# What Operatic Languages Do You Understand? I would love to know!



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I think I am pretty good on voices, but where I diverge in my tastes from many of you has to do with the fact that I don't understand any of the languages or know the librettos like many of you do. In my circle all of us are just into the vocal splendor. What operatic languages do you understand and how do you think it effects your enjoyment of opera? Even with popular music I am only conscious of about 10% of the words as most of it is romantic crap I can't relate to. I do have to say, though, that if I am watching an opera, then I really want to have a translation in front of me. Thanks. John


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

I actually learned a lot of Italian specifically from opera. I became interested in opera for the voices first, and then wanted to understand better, so I would listen to operas and go back and forth between the Italian and English and gradually began to pick up vocabulary and grammar without any direct study. I then took Italian in college, but the grammar that I was taught didn't really improve my Italian at all. Inspired by ideas about comprehensible input and language acquisition, I ended up just trying to find easy things to read and through graded reading and listening improved my Italian enormously. I'm still not quite reading Pirandello, but mastering more difficult literary Italian is my next step. What's kind of funny is that the Italian that opera taught me is of course a bit old fashioned. So I picked up "voi" as the second person singular formal pronoun, although today Italians generally use "Lei". It's kind of hard to give up "voi" as it just comes so naturally. It's used constantly in Italian opera, and all my operatic references, which I use to remember the meaning of words and phrases and for grammatical constructions, use "voi".

Other than some archaisms, opera has been a great way to learn Italian. I don't think it would work for someone who wasn't so interested, but for me it is an enormous memory aid. I remember the imperfect subjunctive for "essere" for example from a snippet of _La rondine_ that plays in my head every time I need to think of it: Lisette has recognized Paulette as Magda, but Prunier is trying to convince her she's someone else, and Lisette says that Paulette would look just like her boss, Magda, "se tu fossi elegante/if you were elegant" which a bemused Magda repeats as "se io fossi elegante!". Little musical tags like that are invaluable, and you can find as many as you want in the hundreds of Italian operas out there.

Anyway, for me understanding the language has enormously enhanced my enjoyment of the opera. It makes the musical gestures less generalized and more specific and spontaneous. You can really feel in the moment how a musical phrase can express a subtly shifting series of psychological states. I've memorized large sections of my favorite operas, and I internalize the music and the emotions, which changes my experience of the opera in a similar way to how a memorized poem grows inside of you in a completely different way. I strongly recommend developing familiarity with an operatic language.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I actually learned a lot of Italian specifically from opera. I became interested in opera for the voices first, and then wanted to understand better, so I would listen to operas and go back and forth between the Italian and English and gradually began to pick up vocabulary and grammar without any direct study. I then took Italian in college, but the grammar that I was taught didn't really improve my Italian at all. Inspired by ideas about comprehensible input and language acquisition, I ended up just trying to find easy things to read and through graded reading and listening improved my Italian enormously. I'm still not quite reading Pirandello, but mastering more difficult literary Italian is my next step. What's kind of funny is that the Italian that opera taught me is of course a bit old fashioned. So I picked up "voi" as the second person singular formal pronoun, although today Italians generally use "Lei". It's kind of hard to give up "voi" as it just comes so naturally. It's used constantly in Italian opera, and all my operatic references, which I use to remember the meaning of words and phrases and for grammatical constructions, use "voi".
> 
> Other than some archaisms, opera has been a great way to learn Italian. I don't think it would work for someone who wasn't so interested, but for me it is an enormous memory aid. I remember the imperfect subjunctive for "essere" for example from a snippet of _La rondine_ that plays in my head every time I need to think of it: Lisette has recognized Paulette as Magda, but Prunier is trying to convince her she's someone else, and Lisette says that Paulette would look just like her boss, Magda, "se tu fossi elegante/if you were elegant" which a bemused Magda repeats as "se io fossi elegante!". Little musical tags like that are invaluable, and you can find as many as you want in the hundreds of Italian operas out there.
> 
> Anyway, for me understanding the language has enormously enhanced my enjoyment of the opera. It makes the musical gestures less generalized and more specific and spontaneous. You can really feel in the moment how a musical phrase can express a subtly shifting series of psychological states. I've memorized large sections of my favorite operas, and I internalize the music and the emotions, which changes my experience of the opera in a similar way to how a memorized poem grows inside of you in a completely different way. I strongly recommend developing familiarity with an operatic language.


I definitely wanted to hear from you. I wish you could do a Ted Talk. Were you in high school when your interest began?


