Talk:A Night at the Opera (Blind Guardian album)

Untitled
Sorry but copying the name of another album is....lame. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.188.169 (talk) 13:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It is not "another album name". It is Marx brothers film A Night at the Opera which inspired both.Garret Beaumain (talk) 16:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

They assumed that they are fan of Queen though, I'm not sure if the influence is from the movie, and I can almost remember an interview where Hansi said that its an homepage to Queen - I am not sure though. In any case, a homage is not lame. Lame is to come here to try pull down a work that you probably don't even know.--187.15.132.10 (talk) 01:13, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Wait for an Answer
" 18:28, 20 December 2007 195.3.113.169 (Talk) (6,822 bytes) (Corrected it according to a statement Hansi made in a german magazine)"

Can we get some confirmation? I would believe it anyway, but it'd be better to see the actual source. Sherick (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Concerning lyrical themes: there's an interview with Hansi about this stuff:

Spyros: I want you to tell me the story behind each song in your new album. Just a couple of words on the theme that each song is based.

Hansi: OK.

Spyros: Let’s start with “Precious Jerusalem”…

Hansi: This is a song about finding yourself. I have taken some moments of Jesus as he realized who he is. Then there is “Battlefield”, which is based on an old, German epic poem called “Song of Hildebrandt” (en. I hope I got this right:). We have “Under the Ice” which is about the last minutes of the life of Cassandra, the Trojan prophet. After “Under the Ice” there is…

Spyros: “Sadly Sings Destiny”…

Hansi: “Sadly Sings Destiny”. It is about fate and how fate needs human beings to achieve its goals.

Spyros: I was wondering here if you speak through the roman judge (Pilatus) who was putting Jesus on trial.”…

Hansi: No, it is a fiction person who did not really exist. He was forced to do several things like building the cross, whatever happens with it he knows that is not for good. He takes the bush of thorns and makes a crown, etc. etc. He takes the donkey and he blah blah blah. So, he is the one to make the prophecies come true. Which are based on the religious aspect of the Messiah on the Old Testament.

Spyros: Shall we continue with “The Maiden and the Minstrel Knight”?

Hansi: Another European poem. This is a very revolutionary story that’s why I have chosen it, although it is a love story. There are many, many very political aspects in the story, in the way it was told 900 years ago. That guy was definitely against all that “knight” and “warrior” thing and he was a poet. That’s why I liked it so much.

Spyros: “Wait for an Answer”…

Hansi: “Wait for an Answer” is a very difficult story. It a story I wrote some years ago and it is more or less a friendship between a hare and a fox, a very unusual friendship. They both have to avoid the genocide created by the tribe of crows who are the kind of racist nation in the story.

Spyros: And it happens to be my personal favorite of the album!

Hansi: Thanks!

Spyros: And the sound of the bells in the beginning is wonderful, I had to listen to those bells since “Somewhere Far Beyond”… (Hansi smiles – I go to heaven Razz) How about “The Soulforged”? This is from the Dragonlance series right?

Hansi: Yes, that’s about Raistlin. I have read some of the stories, I haven’t read them all, but he is an outstanding person in these books.

Spyros: This song went pretty well in the concert too… It got a great fan reaction…

Hansi: Well, yeah. It did and obviously songs like “Battlefield” or “Soulforged” are in the old BLIND GUARDIAN tradition although there are a lot of vocal layouts in there.

Spyros: “The Age of False Innocence”?

Hansi: This is about the scientist Galileo Galilei. How he betrays his own vision, to survive. And there is a question; is there any reason why he should do that? And I think if you want to survive, you do some things you usually wouldn’t do and so he did, he denied himself.

Spyros: “Punishment Divine”…

Hansi: “Punishment Divine” is another very tricky one. It is about a philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. The last moments before he gets mad. He was atheist and a very smart brain and during those last moments of realizing reality and what he has done he had been in a struggle if he did the right thing or not and this is between him and his judges which are God, or whoever and they punish him to madness.

Spyros: And finally, “And Then There Was Silence”…

Hansi: That’s Trojan War again and that’s probably the masterpiece of the album. I was very sceptic to do that because I feel there are a lot of similarities between the Trojan War, how the story grows, with the <…..> (en. Sorry guys, I could not decipher what Hansi said here, the background sounds are hellish!). It is reality, mythology and it contains so many things. In some points it is an Anti-War story. And is also has a lot in common with the “Silmarillion”. I’ve had that in mind, that story, lots of times, but mysteriously I wouldn’t work on it. During “Follow the Blind”, with “Fast to Madness”, that was my first attempt in a way to come up with the Trojan War, but I kept this until it was the right time.

Stauch leaving the group in response to the new style
This is marked as an opinion, but it's not. I clearly, clearly remember reading an interview back then in which the guy said exactly this, also specifically complaining about Olbrich "disfiguring" the standard power metal songs he brought in by means of cut & paste.

I can't even remember in which language I read it, though, so I'm having trouble finding it.

If anybody can dig it up... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.31.16.78 (talk) 15:25, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

I wanted to comment on this too. I have no idea wheter or not it's true, but it surely isn't an opinion. Yeah, Thomas not liking the style is an opinion, but him using that as reason to leave is not. It's a true or false fact. 217.121.176.170 (talk) 15:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 06:18, 29 April 2016 (UTC)