Line #34 Music/Avantasia


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/AvantasiaPhoto_2616.jpg]]
2	Tobias Sammet's Avantasia is a PowerMetal "band" from Fulda, Germany, and the solo side-project of Music/{{Edguy}}'s Tobias Sammet started in 1999. All of Avantasia's albums are rock operas and are currently split between three different stories: ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Metal Opera]]'', ''The Wicked Trilogy'' and ''The Mystery of Time''. Avantasia was named as a portmanteau of Avalon and Fantasia for the world that ''The Metal Opera'' takes place in. With some of the guests (including Music/AliceCooper and [[Music/ScorpionsBand Klaus Meine]]) that appear on the albums, one might come to the conclusion that the project is more or less Sammet's way of showing off his connections if it weren't for the fact that the music is so [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic damn cool.]] Speaking of guest members, if you can think of a power metal vocalist, there's a very good chance that they've contributed to Avantasia.
3
4	Compare and contrast Music/{{Ayreon}}.
5
6	Members:
7	* [[IAmTheBand Tobias Sammet]]: Vocals, bass (from 2007), keyboard (until 2002), (1999-present)
8
9	''The Wicked Trilogy'' backing band:
10	* Sascha Paeth: Guitar, production (2006-present)
11	* [[Music/{{KISS}} Eric Singer]]: Drums (2006-present)
12	* [[StageNames Miro]]: Keyboard, orchestration (Real name Michael Rodenberg, 2006-present)
13
14	''The Metal Opera'' backing band:
15	* Henjo Richter: Guitar (2000-2002, 2007-2008, 2010)
16	* Markus Grosskopf: Bass (2000-2002)
17	* Alex Holzwrath: Drums (2000-2002, 2009-2010)
18
19	Contributing vocalists:
20	* Michael Kiske (Music/{{Helloween}}, Music/{{Unisonic}}) - ''The Metal Opera,'' ''The Metal Opera Pt. II,'' ''The Scarecrow,'' ''The Wicked Symphony,'' ''Angel of Babylon,'' ''The Mystery of Time,'' ''Ghostlights'', ''Moonglow'', and ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society''
21	* David [=DeFeis=] (Music/VirginSteele) - ''The Metal Opera'' and ''The Metal Opera Pt. II''
22	* Ralf Zdiarstek - ''The Metal Opera'', ''The Metal Opera Pt. II'', and ''The Wicked Symphony''
23	* Sharon den Adel (Music/WithinTemptation) - ''The Metal Opera'', ''The Metal Opera Pt. II'', ''Ghostlights''
24	* Rob Rock (Music/{{Impelliteri}}) - ''The Metal Opera'' and ''The Metal Opera Pt. II''
25	* Oliver Hartmann (ex-AtVance) - ''The Metal Opera,'' ''The Metal Opera Pt. II'' and ''The Scarecrow''
26	* Andre Matos (ex-Music/{{Shaman}}, ex-Music/{{Angra}}, ex-Music/{{Viper}}) - ''The Metal Opera,'' ''The Metal Opera Pt. II'' and ''The Wicked Symphony''
27	* Music/KaiHansen (Music/GammaRay, Music/{{Helloween}}, Music/{{Unisonic}}) - ''The Metal Opera'' and ''The Metal Opera Pt. II''
28	* Timo Tolkki (ex-Music/{{Stratovarius}}) - ''The Metal Opera'' and ''The Metal Opera Pt. II''
29	* Bob Catley (Music/{{Magnum}}) - ''The Metal Opera Pt. II,'' ''The Scarecrow,'' ''The Wicked Symphony,'' ''Angel of Babylon,'' ''The Mystery of Time,'' ''Ghostlights'', ''Moonglow'', and ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society''
30	* Jorn Lande (Music/{{Jorn}}, ex-Music/{{Masterplan}}, ex-Music/{{ARK}}) - ''The Scarecrow,'' ''The Wicked Symphony,'' ''Angel of Babylon,'' ''Ghostlights'', ''Moonglow'', and ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society''
31	* Amanda Sommerville (Music/{{Aina}}) - ''The Scarecrow''
32	* Roy Khan (ex-Music/{{Kamelot}}, Music/{{Conception}}) - ''The Scarecrow''
33	* Music/AliceCooper - ''The Scarecrow''
34	* Eric Singer (Music/{{KISS}}, ex-Music/BlackSabbath, ex-Music/AliceCooper) - ''Lost in Space Part I''
35	* "Sir" Russel Allen (Music/SymphonyX) - ''The Wicked Symphony'' and ''Angel of Babylon''