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Like Viva above, I learnt some Italian from opera, plus I have a friend in Brazil who is of Italian origin. We would converse polyglot-ally, or at least demiglotally. He'd speak Italian to me, I English to him, though my knowledge of English at the time was rudimentary in the extreme! Anyway, opera provided me with more Italian as I grew to love it, Italian opera in particular.

I also understand French, Spanish and, of course Portuguese. This last language is not used in many operas - even its most famous Brazilian opera - *Il Guarany* is, as the title suggests, sung in Italian rather than Portuguese. Its composer, Carlos-Gomes was living in Italy at the time. The title in Portuguese would be *O Guarany*, which means *The Guarany* (a native of the tribe of that name in parts of Brazil). I was chuffed when Placido Domingo was exploring some of the compositions of Carlos-Gomes and I provided a tape for him to listen to. He later sang the part, but alas, not in San Francisco!

Speaking of operatic Italian, a friend of mine, motoring with his wife in Italy, got confused and got lost . Coming upon a police (?) station, he rushed in and not knowing how to ask for directions, cried: "_solo, perduto, abbandonato!_" to the merriment of the guards (the quote is from *Manon Lescaut*). However, my friend knew enough to use it in its masculine form.

The public in San Francisco knows enough French, or perhaps it was Beverly Silly's inflection, that when *Manon* has broken down Des Grieux' s resistance and cried, "_Enfin!_," they laughingly applauded.

I am sad that I don't know much German, but I can sometimes laugh when I hear it, mostly because some comedians use words in the language (Mel Brooks comes to mind) that sounds comic. One of the examples is in *Lohengrin*, probably my favorite Wagner opera, where the chorus exclaims repeatedly: " Der Schwan, der Schwan!" and especially if they pronounce it imperfectly. It's also Monty Pyton-ish.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

I speak fluent Italian and have passable German. I can read in French, Spanish and Dutch and have a little Russian.

It's only my Italian (and English) that are good enough to be able to watch operas in those languages without having to see the words.

N.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I really appreciate you guys answering. It gives me perspective on this issue and I value all of your contributions on the board!!!!!!!!!! None of the few people I know who love opera speak the languages. I really got into opera 30 years ago with a massage client who owned the largest classical music store in town. He had a basement that was full of 10,000 lps of opera. I am not sure if he knew the languages, but he taught me to love voices and loaned or gave to me many different artists to listen to. I would listen without any libretto and just fell in love with the joy of hearing great singers. I had another client who got me deeper into opera, especially Wagner. He knew the languages but he was world famous as a language scholar. I would not be the Wagner fan I am today without him. He took me to the Ring and also to the Santa Fe opera before subtitles .I reminisce about the dead and gone! I would be lost without my mentors.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Operas in north Germanic languages and English also German somewhat if it is an opera in easy German or I have heard the opera hundred times or more.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

MAS said:


> Like Viva above, I learnt some Italian from opera, plus I have a friend in Brazil who is of Italian origin. We would converse polyglot-ally, or at least demiglotally. He'd speak Italian to me, I English to him, though my knowledge of English at the time was rudimentary in the extreme! Anyway, opera provided me with more Italian as I grew to love it, Italian opera in particular.
> 
> I also understand French, Spanish and, of course Portuguese. This last language is not used in many operas - even its most famous Brazilian opera - *Il Guarany* is, as the title suggests, sung in Italian rather than Portuguese. Its composer, Carlos-Gomes was living in Italy at the time. The title in Portuguese would be *O Guarany*, which means *The Guarany* (a native of the tribe of that name in parts of Brazil). I was chuffed when Placido Domingo was exploring some of the compositions of Carlos-Gomes and I provided a tape for him to listen to. He later sang the part, but alas, not in San Francisco!
> 
> ...


Good thing I wasn't carrying hot coffee. What a great story. It's a keeper!


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## Music Snob (Nov 14, 2018)

The language of love.

Not kidding.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

nina foresti said:


> Good thing I wasn't carrying hot coffee. What a great story. It's a keeper!


I'm glad you didn't spill the hot coffee you weren't carrying! Thanks for liking the story - Frank was a great guy, full of funny stories and operatic in the telling of them. Sadly, I don't know his whereabouts any more, since the old days.


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## zxxyxxz (Apr 14, 2020)

Only English, though slight hearing loss at very high and very low ends can make even that debatable!


