale, dressing in high-end, couture clothing; "she needed to appeal to [Fisk]. He wouldn't go for just any chick in a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt."


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: In February 2014, Marvel announced that "Daredevil" would be filmed in New York City. In April 2014, Quesada reiterated this, stating that the show would be filming in areas of Brooklyn and Long Island City that still look like the old Hell's Kitchen, in addition to sound stage work. Loeb said that "Daredevil" would begin filming in July 2014, and DeKnight confirmed that filming had started that month. It filmed under the working title "Bluff", on a $56 million budget. The production received $14.3 million under the New York Film & TV Tax Credit Program. Production concluded on December 21, 2014. Other filming locations in New York City included the Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick neighborhoods in Brooklyn; Abe Lebewohl Park in the East Village; Whitestone Lanes bowling alley in Flushing, Queens; the New York State Supreme Court Building, with the interior for court scenes filmed on a set; Brooklyn Borough Hall; the Rockefeller Center rooftop gardens; Brooklyn College for Murdock and Nelson's flashback to their time in college; the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan; and the Honeywell Bridge in Long Island City.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: "Cut Man" ends with a long action sequence filmed in a single take. DeKnight called it the "most complicated action scene" in the series, due to the technical difficulty in filming it, and credited Goddard, episodic director Phil Abraham, stunt coordinator Philip J Silvera, and series cinematographer Matt Lloyd with realizing it. He also named "" films as inspiration for the sequence. There were only a few days to plan and set up the fight, as opposed to a film which would allow "at least a couple of weeks", and it took 7 or 8 takes to get the shot right. Silvera explained that the scene was always scripted to be a one-shot, and that he had intended to work around it with wipes, but Abraham challenged the team to do it all for real, which allowed the fight to feel more grounded by having them "slow down the fight, and just have this raw, animalistic feeling happening." The final shot does include some 'Texas Switches' between actors and stunt doubles, but was ultimately filmed with no cuts.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Talking about the scene where Fisk beheads Anatoly Ranskahov with a car door in "In the Blood", DeKnight noted that series like "Spartacus" and "The Walking Dead" would have shown the head being crushed, which he felt was "the right choice" for them, but for "Daredevil" "we did very much a "Psycho" thing, we saw the aftereffects of it, but you never saw the car door crushing his head...Sound effects, absolutely. It's a very disturbing scene without crossing that line into a horror movie kind of deal."


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Visual effects for the series were completed by the New York studio Shade VFX; "Daredevil" featured over 1000 visual effect shots. Executive visual effects supervisor Bryan Goswin explained that the company's work included the creation of digital doubles when stunts were not safe for actors or stunt doubles, as well as blood-hits and wounds, with "a lot of support to the idea of the violence and gore that happens in Daredevil" given to differentiate the series from other Marvel projects, and to try to set the series in a "more realistic and dark place, the real streets of New York."


