Pop Quiz

Tom Reed, chorus

The opera Turandot makes for a very long evening for the chorus. So much fuss over finding someone who can answer the three riddles and marry the princess. Too bad Puccini didn't make it a multiple choice quiz. If he had, the Prince of Persia might have guessed the right answers in the first act, kept his head, married Turandot, and we'd all have gone home hours earlier.

Enigma #1 - What is it that is born each night but dies with each dawn?
a) Dracula
b) An old car battery
c) Lumbago
d) Insomnia
e) Hope

Enigma #2 - What flares like a flame, yet is not flame?
a) Richard Simmons
b) Blood
c) Acid reflux
d) A supernova
e) Wasabi

Enigma #3 - What burns like fire but is cold as ice -- the ice that gives you fire?
a) Mustard
b) Lavoris
c) Tequila
d) Turandot
e) Ben Gay