36	* Jon Oliva ([[IAmTheBand Jon Oliva's]] [[Music/JonOlivasPain Pain]], ex-{{Music/Savatage}}) - ''Angel of Babylon''
37	* Klaus Meine (Music/{{Scorpions\|Band}}) - ''The Wicked Symphony''
38	* Tim "Ripper" Owens (ex-[[Music/YngwieMalmsteen Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force]], ex-Music/JudasPriest, ex-Music/IcedEarth) - ''The Wicked Symphony''
39	* Cloudy Yang - ''Angel of Babylon'' and ''The Mystery of Time''
40	* Peter "Biff" Byford (Music/{{Saxon}}) - ''The Mystery of Time''
41	* Ronnie Atkins (Music/PrettyMaids) - ''The Mystery of Time,'' ''Ghostlights'', ''Moonglow'', and ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society''
42	* Eric Martin (Music/MrBig) - ''The Mystery of Time'', ''Moonglow'', and ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society''
43	* Joe Lynn Turner (ex-Music/{{Rainbow}}) - ''The Mystery of Time''
44	* Geoff Tate (Music/OperationMindcrime, ex-Music/{{Queensryche}}) - ''Ghostlights'', ''Moonglow'', and ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society''
45	* Dee Snider (Music/TwistedSister) - ''Ghostlights''
46	* Marco Hietala (Music/{{Tarot}}, Music/{{Nightwish\|Band}}) - ''Ghostlights''
47	* Robert Mason (Music/{{Warrant}}, ex-Music/LynchMob) - ''Ghostlights''
48	* Herbie Langhans (Music/{{Sinbreed}}, ex-Music/SeventhAvenue) - ''Ghostlights''
49	* Hansi Kürsch (Music/BlindGuardian, Music/DemonsAndWizards) - ''Moonglow''
50	* Candice Night (Music/BlackmoresNight) - ''Moonglow''
51	* Mille Petrozza (Music/{{Kreator}}) - ''Moonglow''
52	* Music/FloorJansen (Music/{{Nightwish}}, ex-Music/AfterForever, ex-Music/ReVamp) - ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society''
53	* Ralf Scheepers (Music/{{Primal Fear\|Band}}, ex-Music/GammaRay) - ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society''
54
55	Contributing Musicians:
56	* Guitar:
57	** Jens Ludwig (Music/{{Edguy}})
58	** Norman Meiritz
59	** Timo Tolkki (ex-Music/{{Stratovarius}})
60	** Kai Hansen (Music/GammaRay, Music/{{Helloween}})
61	** Rudolph Schenker (Music/{{Scorpions\|Band}})
62	** Bruce Kulick (ex-Music/{{KISS}}, Music/GrandFunkRailroad)
63	** Oliver Hartmann (ex-Music/AtVance)
64	** Arjen A. Lucassen (''Music/{{Ayreon}}'')
65	* Piano[=/=]Organ[=/=]Keyboard:
66	** Frank Tischer
67	** Jens Johansson (Music/{{Stratovarius}}, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force)
68	** Simon Oberender
69
70	Discography:
71	* Studio Albums:
72	** ''The Metal Opera'' (2000-2002):
73	*** Part I (2000)
74	*** Part II (2002)
75	** ''The Wicked Trilogy'' (2008-2010):
76	*** Part I: ''The Scarecrow'' (2008)
77	*** Part II: ''The Wicked Symphony'' (2010, double album with ''Angel of Babylon'')
78	*** Part III: ''Angel of Babylon'' (2010, double album with ''The Wicked Symphony'')
79	** ''The Mystery of Time'' (2013-2016):
80	*** ''The Mystery of Time'' (2013)
81	*** ''Ghostlights'' (2016)
82	** ''Moonflower Saga'' (2019-Present):
83	*** ''Moonglow'' (2019)
84	*** ''A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society'' (2022)
85	* [=EPs=]:
86	** ''Lost In Space Part I'' (2007)
87	** ''Lost In Space Part II'' (2007)
88	* Live albums:
89	** ''The Flying Opera'' (2011)
90	----
91	This band may exhibit the following tropes:
92	* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: Of the unintentional variety, Lavender. Tobias thought the word was pronounced laVENder and wrote the melody to fit that pronunciation. When Englishman Bob Catley was given the song to sing, he tried to correct it, but the melody was already set and the word couldn't really be fixed at that point.
93	* AirGuitar: Expect to see a lot of this during concerts, with or without mic stands as "guitars".
