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Opera, opera lyrics and the language they're sung in

17-05-2004 4:44pm

#1

simu

Closed Accounts Posts: 10,730 ✭✭✭✭

Join Date: April 2003

Posts: 10119

When you listen to opera, do you do so mostly for the music or are you interested in the plot and the words of the songs as well?

Recently, I 've found myself downloading the libretti (the words) of operas I have on CD because it's much more fun singing a song to yourself rather than just humming it. I find it's a good way to learn more about other languages too. (Though, you'd have to be careful about that because if all your knowledge of a language came from operas, you'd probably sould a bit old-fashioned and very melodramatic!)

Also, what do people think of operas being translated from other languages into English? Personally, I find this idea quite abhorrent. For me, the words and the music and even the inbetween dialogue all go together and I would just hate to hear, say Die Zauberfloete (The Magic Flute) in English rather than in German. (I saw an ad somewhere recently for performances of exerpts from that opera in Engilsh).

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