Joanna Boulter wrote:

> A belated Happy Birthday from me too.
>
> We value you as yourself, and would not wish you to be 80 years old
> and that
> much nearer the final cadence.
>
> But, given those operas, what language would you want them sung in? The
> language of the original libretto, or the language of the country where
> they're being performed?
>
> best       joanna

Uh oh.  I'm supposed to know something about this?  I'll weasel out of
it--most large opera theaters manage to put sub- or supertitles up for
the audience.  At the Met in NY the even have them on the backs of the
seats.  That may not help the person in the very first row.  It also
gets the patrons to reading their seatbacks instead of paying attention
to the music, which is supposed to be what it's all about.  My feeling
about opera in English is that most singers' have such abysmal diction
it doesn't really matter because they sound unintelligible regardless of
language.  Dame Joan Sutherland could have sung the phone book, yes, but
you wouldn't know WHICH phone book because for all anyone knew it was
either Sydney or Bratislava.  Let's say intelligility wasn't her strong
suit.

When the Met used to do Russian operas like Boris Godunov or The Queen
of Spades, the language was English.  Perhaps there were not enough
singers who could manage to learn the roles in Russian?  Earlier than
that, in the late 19th century, they went through a German period where
everything was done in German: Verdi, Gounod, anyone.  I have a
recording from about 1938, Jussi Bjoerling singing "Ah, leve toi soleil"
in Swedish instead of French.  It absolutely does not matter.  It's perfect.

Some operas I can't imagine translated.  Otello belongs IN Italian.  I
still think Shaw was right about Othello (I'm paraphrasing) being a play
by Shakespeare based on an opera by Verdi...something like that.  Having
heard Queen of Spades in Russian I cannot imagine it in English.

Francois Poulenc, whose Dialogues of the Carmelites is among my
favorites, suggested rather forcefully that the opera be sung in the
language of the country where it was being presented.  New York I THINK
did that.  But when I saw it two years ago, it was in French.  Did
something lost in the non-translation?  I don't know.

Ken