Free fall I think. I once was stagecrew in Edinburgh and saw Anna Moffo descend sheer from the battlements, bounce on the mattress beneath and appear momentarily for an encore. Honest guv, I did.
Oh, and while we are about it, how about this?
Opera
An opera is like a play
Except that in a play they say,
And in an opera they sing,
They sing away like anything.
Some operas go on for days
Which is unusual for plays.
You itch in rich, repulsive seats
While an expensive tenor bleats
His theme of love and longing out.
The lady, who is rather stout,
Responds in modulated shrieks,
And half an hour seems like weeks.
The villain, sour and bearded, looms
And booms revenge and dreadful dooms.
The music starts to swoop and soar:
The drums and trumpets are at war;
The frenzies of the violins
Dance like the seven deadly sins.
The plot is complex and obscure
And you are doubly unsure
Since opera is always sung
In some ungodly foreign tongue:
Taedium Vitae à la mode;
High culture by the barrowload.
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