94	* AntiVillain: Friar Jakob in ''The Metal Opera''. He spends the better part of the saga on the side of the CorruptChurch, but feels guilt over his betrayal of Gabriel (who he viewed as a son) for his part in their [[WitchHunt prosecution]] of Anna. He also begins to express doubt over the church's intentions. [[spoiler: This ultimately culminates in an apparent Heel-Face Turn towards the end of ''Part II''.]]
95	* AuthorAppeal: Sammet's basis for the project is basically an excuse work with all his childhood music idols.
96	* AuthorAvatar: Gabriel, The Scarecrow, Aaron, and the Moonglow "Misplaced Entity" to some extent.
97	* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Arguably, they all feature this to some extent, but it's most prominent in ''The Wicked Trilogy'' as almost the entire story can be said to take place in the protagonist's mind.
98	* BittersweetEnding: ''The Metal Opera'' and ''The Wicked Trilogy'' end with [[spoiler: Vandroiy dying, but Anna successfully escaping execution in the former, and the protagonist implied to be committed to an asylum in the latter.]]
99	* BSODSong: "Blowing Out the Flame" in which the protagonist finally flops over and gives up fighting with himself. It's such a BSOD the song that follows is the only Avantasia song in the entire discography in which the protagonist (Tobias Sammet) doesn't appear at all.
100	* CallBack: Many of the lyrics in ''The Mystery of Time'' reference an "evil dark tower", which happened to be a villain in ''The Metal Opera''.
101	** "Ghost in the Moon" mentions a "mystery of a blood red rose" twice in the lyrics, which is the title of a song from the previous album.
102	* CantArgueWithElves: Matos' character, elf prince Elderane in ''The Metal Opera''.
103	* CliffHanger: Basically every album except for ''Angel of Babylon''.
104	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Jon Oliva's character in Death Is Just A Feeling. In a {{Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant}} kind of way, that is.
105	** Name-dropped in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfQEclxbQrs Invoke the Machine]].
106	* ConceptAlbum: Everything.
107	* {{Downer Ending}}: "Lost In Space" from ''The Scarecrow'' and "The Edge" from ''The Wicked Symphony''.
108	* {{Epic Rocking}}: Not as frequently as some of the associates, but there are some, including ''The Tower'', being just a few seconds shy of the 9 minute mark, ''The Scarecrow'' with about 11 minutes, ''The Seven Angels'' being the longest one with over 14 minutes.
109	** Also now there's ''Savior in the Clockwork'' and ''The Great Mystery'' over 10 minutes and ''Let the Storm Descend Upon You'' over 12 minutes.
110	* FadingIntoTheNextSong: "Invincible" fades into "Alchemy".
111	* FakeOutFadeOut: ''The Great Mystery'' does this with tender piano parts that feel like outros, that then explode for more bombastic sequences and finally the suitably epic ending.
112	** Towards the last third of "Ghost in the Moon" the song seems like it ends, but then the background choir reappears and it builds up again until the real end of the song.
113	* FantasticCatholicism: ''The Metal Opera'' includes plenty of papal conspiracy.
114	* GirlOfMyDreams: The woman in "Sleepwalking" turns out to be a member of the occultists Aaron meets later.
115	* {{Good Angel Bad Angel}}: The entire ''Wicked Trilogy'' is essentially this.
116	* GothRock: "Draconian Love" from ''Ghostlights'' has shades of this.
117	* HakunaMatata: "In Quest For".
118	* HalfHumanHybrid: The main character of ''Moonglow'' apparently.
119	--> "Half human and it's frightening to just guess the other half." - Ghost In The Moon
120	* HamToHamCombat: EVERYWHERE. Especially on title track of ''The Wicked Symphony'', which Sammet described in interviews as a three way vocal battle between him, Jorn Lande and Russell Allen, and "Stargazers" from ''Angel of Babylon'', which features those three, plus Michael Kiske.
121	* HappyPlace: "Journey To Arcadia"
122	* HearingVoices: A significant number of the characters in ''The Wicked Trilogy'' and ''The Mystery of Time'' are imagined by/an aspect of Sammet's corresponding character.
123	* HeavyMithril: ''The Metal Opera''
124	* IAmTheBand: Tobias Sammet
125	* IWantSong: Almost all of them to some extent.
126	* KilledOffScreen: [[spoiler: This keeps happening to Kiske's characters]]
127	* LargeHam: ''Countless,'' but in a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover of the finest hams in arguably the hammiest [[PowerMetal genre]] this side of musical theatre, OneSceneWonder Jon Oliva may very well be the hammiest of them all. "Death is Just a Feeling" is ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH3owQnIdAs majestic]].''
