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Following on my post @3, where I surmised that I might have messed up one of the themed answers.

Well, I had - I'd overlooked 27d (and only got it because it was mentioned as themed on here) and incorrectly included 29a:-(

Very interesting, Brendan. I’ve read as far as “the German tank problem” but will save the others for tomorrow (post Everyman/Azed duties, naturally ;-)

Brendan - there’s a 29a recurring motif in Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra that I couldn’t get out of my head when I wrote in the solution.

Hi Rogissimo,

I didn't know the Strauss connection but I did know it was an opera and that's why I initially included it but, as I said in my original post, I wasn't at all convinced.

I lucked into the actual 14th one, 27d, thanks to a post on here and thankfully so, otherwise I doubt I'd ever have found it - I mean, can you imagine a more unlikely name for a 14a?

Brendan, 27 is an unlikely name for a 14a, but I was living in the NYC area when it came out, so recall it well. It was a big hit there (set in E. Village), despite lacking a certain originality (based on La bohème).

I thought 29 might feature in Michael Tippett's opera King Priam, but no...not as a character, though the name occurs in the libretto.

The 29a opera is pretty obscure, Brendan: I’m not even sure it’s been performed since its première!
27d, by contrast, is a very successful 14, and I’m told by those who like that sort of thing (unlike me) that it’s also pretty good!

Same in Strauss’s Elektra, geeker - dead before the curtain rises. There was an astonishingly fine run of performances of Elektra at the Royal Opeta House earlier this year - you can still catch it on BBC Sounds. I think King Priam is Tippett’s finest opera (but many would disagree).

(Correction: not dead, gone away. Shows how much I was paying attention)

Argh I was right first time. Better shut up now…