Alphabet associations

[mercia]

Our fellow-boarder Mandryka surely knows Matteo

Matteo and Mandryka are both characters in Strauss's Arabella

[vinteuil]

Matteo and Mandryka are both characters in Strauss's Arabella

... getting there! And Matteo's partner (the one he ends up with) in Arabella is??

[mercia]

the one he ends up with

Zdenka?

[vinteuil]

... so we have:

1.) Zdenka/Zdenko in Strauss's Arabella
2.) Handel's eponymous hero Giulio Cesare
3.) perhaps Robert Hollingworth's take on Giovanni Croce...

[Tapiola]

Trouser role/travesti?

[vinteuil]

Trouser role/travesti?

Trousers it is....


Arabella's family are on their uppers and cannot afford to keep both children as daughters- so her sister Zdenka has to be brought up in trousers as the boy Zdenko

Giulio Cesare is a 'trouser role' for the soprano

R Hollingworth's 'Comic Faces of Giovanni Croce' features... "Poor Luckless Pantaloon"... :doh:

... Tapiola gets a well deserved U ...

[Tapiola]

I think I need a lie down after that, vinteuil. I would never have got that but for the extra clues, and mercia's help.

Time for a U.

Kenneth and Jack, among others, were on their Tod.

What is the connecting U?

EDIT: All 3 clues are musical, as is the answer.

[vinteuil]

Kenneth and Jack (among others) were soloists?

[Tapiola]

Kenneth and Jack (among others) were soloists?

Not soloists, vinteuil.

Perhaps I should clarify by saying that the answer per se is NOT musical, but when combined with another word, IS.

[vinteuil]

then it's Jack Thompson and Kenneth Montgomery and the Ulster Orch - also Tod Handley...