The Language of the Operas

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 518, 27 May 1949, Page 11

The Language of the Operas

PERA is the only topic among Dunedin music-lovers at the time of writing this. Comment on the opera broadcast by myself at this date would merely be redundant, so thoroughly has the job of criticism already been done, but a sidelight on the broadcasts is worth mention. Not once ‘but a dozen times during the season has some innocent but well-meaning member of the radio audience. asked me plaintively, "Why can’t they sing it in English?" There are various possible replies, One, the opera was written in Italian-would you expect a Gilbert and Sullivan cast to do The Mikado in Chinese if they performed in Hangchow? Two, the singers are Italian, and their own language sung by themselves will sound vastly better than the less melodious, less liquid, less singable English. Three, it all depends on who does the translation. I wonder just how much of the glamour would disappear if literal trans: lations of much of the singing (particularly the recitatives) came across the footlights in all their banality? Let listeners who like to understand the

words listen to Albert Herring, Britten’s English opera, which is being heard at present from various stations. When they hear Albert beginning a recitative passage with the noble sentiment, "No! She Belongs to Sid!", let such listeners pause and reconsider theif demands for Italian libretti to be made understandable to the foreign audience (meaning ourselves, of course).