128	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: "Journey to Arcadia" with the line "The final curtain of the show", as it is the last song of the entire ''Wicked Trilogy''. Also, from the same song, "Faith, rescue my dream/From a role that I've been put in on their screen" although this one's less clear.
129	** Another example is from "The Wicked Symphony". Mephistopheles says "If you deny what you desire/This will have been just a mystery play." The line should probably say "morality play" because a mystery play is just acting out a scene from the Bible while a morality play features the Devil trying to convince an individual to turn to the DarkSide but always failing. Mephistopheles is trying to get the story to work in his favor for once. [[spoiler: Of course by the end of the ''Wicked Trilogy'' the Scarecrow ''has'' rejected Mephistopheles, making the story a kind of really convoluted mystery/morality play anyway.]]
130	* MagicalLand: Avantasia.
131	* MasqueradeBall: In the "Mystery Of A Blood Red Rose" music video.
132	* MassiveMultiplayerCrossover: Of power metal vocalists and then some. In fact, the only way to get a more complete list of power metal vocalists would be to add [[Music/SonataArctica Tony Kakko]], Music/TarjaTurunen, [[Music/{{Helloween}} Andi Deris]], and [[Music/IcedEarth Matt Barlow]] into the mix.
133	* MrFixit: Aaron Blackwell in ''The Mystery of Time'' spends a good chunk of the story trying to fix a mantlepiece clock.
134	* NoSongForTheWicked: ''The Mystery of Time'' is locked to Aaron's perspective, though there also appears to be NoAntagonist.
135	* NeverMyFault: A major fault of ''The Wicked Trilogy'''s protagonist.
136	* {{Precision F Strike}}: "Don't give a fuck for roses!"
137	* QuirkyTown: Namedropped in the story booklet as the setting for ''The Mystery of Time''.
138	* RockOpera: Or, you know, the Metal Opera.
139	* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Elderane is implied to fly an elf plane that rescues Gabriel during "The Tower".
140	* SanitySlippageSong: Memory, and basically everything out of the later installments of ''The Wicked Trilogy''.
141	* SceneryPorn: "Spectres" off ''The Mystery of Time'' does a good job of painting this.
142	* SelfFulfillingProphecy: [[spoiler: Falk's death in The Metal Opera]]
143	* {{Seven Deadly Sins}}: Or some of them, anyway. From ''The Wicked Trilogy'' we have characters named Acedia (the Latin name for sloth) and Fury (essentially another term for wrath).
144	** Also Mammon (Greed) and Pride are invoked in the lyrics to "Sign of the Cross" from ''The Metal Opera''. By the Pope, of all characters.
145	* StalkerWithACrush: The ''Wicked Trilogy'''s protagonist sounds like one in the song "Carry Me Over".
146	--> I am watching but you don't seem aware/
147	--> But I won't be around/
148	--> I'll be out of sight, out of sound/
149	--> Someone's gonna wait somewhere
150	* TimeMaster: The Watchmaker character from "Master Of The Pendulum".
151	* TitleTrack: ''The Scarecrow'', ''The Wicked Symphony'', ''Angel of Babylon'', ''Ghostlights'', and ''Moonglow''
152	* TomeOfEldritchLore: the major MacGuffin of ''The Metal Opera'''s story.
153	* TypeCast: Shamelessly done for both the personalities and the vocal styles the singers are known for. Matos as an Elf Prince, Catley as a wise presence, so on and so forth.
154	* VillainousBreakdown: Falk goes from a pretty ordinary-if-dickish Bailiff into a paranoid, superstitious wreck by the end of ''The Metal Opera'' after he is "cursed".
155	* VillainSong: Basically every character who is a bad influence to Tobias Sammet's character in ''The Wicked Trilogy'' gets one. Alice Cooper in ''The Scarecrow'', Jon Oliva in ''Angel of Babylon'', Jorn Lande almost everywhere in the trilogy....
156	** Memory, Glory of Rome, and parts of Sign of the Cross and The Seven Angels from ''The Metal Opera'' can be seen as these too.
157	* VocalTagTeam: As far as the eye can see.
158	* WhoWantsToLiveForever: "Death Is Just A Feeling" from ''Angel of Babylon'' plays with this; the implication is that being remembered for your works is worse than dying forgotten, because people will only remember a caricature of your real personality anyway.
159	* WisdomFromTheGutter: Eric Martin's character in ''The Mystery of Time''.
160	* WiseTree: Bob Catley plays the Tree of Knowledge in ''The Metal Opera: Pt II''

Context Music / Avantasia