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: One shot created by Shade VFX is when the audience sees Matt Murdock's "vision" – the way that he "sees" using his other heightened senses. On why this was only used once in the season, DeKnight explained that it had in fact been budgeted to appear several more times, with the effect actually completed at least twice more for the season. It was removed for several reasons, including to avoid taking away the specialty of it, and to maintain the crime drama tone of the series. One instance where it would have been used again was in "Stick", where the audience would have seen how Murdock saw Stick as he threw keys at him, and then when he is older and Stick throws fighting sticks at him and his senses are more refined. In that case, the effect was not finished on time. Another instance was in "The Ones We Leave Behind" when Murdock comes across a Chinese worker and realizes that he has been blinded. The final use of the effect was going to be in "Daredevil" when the camera pushes in on Page's reaction Murdock telling her that they can work together. Here, the effect was hiding all of the nuances in her expression, so it was decided that it would be better to remove it.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Composer John Paesano was brought on "a couple of weeks in to post-production", and scored an episode every four to five days. Paesano estimated that each episode has around 25–30 minutes of music in it. In approaching the series' score, Paesano looked to DeKnight, who "had a very clear vision of what he wanted ... music you could feel and not necessarily hear." The result was a more minimalist score than typical "superhero" music, although the music starts to "change color" and move closer to that of the MCU when the classic red costume is introduced. Most of the score was produced electronically, though live elements, such as a cello, were used where possible. Rather than "keep the drive and the energy up" with drums, Paesano elected to use a low pulsing heartbeat that was inline with the series' minimalist approach, and tied into the fact that Daredevil can hear people's heartbeats in the show. A soundtrack album for the season was released digitally by Hollywood Records on April 27, 2015.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: In February 2015, Emma Fleisher of Marvel Television stated that "Daredevil" takes place in the aftermath of "The Avengers" (2012), but would not "explicitly [be] in that "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." world. We're in our own corner [of the MCU]. So the aliens came down and ruined the city, and this is the story of Hell's Kitchen's rebuild." Connections to other MCU properties include the character of Carl "Crusher" Creel, who appears in "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." portrayed by Brian Patrick Wade, and is mentioned as having fought Jack Murdock in the latter's final boxing match; St. Agnes Orphanage, where both Matt Murdock and "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."s Skye are raised; the insignia on Madame Gao's heroin, which is a connection to the Iron Fist antagonist Steel Serpent; and mentions of Roxxon Oil, a company featured throughout the MCU.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The final scene of "Stick", featuring a conversation between Stick and Stone, was meant to hint at further ties between the series and other areas of the MCU in the same way as Marvel's film post-credits scenes, though it could not actually go after the episode's credits due to the way that Netflix begins the next episode during the credits of the current one. There were discussions about having another such "coda" at the end of the season finale, one which would have featured Leland Owlsley attempting to escape New York, only to be killed by the Punisher in a surprise introduction. The scene would not have shown the actor's face, but would have included the character's iconic skull insignia. The idea was dropped, again because of Netflix's playing system, and Owlsley was ultimately killed by Fisk in the episode, with the introduction of the Punisher saved for the series' second season.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: At the October 2014 New York Comic Con, footage from the series was shown. In January 2015, a motion film poster was released to coincide with the revealing of the streaming date for the first season. The following month, on February 4, a teaser trailer was released. Merrill Barr of "Forbes" noted the dark tone of the trailer in a similar vein to DC Comics' "Arrow" and different from Marvel's ABC series, but questioned the timing of the trailer debut after Super Bowl XLIX, especially as the company did not air trailers during the event for "" or "Ant-Man" and could have benefited from introducing "its latest and riskiest show" to general audiences through it. In March 2015, an additional motion poster was released, which featured all major characters and Avengers Tower in the background of the poster, as well as the possible reveal of Murdock's red suit in his reflection. In the lead up to the first-season premiere, a street marketing campaign appeared across the world in 12 cities with various artists creating murals. On April 2, 2015, the series had its premiere at the Regal Premiere House at L.A. Live where the first two episodes were previewed.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The first season of "Daredevil" was released on April 10, 2015 on the streaming service Netflix, in all territories where it is available, in Ultra HD 4K. On April 14, 2015, "Daredevil" was the first Netflix series to receive its Descriptive Video Service audio description track, "a narration track that describes what is happening on-screen, including physical actions, facial expressions, costumes, settings and scene changes." By April 16, episodes for the series had been pirated by 2.1 million individual users worldwide, according to Excipio, a piracy tracking firm, surpassed in that timeframe only by "Game of Thrones". The biggest countries for piracy were Brazil (190,274 torrent downloaders), India (149,316), the U.S. (144,351), the UK (119,891), France (105,473) and Australia (101,025). Except for India, Netflix was available in each of those countries at the time. The season was enhanced to be available in high dynamic range after its initial release by post-production vendor Deluxe.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The season, along with the additional "Daredevil" seasons and the other Marvel Netflix series, was removed from Netflix on March 1, 2022, due to Netflix's license for the series ending and Disney regaining the rights. The season became available on Disney+ in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand on March 16, ahead of its debut in Disney+'s other markets by the end of 2022.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The season was released on DVD in Region 2 and Blu-ray in Region B on October 3, 2016, in Region 1 and Region A on November 8, 2016, and in Region 4 on December 7, 2016.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: As Netflix does not reveal subscriber viewership numbers for any of their original series, Luth Research compiled data for the season, based on a sample of 2,500 Netflix subscribers watching via computers, tablets or smartphones. (Luth Research does not track Netflix viewing on televisions, whether Internet-connected sets or those linked to streaming-media players or gaming consoles.) According to Luth, an estimated 10.7% of subscribers (approximately 4.4 million) watched at least one episode of "Daredevil" in its first 11 days on Netflix, with 2.3% (940,000) watching on the first day. In a separate study, Netflix determined that the fifth episode of the season was the one to "hook" viewers, "to the point where they [continued on to watch] the entire first season."


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 99% approval rating with an average rating of 8.1/10 based on 72 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "With tight adherence to its source material's history, high production quality, and a no-nonsense dramatic flair, "Daredevil" excels as an effective superhero origin story, a gritty procedural, and an exciting action adventure." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 75 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: In reviews for the first five episodes of the series, Brian Lowry of "Variety" felt that "Compared to Marvel's experience with "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." for ABC, operating in Netflix's pay-to-view world is clearly liberating" in terms of what can be done and shown. Matt Patches of "Esquire" added, "The show's exterior recasts the high fructose, splash page aesthetic of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America with neo-noir attitude. Goddard and DeKnight drench "Daredevil" in shadows and blood." He compared "Daredevil" to "a TV spinoff" of Christopher Nolans Batman films, and praised Cox and D'Onofrio's portrayals, while criticizing a subplot involving Nelson and Page and noting that the slow pacing of "Daredevil", in which story may be stretched out more than needs be, could be a problem for binge-watchers. Victoria McNally of MTV felt the early episodes' fight sequences were "filmed beautifully" and enjoyed that they featured little CGI, while also calling Henson "perfectly cast and endlessly amusing" as Nelson.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Eric Eisenberg of Cinema Blend also had positive thoughts on the initial episodes, saying, "It's smart, entertaining, and has moments so shocking that you'll have to repress screams. Suffice it to say, Marvel and Netflix have another big winner on their respective plates," while also praising the acting. Speaking of the first two episodes, Mark Hughes of "Forbes" added additional praise, saying, "Quite simply, in "Daredevil" Marvel delivers one of the greatest live-action superhero origin stories ever made. It is in the same top-tier category of true superhero origin films along with "Batman Begins", "Iron Man", and "Superman: The Movie"." Hughes stated that if the first two episodes were released in theaters with only minor tweaks, they "would've been hailed as one of Marvel's best films to date". Mike Hale at "The New York Times" was less positive about the series, calling it ordinary, but admitting having high expectations due to his love for the comics, and admiring the care and seriousness with which the series was made. He called the series pace "leisurely", but "a pleasant change from the norm", and called Cox's performance "divided", praising him as Murdock and criticizing him as Daredevil. Hale was positive about the cast overall, and ultimately surmised that after seeing the first five episodes, "Daredevil" is "eminently watchable", but not the Daredevil he remembered from the comics.


