[Q]: I have a test where I am given the following article, what is an answer for the question: What is the name of the aria Fisher describes as, "a Job-like prayer questioning God for punishing a woman who has lived unselfishly and righteously"? ?  In the second act of Tosca, according to Newman, Puccini rises to his greatest height as a master of the musical macabre. The act begins quietly, with Scarpia musing on the forthcoming downfall of Angelotti and Cavaradossi, while in the background a gavotte is played in a distant quarter of the Farnese Palace. For this music Puccini adapted a fifteen-year-old student exercise by his late brother, Michele, stating that in this way his brother could live again through him. In the dialogue with Spoletta, the "torture" motif—an "ideogram of suffering", according to Budden—is heard for the first time as a foretaste of what is to come. As Cavaradossi is brought in for interrogation, Tosca's voice is heard with the offstage chorus singing a cantata, "[its] suave strains contrast[ing] dramatically with the increasing tension and ever-darkening colour of the stage action". The cantata is most likely the Cantata a Giove, in the literature referred to as a lost work of Puccini's from 1897.Osborne describes the scenes that follow—Cavaradossi's interrogation, his torture, Scarpia's sadistic tormenting of Tosca—as Puccini's musical equivalent of grand guignol to which Cavaradossi's brief "Vittoria! Vittoria!" on the news of Napoleon's victory gives only partial relief. Scarpia's aria "Già, mi dicon venal" ("Yes, they say I am venal") is closely followed by Tosca's "Vissi d'arte". A lyrical andante based on Tosca's act 1 motif, this is perhaps the opera's best-known aria, yet was regarded by Puccini as a mistake; he considered eliminating it since it held up the action. Fisher calls it "a Job-like prayer questioning God for punishing a woman who has lived unselfishly and righteously". In the act's finale, Newman likens the orchestral turmoil which follows Tosca's stabbing of Scarpia to the sudden outburst after the slow movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. After Tosca's contemptuous "E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma!" ("All Rome trembled before him"), sung on a middle C♯ monotone  (sometimes spoken), the music gradually...
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[A]: Vissi d'arte


[Q]: I have a test where I am given the following article, what is an answer for the question: What is the name of the band that Danger Mouse was producing their album? ?  In February 2009, Bono stated that by the end of the year, U2 would release an album consisting of unused material from the No Line on the Horizon sessions. Bono labelled it "a more meditative album on the theme of pilgrimage". Provisionally titled Songs of Ascent, it would be a sister release to No Line on the Horizon, similar to Zooropa's relationship to Achtung Baby. In June 2009, Bono said that although nine tracks had been completed, the album would only be released if its quality surpassed that of No Line on the Horizon. A December 2009 report stated that U2 had been working in the studio with the goal of a mid-2010 release. The band revealed that the first single was intended to be "Every Breaking Wave".Over time, the album continued to be delayed. In April 2010, U2's manager Paul McGuinness confirmed that the album would not be finished by June, but indicated that a release "before the end of the year [was] increasingly likely." In October 2010, Bono stated that their new album would be produced by Danger Mouse, and that 12 songs had been completed. He also noted that U2 were working on a potential album of club music in the spirit of "U2's remixes in the 1990s". Around the same time, McGuinness said the album was slated for an early 2011 release. In February 2011, he said that the album was almost complete and had a tentative release date of May 2011, although he noted that Songs of Ascent was no longer the likely title. The Songs of Ascent project ultimately did not come to fruition and has not been released; its evolution and apparent abandonment are examined in the book The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear. Clayton said, "We thought there was more material left over from No Line... we now feel a long way from that material."After numerous delays, U2 digitally released their thirteenth album, Songs of Innocence, on 9 September 2014 in a surprise release. The band appeared the same day at an Apple Inc. product launch event to announce the album and reveal it was being released to all iTunes Store...
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[A]: U2


[Q]: I have a test where I am given the following article, what is an answer for the question: What is the name of the place that U.S. Route 66, the BNSF Railway, and the Puerco River bisect? ?  Petrified Forest National Park straddles the border between Apache County and Navajo County in northeastern Arizona. The park is about 30 miles (48 km) long from north to south, and its width varies from a maximum of about 12 miles (19 km) in the north to a minimum of about 1 mile (1.6 km) along a narrow corridor between the north and south, where the park widens again to about 4 to 5 miles (6 to 8 km).I-40, former U.S. Route 66, the BNSF Railway, and the Puerco River bisect the park generally east–west along a similar route. Adamana, a ghost town, is about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the park along the BNSF tracks. Holbrook, about 26 miles (42 km) west of park headquarters along I-40, is the nearest city. Bisecting the park north–south is Park Road, which runs between I-40 near park headquarters on the north and U.S. Route 180 on the south. Historic Highway 180, an earlier alignment of the modern route, crosses the southern edge of the park. Like Route 66, it has deteriorated and is closed. Many unpaved maintenance roads, closed to the public, intersect Park Road at various points.The fee area of the park covers about 230 square miles (600 km2). The Navajo Nation borders the park on the north and northeast. State-owned land, federal land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, and private land, much of it used for cattle ranching, adjoin the other borders. The park’s elevation above sea level varies from a low of 5,340 feet (1,630 m) along the Puerco River to a high of 6,230 feet (1,900 m) at Pilot Rock; the average elevation is about 5,400 feet (1,600 m). The terrain varies from gentle hills and major petrified wood deposits in the south to eroded badlands in the north.  Most of the park's intermittent streams—including Lithodendron Wash, Dead Wash, Ninemile Wash, and Dry Wash—empty into the Puerco River. In the southern part of the park, Cottonwood Wash and Jim Camp Wash flow into the Little Colorado River.
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[A]:
Petrified Forest National Park