10 Opera-Based New Year's Resolutions

What can we learn from the vices and disastrous decisions of opera's most famous characters? From the importance of getting your vitamins to avoiding honour-bound duels with friends, some food for thought before 2014 begins...

1. La traviata

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After messing around young nobleman Alfredo, courtesan Violetta Valéry contracts (and later succumbs to) a nasty case of Tuberculosis. If only she'd been upping her vitamin intake instead of delighting in all those drinking songs...

2. L'elisir d'amore

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Quack Doctor Dulcamara persuades gullible Nemorino that his 'Elixir of Love' will win him the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately the tonic is nothing more than a budget bottle of Bordeaux.

3. Peter Grimes

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Fisherman Peter Grimes can't stop (accidentally) killing his apprentices. After being let off by the court for one, and hounded by the baying mob after the death of another, Grimes is driven to the edge of madness and encouraged by old Captain Balstrode to take his boat out to sea and sink it.

4. Wozzeck

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In a dramatic climax, after being subjected to medical experiments at the hands of a manic doctor, soldier Wozzeck brutally murders his girlfriend Marie by a moonlit lake. After being startled by the ominous red moon, Wozzeck wades into the lake to retrieve the murder weapon, only to drown himself.

5. Eugene Onegin

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Country dandy Eugene Onegin ends up shooting dead his best friend Lensky in a duel he was honour-bound to take part in after flirting with his pal's girlfriend. After fleeing his estate for the distracting hedonism of the big city, Onegin returns years later to search for Tatyana, the girl he cruelly rejected years before, only to find out that it's too little, too late.

6. Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman)

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Based on the tale of the legendary ghost ship, Wagner's opera tells the story of a rabble of phantom sailors doomed to sail the seas forever until their captain can find a wife who will be true to him and break the curse.

7. Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)

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A tale wound around an ever-increasingly complicated series of back-and-forth letters, Le nozze di Figaro sees the titular servant attempting to distract the lecherous Count from seducing Figaro's fiancée by sending an anonymous letter telling him that his own wife has been unfaithful. A maelstrom of jealously ensues.

8. The Gambler

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Greed, betrayal and obsession are the themes that run through Prokofiev's adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel. Set in the fictional town of Roulettenburg, the action revolves around the destructive draw of the casino and its toll on central character Alexei.

9. Gianni Schicchi

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When Buoso Donati dies, his family are horrified to learn that he has left all his money to a monastery. They turn to the cunning Gianni Schicchi to help them change his will, with comical (and riotous) results.

10. Carmen

Perhaps opera's most famous jealous boyfriend, Don José is seduced by feisty gypsy Carmen with disastrous results. After stabbing Carmen to death outside Seville's bullring, Don José wishes he'd undertaken some serious self-improvement on New Year's Eve.