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: After reviewing each of the individual episodes, IGN reviewer Matt Fowler gave the entire first season a score of 9 out of 10, indicating an "Amazing" season, saying that though it may have "spun a few wheels" while building up to its endgame, the series was "a thrilling, ultra-satisfying take on Daredevil's material and lore. One that, like Favreau's first Iron Man film, helped breathe new life and fandom into a somewhat B-tier Marvel character." He particularly praised D'Onofrio's performance, the "edgy" fight sequences, the fact that the hero himself got "beat on – a lot", and the unique dark take on the MCU. Liz Shannon Miller, reviewing the season for Indiewire, graded it a 'B+', and though feeling that it didn't quite live up to DeKnight's admitted influence, "The Wire", praised the series, noting its characters and development, and the performances of the entire cast, especially those of D'Onofrio, Curtis-Hall, and Cox. She was positive about the level of violence the series depicted, and all of its "brutal" and "beautiful" fight sequences, as well as the way that the series explores the consequences for average people of events from the films, while committing to building its own universe within the already established MCU. Alan Sepinwall of HitFix also praised the cast and characters, particularly D'Onofrio, and felt that series benefited from having a much narrower focus than the Marvel films or other series. He did wish that Murdock's "world on fire"-sight was used more often, and felt that the classic Daredevil costume, which "may not translate well to live-action", could use "some tweaks".


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: Cox was honored at the American Foundation for the Blind's 19th Annual Helen Keller Achievement Awards, for those "that have demonstrated outstanding achievement in improving quality of life for people with vision loss." The series' main title sequence, created initially for this season, won the Online Film & Television Association's award for the Best New Titles Sequence, and was nominated for the Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design, which went to "Manhattan".


title: Daredevil (season 1)

text: The season was included on multiple Best/Top TV Shows of 2015 lists, ranking on "People"s (1st, along with "Jessica Jones"), "Business Insider"s (3rd), "TV Guide" and Digital Spy's (7th), and "Slate Magazine"s (23rd). It also was included on "Vanity Fair" Best New TV Shows of 2015 list. "Daredevil"s first season was the seventh trending television show search on Google for 2015.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is an adult animated dark fantasy film for Netflix, produced by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, and starring Theo James, Lara Pulver, Graham McTavish, and Mary McDonnell. The film serves as a spin-off of the Netflix series "The Witcher." It focuses on the origin story of Geralt's mentor and fellow witcher Vesemir. The film premiered on August 23, 2021.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: In 1165, the witcher Vesemir saves a noble child from a leshen in a forest in Kaedwen. Before dying, the creature says something in an archaic elven dialect to Vesemir, leading him to think it was under someone's control. Vesemir is visited by the elf Filavandrel, who thinks the leshen was controlled by Kitsu, one of many elven girls who have gone missing. Meanwhile sorceress Tetra Gilcrest tries to convince the Kaedwani king to wipe out the witchers, but Lady Zerbst, another courtier, is sympathetic to the witchers and speaks in their favor.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: Vesemir reminisces about his youth when he, along with his best friend Illyana, were servants for a noble whose mistress was saved from a mahr by a witcher named Deglan with Vesemir's help. Enticed by promises of coin and riches, Vesemir traveled to Kaer Morhen and underwent the training and mutations to become a witcher.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: In the present day, Vesemir and another fellow witcher, Luka, are arrested for killing two knights in a bar fight. Lady Zerbst persuades the king to send Vesemir along with Tetra to rid the forest of Kitsu. She personally delivers the mission order to Vesemir who recognizes her as the now 70-year old Illyana. Vesemir and Tetra set out and she tells him the story of a young sorceress wrongfully killed by a witcher as part of a con, and that she is convinced that all witchers are corrupted. They find Kitsu, mutated and now able to cast powerful illusions, and fight her basilisk. They kill the monster, but Kitsu escapes.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: Following Kitsu, the pair come across an old and abandoned elven school where they find the bodies of the other missing female elves. They rescue the captured Filavandrel, who explains that Kitsu tried to replicate the experiments that were done on her, and they come to the conclusion that witchers were responsible, creating new monsters to keep them in business. Vesemir surmises that the monsters he encountered were probably created in Kaer Morhen and leaves to confront Deglan. As he departs, Tetra destroys Kitsu's den, finds Kitsu later surveying the destruction, and blames the witchers. Back at court, she likewise tells the king of the witchers' responsibility in the recent monsters attacks and is given authorization to lay siege to Kaer Morhen. The King has Luka wrongly executed despite Lady Zerbst's protests. She then escapes to warn the witchers.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: Deglan admits to Vesemir to creating the monsters, including Kitsu, to protect their way of life and are alerted by Illyana of Tetra's assault. Tetra and the local townsfolk attack Kaer Morhen with Kitsu and her monsters. Illyana helps the witcher recruits flee into the mountains. Vesemir confronts Tetra, who has captured the mages and is holding them hostage in the basement. Kitsu arrives and plunges Vesemir into an illusion where he married Illyana and had a family. However, Vesemir is able to break out of the illusion and engages in a fierce battle with Tetra and her forces. He seemingly kills Tetra and Kitsu, only for it to be revealed as another illusion, and he had killed the mages and mortally wounded Illyana instead.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: Tetra reveals she is the daughter of the sorceress killed by the swindling witcher from her story before being killed by a dying Deglan. He asks Vesemir to find the recruits and make them into "better men" before succumbing to his wounds. At the behest of Illyana, Vesemir allows Kitsu to flee, and he carries a dying Illyana from the burning castle. Vesemir takes Illyana to a lake, where she always dreamed of living by. The two share a brief moment before she peacefully passes away. He then sets out and catches up to the recruits, including a young Geralt, taking them under his wing.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: Additional voices by Sara Cravens, JP Karliak, Andrew Morgado, Fred Tatasciore, Courtenay Taylor, and Abby Trott.


