# Capitalisation of words in opera titles?



## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

Why is it that some words aren't capitalised in opera titles, when in a book title of the same name they might?

_La forza del destino _not La Forza del Destino
_Der fliegende Holländer_ not _Der Fliegende Holländer
Le nozze di Figaro_ not _Le Nozze di Figaro_


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

FrankE said:


> Why is it that some words aren't capitalised in opera titles, when in a book title of the same name they might?
> 
> _La forza del destino _not La Forza del Destino
> _Der fliegende Holländer_ not _Der Fliegende Holländer
> Le nozze di Figaro_ not _Le Nozze di Figaro_


It is about the grammar rules of the original opera language vs. the grammar (or book title conventions) of English.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

In opera titles, after the first word, no words (except proper names) are capitalized


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I don't think there are hard and fast rules in English, Italian or French, although proper names will always be capitals, as in Manon Lescaut or Le roi de Lahore (the L of le is capital because it's the first word of the title). In German it's slightly different, because _all _German nouns are spelled with a capital letter, not just in a title.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Yes, all nouns have to be capitalized, but on the other hand, German is reluctant to capitalize adjectives even in fixed expressions like "Fliegender Holländer". Even adjectives derived from names (like "Hegelian" or "Platonic") are often spelled lowercase in German.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I don't think there are hard and fast rules in English, Italian or French, although proper names will always be capitals, as in Manon Lescaut or Le roi de Lahore (the L of le is capital because it's the first word of the title). In German it's slightly different, because _all _German nouns are spelled with a capital letter, not just in a title.


There may not be hard and fast rules in English or French. However, in Italian unless the words would be capitalised normally (e.g. they are names - Lucrezia Borgia), then opera titles should all be lower case apart from the first letter.

N.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

The Conte said:


> There may not be hard and fast rules in English or French. However, in Italian unless the words would be capitalised normally (e.g. they are names - Lucrezia Borgia), then opera titles should all be lower case apart from the first letter.
> 
> N.


That's usually the same in French, but I have seen both La Vie Parisienne and La vie parisienne, thuogh the title of the Wikipedia page is La Vie parisienne, which can't be right.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I’ve always thought that book & music titles were capitalized in English. For a time, book titles were also underlined.


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## feierlich (3 mo ago)

In English everything except articles, prepositions and conjunctions is capitalized. (_The Hobbit, or There and Back Again_)
In French only the first noun appearing in the title is capitalized. (_Le Sacre du printemps_) [This is oversimplified, see the Wikipedia page below]
In German nouns are capitalized. (_Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen_)
In Italian only names of people or places are capitalized. (_Idomeneo, re di Creta_)

Of course in all languages the first letter is capitalized.


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## feierlich (3 mo ago)

Tsaraslondon said:


> the title of the Wikipedia page is La Vie parisienne, which can't be right.


so this is actually right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip...e-_and_French-related_articles#Capitalization


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