It isn't over until the fat lady sings

Q. What fat lady And why is she singing

A. Used mostly by sports commentators, often in a spirit of reassurance to the supporters of the losing team, the phrase is trotted out to remind people that it is only the final result of a game that matters.

The full saying is, 'The opera ain't over until the fat lady sings,' and it first made an appearance in a column by US sportswriter Dan Cook in 1976. Cook's column in the San Antonio News-Express covered the ups and downs of the San Antonio Spurs, a professional basketball team.

When Cook repeated it on TV it was picked up by basketball coach Dick Motta, who used it to answer a question about his team's slim chances of success in a play-off series. Motta was widely quoted and the phrase entered the sporting vernacular.

Cook, however, may initially have been inspired by an older American proverb.

Q. Which was

A. Ralph Graves claims in the August 1991 issue of the Smithsonian - the journal of the Smithsonian Institution - that the phrase had its roots in Southern proverbial lore, 'Church ain't out till the fat lady sings.'

Q. So what has it got to do with opera

A. The reference is to the last act of an opera, in which the heroine often appears to deliver her final, show-stopping piece. Opera singers are popularly imagined to be endowed with figures as full as their voices, giving rise to a universal image of an overweight soprano brandishing a spear and wearing a Viking helmet.

Q. Any particular opera

A. It is clearly rooted in Wagnerian opera, specifically The Ring of the Nibelungen cycle. The 'fat lady' is probably most associated with the character Brunhilda in The Valkure - in which she sleeps - Siegfried - where she sings - and Twilight of the Gods - in which she dies - leaving Siegfried as the most logical choice as the source for the image.

Q. And who was the original 'fat lady'

A. Bucking the stereotype, the 20th century did not produce a noticeably overweight Brunhilda. Opera buffs, however, agree that the two most likely candidates are Sweden's Birgit Nilsson and Norway's Kirsten Flagstad.

For more on Phrases & Sayings click here

By Simon Smith