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: In January 2020, Netflix announced that an animated film adaptation was in the works from Korean animation studio Studio Mir. Writer Beau DeMayo explained that the team chose to make the film animated rather than live-action because it presented them with some "exciting" storytelling possibilities. The film uses a mix of both traditional and computer-generated animation. When designing Vesemir, animation director Han Kwang Il believed he "shouldn't be too handsome, but he had to be quite good-looking and appealing because he's the main character". For a majority of the character designs, the team aimed for a "European/American style", with the exception of Tetra, whose design fell in more closely with a "Japanese style".


title: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

text: During the virtual WitcherCon event in July 2021, a "Date Announcement" teaser was released. A teaser trailer was released on July 21, followed by the full trailer on August 9. The film was released on August 23, 2021.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Marriage of Figaro (, ), K. 492, is a "commedia per musica" (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, "La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro" ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"). It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Considered one of the greatest operas ever written, it is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas. In 2017, BBC News Magazine asked 172 opera singers to vote for the best operas ever written. "The Marriage of Figaro" came in first out of the 20 operas featured, with the magazine describing the work as being "one of the supreme masterpieces of operatic comedy, whose rich sense of humanity shines out of Mozart’s miraculous score".


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Beaumarchais's earlier play "The Barber of Seville" had already made a successful transition to opera in a version by Paisiello. Beaumarchais's "Mariage de Figaro", with its frank treatment of class conflict, was at first banned in Vienna: Emperor Joseph II stated that "since the piece contains much that is objectionable, I therefore expect that the Censor shall either reject it altogether, or at any rate have such alterations made in it that he shall be responsible for the performance of this play and for the impression it may make", after which the Austrian Censor duly forbade performing the German version of the play. Mozart's librettist managed to get official approval from the emperor for an operatic version, which eventually achieved great success.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The opera was the first of three collaborations between Mozart and Da Ponte, followed by "Don Giovanni" and "Così fan tutte". It was Mozart who originally selected Beaumarchais's play and brought it to Da Ponte, who turned it into a libretto in six weeks, rewriting it in poetic Italian and removing all of the original's political references. In particular, Da Ponte replaced Figaro's climactic speech against inherited nobility with an equally angry aria against unfaithful wives. The libretto was approved by the Emperor before any music was written by Mozart.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work; this was three times his (low) yearly salary when he had worked as a court musician in Salzburg. Da Ponte was paid 200 florins.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: "Figaro" premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786, with a cast listed in the "Roles" section below. Mozart himself conducted the first two performances, conducting seated at the keyboard, the custom of the day. Later performances were conducted by Joseph Weigl. The first production was given eight further performances, all in 1786.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Although the total of nine performances was nothing like the frequency of performance of Mozart's later success, "The Magic Flute", which for months was performed roughly every other day, the premiere is generally judged to have been a success. The applause of the audience on the first night resulted in five numbers being encored, seven on 8 May. Joseph II, who, in addition to his empire, was in charge of the Burgtheater, was concerned by the length of the performance and directed his aide as follows:


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: To prevent the excessive duration of operas, without however prejudicing the fame often sought by opera singers from the repetition of vocal pieces, I deem the enclosed notice to the public (that no piece for more than a single voice is to be repeated) to be the most reasonable expedient. You will therefore cause some posters to this effect to be printed.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The requested posters were printed up and posted in the Burgtheater in time for the third performance on 24 May.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The newspaper "Wiener Realzeitung" carried a review of the opera in its issue of 11 July 1786. It alludes to interference probably produced by paid hecklers, but praises the work warmly:


