Opera singing in English?

» hamsterdance - Opera singing in English?

I'm an Opera newbie - Just recently discovered Sumi Jo and was surprised to discover her singing style falls under the Opera heading.

So I was looking in the Opera section of my local music store. I am now wondering why no one bothers to sing Opera in English. It seems like Italian, French and German have plenty of Opera singing - where is English? Do Opera singers or publics not like English for singing?

-- posted by hamsterdance

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» ibass - Re: Opera singing in English?

In response to message posted by hamsterdance:

Please make another trip to your local music store -- or try web sources for classical recordings if your shop is understocked -- as there are lots of operas that have been written in English, and also recital songs and song cycles.

You must take into consideration, of course, that many of the best-known operas were written in other countries and in the language that the audience would have understood at the time. Handel wrote some operas in Italian, and others in English; Mozart wrote some in Italian and some in German. In some countries, operas are performed live or recorded in translation to the language spoken there (I happen to collect such recordings; I own versions of Il Barbiere di Siviglia in such languages as French, German, and Russian, for instance); and you may therefore find some recordings of operas that have been translated into English for British audiences. The general trend though is to leave operas in the language in which they've been written, as the words came first and then the music, and changing the meter or length of the words can mess up the sound though perhaps the meaning has become clearer. This is why many houses now use supertitles, to enable people to read translations as they listen to how the foreign words match their score.

But let's consider operas that have been written in English to begin with. If you like early opera, with the kind of florid singing Sumi Jo does, check out the operas of Purcell, and the English works of Handel. A ballad opera of the early 18th century that is still performed today is The Beggar's Opera; some nineteenth century English-language works that have been recorded are Balfe's The Bohemian Girl, Wallace's Maritana, and Sullivan's Ivanhoe. Operas were composed in the United States well back into the 18th century, but unfortunately it is difficult to find most pre-20th-C American operas on recordings.

Once we hit the 20th century, there are many operas in English from both sides of the Atlantic, by such composers as Bernstein, Barber, Bolcolm, Adams, Thomson, Beeson, Menotti, Moore, Floyd, Delius, Britten, Vaughn Williams, Tippett...and the list goes on and on, as new compositions are being recorded probably even as I type. One recent and quite melodic opera, for example, is Adamo's Little Women which has been recorded on CD and was broadcast nationwide last season.

Please follow the link at my site to American operas for more information about some of them.

Whatever you do, don't give up! There is plenty available on recordings for you to enjoy in English, and companies even at the level of the Met perform operas written in English (this current Met season includes Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream).

-- posted by ibass

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