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Mozart's music was generally admired by connoisseurs already at the first performance, if I except only those whose self-love and conceit will not allow them to find merit in anything not written by themselves.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The "public", however ... did not really know on the first day where it stood. It heard many a "bravo" from unbiased connoisseurs, but obstreperous louts in the uppermost storey exerted their hired lungs with all their might to deafen singers and audience alike with their "St!" and "Pst"; and consequently opinions were divided at the end of the piece.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Apart from that, it is true that the first performance was none of the best, owing to the difficulties of the composition.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: But now, after several performances, one would be subscribing either to the "cabal" or to "tastelessness" if one were to maintain that Herr "Mozart's" music is anything but a masterpiece of art.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: It contains so many beauties, and such a wealth of ideas, as can be drawn only from the source of innate genius.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Hungarian poet Ferenc Kazinczy was in the audience for a May performance, and later remembered the powerful impression the work made on him:


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: [Nancy] Storace [see below], the beautiful singer, enchanted eye, ear, and soul. – Mozart conducted the orchestra, playing his fortepiano; but the joy which this music causes is so far removed from all sensuality that one cannot speak of it. Where could words be found that are worthy to describe such joy?


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Joseph Haydn appreciated the opera greatly, writing to a friend that he heard it in his dreams. In summer 1790 Haydn attempted to produce the work with his own company at Eszterháza, but was prevented from doing so by the death of his patron, Nikolaus Esterházy.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Emperor requested a special performance at his palace theatre in Laxenburg, which took place in June 1786.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The opera was produced in Prague starting in December 1786 by the Pasquale Bondini company. This production was a tremendous success; the newspaper "Prager Oberpostamtszeitung" called the work "a masterpiece", and said "no piece (for everyone here asserts) has ever caused such a sensation." Local music lovers paid for Mozart to visit Prague and hear the production; he listened on 17 January 1787, and conducted it himself on the 22nd. The success of the Prague production led to the commissioning of the next Mozart/Da Ponte opera, "Don Giovanni", premiered in Prague in 1787 (see Mozart and Prague).


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The work was not performed in Vienna during 1787 or 1788, but starting in 1789 there was a revival production. For this occasion Mozart replaced both arias of Susanna with new compositions, better suited to the voice of Adriana Ferrarese del Bene who took the role. To replace "" he wrote "" – "[come and fly] To the desire of [the one] who adores you" (K. 577) in July 1789, and to replace "" he wrote "" – "A joyous emotion", (K. 579), probably in mid-1790.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The voice types which appear in this table are those listed in the critical edition published in the "Neue Mozart-Ausgabe". In modern performance practice, Cherubino and Marcellina are usually assigned to mezzo-sopranos, and Figaro to a bass-baritone.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: "The Marriage of Figaro" continues the plot of "The Barber of Seville" several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" () in the palace of Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of "Barber", a tenor (in Paisiello's 1782 opera), into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. Having gratefully given Figaro a job as head of his servant-staff, he is now persistently trying to exercise his "droit du seigneur" – his right to bed a servant girl on her wedding night – with Figaro's bride-to-be, Susanna, who is the Countess's maid. He keeps finding excuses to delay the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess conspire to embarrass the Count and expose his scheming. He retaliates by trying to compel Figaro legally to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, but it turns out at the last minute that she really is his mother. Through the clever manipulations of Susanna and the Countess, Figaro and Susanna are finally able to marry.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The overture is in the key of D major; the tempo marking is "presto"; i.e. quick. The work is well known and often played independently as a concert piece.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Figaro happily measures the space where the bridal bed will fit while Susanna tries on her wedding bonnet (which she has sewn herself) in front of a mirror. (Duet: "" – "Five, ten, twenty"). Figaro is quite pleased with their new room; Susanna far less so (Duettino: "" – "If the Countess should call you during the night"). She is bothered by its proximity to the Count's chambers: it seems he has been making advances toward her and plans on exercising his "droit du seigneur", the purported feudal right of a lord to bed a servant girl on her wedding night before her husband can sleep with her. The Count had the right abolished when he married Rosina, but he now wants to reinstate it. The Countess rings for Susanna and she rushes off to answer. Figaro, confident in his own resourcefulness, resolves to outwit the Count (Cavatina: "Se vuol ballare, Signor Contino" – "If you want to dance, Sir Count").


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Figaro departs, and Dr. Bartolo arrives with Marcellina, his old housekeeper. Figaro had previously borrowed a large sum of money from her, and, in lieu of collateral, had promised to marry her if unable to repay at the appointed time; she now intends to enforce that promise by suing him. Bartolo, seeking revenge against Figaro for having facilitated the union of the Count and Rosina (in "The Barber of Seville"), agrees to represent Marcellina "pro bono", and assures her, in comical lawyer-speak, that he can win the case for her (aria: "" – "Vengeance").


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Bartolo departs, Susanna returns, and Marcellina and Susanna exchange very politely delivered sarcastic insults (duet: "" – "After you, brilliant madam"). Susanna triumphs in the exchange by congratulating her rival on her impressive age. The older woman departs in a fury.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Cherubino then arrives and, after describing his emerging infatuation with all women, particularly with his "beautiful godmother" the Countess (aria: "" – "I don't know anymore what I am"), asks for Susanna's aid with the Count. It seems the Count is angry with Cherubino's amorous ways, having discovered him with the gardener's daughter, Barbarina, and plans to punish him. Cherubino wants Susanna to ask the Countess to intercede on his behalf. When the Count appears, Cherubino hides behind a chair, not wanting to be seen alone with Susanna. The Count uses the opportunity of finding Susanna alone to step up his demands for favours from her, and offers to pay money if she will submit to him. As Basilio, the music teacher, arrives, the Count, not wanting to be caught alone with Susanna, hides behind the chair. Cherubino leaves that hiding place just in time, and jumps onto the chair while Susanna scrambles to cover him with a dress.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: When Basilio starts to gossip about Cherubino's obvious attraction to the Countess, the Count angrily leaps from his hiding place (terzetto: "" – "What do I hear!"). He disparages the "absent" page's incessant flirting and describes how he caught him with Barbarina under the kitchen table. As he lifts the dress from the chair to illustrate how he lifted the tablecloth to expose Cherubino, he finds ... the self same Cherubino! The count is furious, but is reminded that the page overheard the Count's advances on Susanna, something that the Count wants to keep from the Countess. The young man is ultimately saved from punishment by the entrance of the peasants of the Count's estate, a preemptive attempt by Figaro to commit the Count to a formal gesture symbolizing his promise that Susanna would enter into the marriage unsullied. The Count evades Figaro's plan by postponing the gesture. The Count says that he forgives Cherubino, but he dispatches him to his own regiment in Seville for army duty, effective immediately. Figaro gives Cherubino mocking advice about his new, harsh, military life from which all luxury, and especially women, will be totally excluded (aria: "Non più andrai" – "No more gallivanting").


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: "A handsome room with an alcove, a dressing room on the left, a door in the background (leading to the servants' quarters) and a window at the side."


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Countess laments her husband's infidelity (aria: "Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro" – "Grant, love, some comfort"). Susanna comes in to prepare the Countess for the day. She responds to the Countess's questions by telling her that the Count is not trying to seduce her; he is merely offering her a monetary contract in return for her affection. Figaro enters and explains his plan to distract the Count with anonymous letters warning him of adulterers. He has already sent one to the Count (via Basilio) that indicates that the Countess has a rendezvous of her own that evening. They hope that the Count will be too busy looking for imaginary adulterers to interfere with Figaro and Susanna's wedding. Figaro additionally advises the Countess to keep Cherubino around. She should dress him up as a girl and lure the Count into an illicit rendezvous where he can be caught and embarrassed. Figaro leaves.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Cherubino arrives, sent in by Figaro. Susanna urges him to sing the song he wrote for the Countess (aria: "Voi che sapete che cosa è amor" – "You ladies who know what love is, is it what I'm suffering from?"). After the song, the Countess, seeing Cherubino's military commission, notices that the Count was in such a hurry that he forgot to seal it with his signet ring (which would be necessary to make it an official document).


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Susanna and the Countess then begin with their plan. Susanna takes off Cherubino's cloak, and she begins to comb his hair and teach him to behave and walk like a woman (aria of Susanna: "Venite, inginocchiatevi" – "Come, kneel down before me"). Then she leaves the room through a door at the back to get the dress for Cherubino, taking his cloak with her.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: While the Countess and Cherubino are waiting for Susanna to come back, they suddenly hear the Count arriving. Cherubino quickly hides in the closet and locks the closet door. The Countess reluctantly lets the Count into her room. The Count hears a noise from the closet. The Countess tells him that Susanna is in the closet, and that she cannot come out, because she is trying on her wedding dress. At this moment, Susanna re-enters from another room, quickly realizes what's going on, and hides before anyone can see her (Trio: "Susanna, or via, sortite" – "Susanna, come out!"). The Count shouts through the closet door for her to identify herself by her voice, but the Countess orders her to be silent. Furious and suspicious, the Count leaves, with the Countess, in search of tools to force the closet door open. As they leave, he locks all the bedroom doors to prevent the intruder from escaping. Cherubino and Susanna emerge from their hiding places, and Cherubino escapes by jumping through the window into the garden. Susanna then takes Cherubino's place in the closet, vowing to make the Count look foolish (duet: "Aprite, presto, aprite" – "Open the door, quickly!").


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Count and Countess return. The Countess, thinking herself trapped, desperately admits that Cherubino is hidden in the closet. The enraged Count draws his sword, promising to kill Cherubino on the spot, but when the closet door is opened, they both find to their astonishment only Susanna (Finale: "Esci omai, garzon malnato" – "Come out of there, you ill-born boy!"). The Count demands an explanation; the Countess tells him it is a practical joke, to test his trust in her. Shamed by his jealousy, the Count pleads for forgiveness. When the Count presses about the anonymous letter, Susanna and the Countess reveal that the letter was written by Figaro, and then delivered by Basilio. Figaro then arrives and tries to start the wedding festivities, but the Count berates him with questions about the anonymous note. Just as the Count is starting to run out of questions, Antonio the gardener arrives, complaining that a man has jumped out of the window and damaged his carnations while running away. Antonio adds that he tentatively identified the running man as Cherubino, but Figaro claims it was he himself who jumped out of the window, and pretends to have injured his foot while landing. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess attempt to discredit Antonio as a chronic drunkard whose constant inebriation makes him unreliable and prone to fantasy, but Antonio brings forward a paper which, he says, was dropped by the escaping man. The Count orders Figaro to prove he was the jumper by identifying the paper (which is, in fact, Cherubino's appointment to the army). Figaro is at a loss, but Susanna and the Countess manage to signal the correct answers, and Figaro triumphantly identifies the document. His victory is, however, short-lived: Marcellina, Bartolo, and Basilio enter, bringing charges against Figaro and demanding that he honor his contract to marry Marcellina, since he cannot repay her loan. The Count happily postpones the wedding in order to investigate the charge.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Count mulls over the confusing situation. At the urging of the Countess, Susanna enters and gives a false promise to meet the Count later that night in the garden (duet: "Crudel! perchè finora" – "Cruel girl, why did you make me wait so long"). As Susanna leaves, the Count overhears her telling Figaro that he has already won the case. Realizing that he is being tricked (recitative and aria: "Hai già vinta la causa! ... Vedrò, mentr'io sospiro" – "You've already won the case!" ... "Shall I, while sighing, see"), he resolves to punish Figaro by forcing him to marry Marcellina.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Figaro's hearing follows, and the Count's judgment is that Figaro must marry Marcellina. Figaro argues that he cannot get married without his parents' permission, and that he does not know who his parents are, because he was stolen from them when he was a baby. The ensuing discussion reveals that Figaro is Raffaello, the long-lost illegitimate son of Bartolo and Marcellina. A touching scene of reconciliation occurs. During the celebrations, Susanna enters with a payment to release Figaro from his debt to Marcellina. Seeing Figaro and Marcellina in celebration together, Susanna mistakenly believes that Figaro now prefers Marcellina to her. She has a tantrum and slaps Figaro's face. Marcellina explains, and Susanna, realizing her mistake, joins the celebration. Bartolo, overcome with emotion, agrees to marry Marcellina that evening in a double wedding (sextet: "Riconosci in questo amplesso" – "Recognize in this embrace").


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: All leave, before Barbarina, Antonio's daughter, invites Cherubino back to her house so they can disguise him as a girl. The Countess, alone, ponders the loss of her happiness (aria: "Dove sono i bei momenti" – "Where are they, the beautiful moments"). Meanwhile, Antonio informs the Count that Cherubino is not in Seville, but in fact at his house. Susanna enters and updates her mistress regarding the plan to trap the Count. The Countess dictates a love letter for Susanna to send to the Count, which suggests that he meet her (Susanna) that night, "under the pines". The letter instructs the Count to return the pin which fastens the letter (duet: "Sull'aria ... che soave zeffiretto" – "On the breeze... What a gentle little zephyr").


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: A chorus of young peasants, among them Cherubino disguised as a girl, arrives to serenade the Countess. The Count arrives with Antonio and, discovering the page, is enraged. His anger is quickly dispelled by Barbarina, who publicly recalls that he had once offered to give her anything she wants in exchange for certain favors, and asks for Cherubino's hand in marriage. Thoroughly embarrassed, the Count allows Cherubino to stay.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The act closes with the double wedding, during the course of which Susanna delivers her letter to the Count (Finale: "Ecco la marcia" – "Here is the procession"). Figaro watches the Count prick his finger on the pin, and laughs, unaware that the love-note is an invitation for the Count to tryst with Figaro's own bride Susanna. As the curtain drops, the two newlywed couples rejoice.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Following the directions in the letter, the Count has sent the pin back to Susanna, giving it to Barbarina. However, Barbarina has lost it (aria: "L'ho perduta, me meschina" – "I have lost it, poor me"). Figaro and Marcellina see Barbarina, and Figaro asks her what she is doing. When he hears the pin is Susanna's, he is overcome with jealousy, especially as he recognises the pin to be the one that fastened the letter to the Count. Thinking that Susanna is meeting the Count behind his back, Figaro complains to his mother, and swears to be avenged on the Count and Susanna, and on all unfaithful wives. Marcellina urges caution, but Figaro will not listen. Figaro rushes off, and Marcellina resolves to inform Susanna of Figaro's intentions. Marcellina sings an aria lamenting that male and female wild beasts get along with each other, but rational humans can't (aria: "Il capro e la capretta" – "The billy-goat and the she-goat"). (This aria and the subsequent aria of Basilio are mostly not performed; however, some recordings include them.)


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Motivated by jealousy, Figaro tells Bartolo and Basilio to come to his aid when he gives the signal. Basilio comments on Figaro's foolishness and claims he was once as frivolous as Figaro was. He tells a tale of how he was given common sense by "Donna Flemma" ("Dame Prudence") and learned the importance of not crossing powerful people. (aria: "In quegli anni" – "In those years"). They exit, leaving Figaro alone. Figaro muses bitterly on the inconstancy of women (recitative and aria: "Tutto è disposto ... Aprite un po' quegli occhi" – "Everything is ready ... Open those eyes a little"). Susanna and the Countess arrive, each dressed in the other's clothes. Marcellina is with them, having informed Susanna of Figaro's suspicions and plans. After they discuss the plan, Marcellina and the Countess leave, and Susanna teases Figaro by singing a love song to her beloved within Figaro's hearing (aria: "Deh vieni non tardar" – "Oh come, don't delay"). Figaro is hiding behind a bush and, thinking the song is for the Count, becomes increasingly jealous.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Countess arrives in Susanna's dress. Cherubino shows up and starts teasing "Susanna" (really the Countess), endangering the plan. (Finale: "Pian pianin le andrò più presso" – "Softly, softly I'll approach her") The Count strikes out in the dark at Cherubino. but his punch hits Figaro, and Cherubino runs off.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Count now begins making earnest love to "Susanna" (really the Countess), and gives her a jeweled ring. They go offstage together, where the Countess dodges him, hiding in the dark. Onstage, meanwhile, the real Susanna enters, wearing the Countess' clothes. Figaro mistakes her for the real Countess, and starts to tell her of the Count's intentions, but he suddenly recognizes his bride in disguise. He plays along with the joke by pretending to be in love with "my lady", and inviting her to make love right then and there. Susanna, fooled, loses her temper and slaps him many times. Figaro finally lets on that he has recognized Susanna's voice, and they make peace, resolving to conclude the comedy together ("Pace, pace, mio dolce tesoro" – "Peace, peace, my sweet treasure").


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The Count, unable to find "Susanna", enters frustrated. Figaro gets his attention by loudly declaring his love for "the Countess" (really Susanna). The enraged Count calls for his people and for weapons: his servant is seducing his wife. (Ultima scena: "Gente, gente, all'armi, all'armi" – "Gentlemen, to arms!") Bartolo, Basilio and Antonio enter with torches as, one by one, the Count drags out Cherubino, Barbarina, Marcellina and the "Countess" from behind the pavilion.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: All beg him to forgive Figaro and the "Countess", but he loudly refuses, repeating "no" at the top of his voice, until finally the real Countess re-enters and reveals her true identity. The Count, seeing the ring he had given her, realizes that the supposed Susanna he was trying to seduce was actually his wife. He kneels and pleads for forgiveness himself ("Contessa perdono!" – "Countess, forgive me!"). The Countess replies that she does forgive him ("Più docile io sono e dico di sì" – "I am kinder [than you], and I say yes"). Everyone declares that they will be happy with this ("A tutti contenti saremo cosi"), and set out to celebrate.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: "The Marriage of Figaro" is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two clarini, timpani, and strings; the "recitativi secchi" are accompanied by a keyboard instrument, usually a fortepiano or a harpsichord, often joined by a cello. The instrumentation of the "recitativi secchi" is not given in the score, so it is up to the conductor and the performers. A typical performance lasts around 3 hours.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Two arias from act 4 are often omitted: one in which Marcellina regrets that people (unlike animals) abuse their mates (""), and one in which Don Basilio tells how he saved himself from several dangers in his youth, by using the skin of a donkey for shelter and camouflage ("").


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Mozart wrote two replacement arias for Susanna when the role was taken over by Adriana Ferrarese in the 1789 revival. The replacement arias, "Un moto di gioia" (replacing "Venite, inginocchiatevi" in act 2) and "Al desio di chi t'adora" (replacing "Deh vieni non tardar" in act 4), in which the two clarinets are replaced with basset horns, are normally not used in modern performances. A notable exception was a series of performances at the Metropolitan Opera in 1998 with Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote a preface to the first published version of the libretto, in which he boldly claimed that he and Mozart had created a new form of music drama:


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: In spite ... of every effort ... to be brief, the opera will not be one of the shortest to have appeared on our stage, for which we hope sufficient excuse will be found in the variety of threads from which the action of this play "[i.e. Beaumarchais's]" is woven, the vastness and grandeur of the same, the multiplicity of the musical numbers that had to be made in order not to leave the actors too long unemployed, to diminish the vexation and monotony of long recitatives, and to express with varied colours the various emotions that occur, but above all in our desire to offer as it were a new kind of spectacle to a public of so refined a taste and understanding.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Charles Rosen, in "The Classical Style", proposes to take Da Ponte's words quite seriously, noting the "richness of the ensemble writing", which carries forward the action in a far more dramatic way than recitatives would. Rosen also suggests that the musical language of the classical style was adapted by Mozart to convey the drama: many sections of the opera musically resemble sonata form; by movement through a sequence of keys, they build up and resolve musical tension, providing a natural musical reflection of the drama. As Rosen writes:


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: The synthesis of accelerating complexity and symmetrical resolution which was at the heart of Mozart's style enabled him to find a musical equivalent for the great stage works which were his dramatic models. "The Marriage of Figaro" in Mozart's version is the dramatic equal, and in many respects the superior, of Beaumarchais's work.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: This is demonstrated in the closing numbers of all four acts: as the drama escalates, Mozart eschews "recitativi" altogether and opts for increasingly sophisticated writing, bringing his characters on stage, revelling in a complex weave of solo and ensemble singing in multiple combinations, and climaxing in seven- and eight-voice tutti for acts 2 and 4. The finale of act 2, lasting 20 minutes, is one of the longest uninterrupted pieces of music Mozart ever wrote. Eight of the opera's 11 characters appear on stage in its more than 900 bars of continuous music.


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Mozart cleverly uses the sound of two horns playing together to represent cuckoldry, in the act 4 aria "". Verdi later used the same device in Ford's aria in "Falstaff".


title: The Marriage of Figaro

text: Johannes Brahms said "In my opinion, each number in "Figaro" is a miracle; it is totally beyond me how anyone could create anything so perfect; nothing like it was ever done again, not even by Beethoven."