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I first really became an opera fan in my teens, and I got to know most of the Italian repertoire through Callas's recordings. Unbelievable as it may seem, it still being the dawn of the stereo age, most of her mono recordings had been deleted, so my collection grew slowly as I acquired sets from second hand stores or through buying imports. This meant that I would get to know one opera pretty well before I started on another. I was also fortunate in that, with Callas and most of her regular colleagues, the words were very clear and it was easy to follow along with the libretto. So, like Vivalagentenuova, I slowly picked up what I call operatic Italian.

When I was in my early twenties I got my first professional job as a dancer with an Italian operetta company, touring Italy. I quickly found that the Italian I knew was somewhat old fashioned (I also used _voi_ instead of _lei_) but it certainly helped me to understand others and to also make myself understood. All the other dancers were also English and we did tend to socialise with each other, but as the tour continued other friendships blossomed and I was eventually able to hold a reasonable conversation with someone. I'm not sure I could do it now, though.

I used to be fairly fluent in French, and in fact sang a good deal of French music when I first dicovered my voice. German opera and Lieder came later, and in this case my favourite singer was Schwarzkopf, who also made a great deal of the words. My smattering of German was also of use to me when I went to Frankfurt to appear at the English Theatre there.

Even if you can't understand the language, I think as much of the text as possible should be audible. Composers set words, not vocalise, often putting specific stresses on certain words and good diction colours the music. It actually irritates me quite a bit if I can't make out any of the words. Obviously they will tend to disappear in sustained high lying sections, but there should still be enough of the words coming through that I can also read them on the page. All of us can get lost from time to time when following along with the libretto, so I will listen out for some key words to find my place, but with some singers (Sutherland is probaby the worst culprit) if I lost my place, I could never find my way back in.

Obviously there are some operas I know so well that I no longer need to follow with the libretto, but here too I want to hear the words and it bothers me when they are indistinguishable.


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## gvn (Dec 14, 2019)

The beauty of learning languages is that it requires absolutely no talent. All it requires is persistence.

EVERYONE who migrates to an English-speaking language is expected to learn English, regardless of whether they have any "talent for languages" or not. EVERYONE. And when they _do_ manage to communicate intelligibly in English, nobody concludes that they must possess any remarkable genius or that they've done anything out of the ordinary. And English is an awful lot more difficult than any other operatic language known to me.

I myself have absolutely no "talent for languages," yet to my own surprise, in the course of a long & varied life I've slowly & unsystematically picked up enough to understand and (if absolutely necessary) express myself in most of the western European and Mediterranean languages, as well as 3 of the Semitic ones (not much use for opera). Partly from study, partly from reading, partly from listening to opera, Lieder, and oratorio. If I could do it, I'm persuaded that anyone with intelligence slightly below average or better can do it.

But it does take time & persistent regular exposure to the language in question. I think I've read somewhere that it takes about 10 years to become reasonably competent in a language unless you actually live in a community where it's spoken. Certainly 10 years or longer would be my own experience.

From the operatic viewpoint, I VERY much wish I'd spent more time learning Russian and Czech. (Though, when I was young, a desire to learn Russian would have been a sure way of putting oneself under surveillance by the secret services of both the US and the UK, and probably the USSR too, for all I know.)

I even hope that some day I may become competent in English. But perhaps that's too much to hope.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

gvn said:


> The beauty of learning languages is that it requires absolutely no talent. All it requires is persistence.
> 
> EVERYONE who migrates to an English-speaking language is expected to learn English, regardless of whether they have any "talent for languages" or not. EVERYONE. And when they _do_ manage to communicate intelligibly in English, nobody concludes that they must possess any remarkable genius or that they've done anything out of the ordinary. And English is an awful lot more difficult than any other operatic language known to me.
> 
> ...


English is the go to language when speaking with foreigners. I think that is a thing that makes the English language easy since you just have to speak it as on this forum. Also if you don´t live in an English speaking country the wast majority of people you will speak English with are not native English speakers so they will not judge you for writing and saying wrong.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

gvn said:


> The beauty of learning languages is that it requires absolutely no talent. All it requires is persistence.
> 
> EVERYONE who migrates to an English-speaking language is expected to learn English, regardless of whether they have any "talent for languages" or not. EVERYONE. And when they _do_ manage to communicate intelligibly in English, nobody concludes that they must possess any remarkable genius or that they've done anything out of the ordinary. And English is an awful lot more difficult than any other operatic language known to me.
> 
> ...


I think you're doing very well.


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

"Understand" is maybe a tough one to answer. It depends on the recording quality; the accent, technique, and sex of the singer; the style of music; and the difficulty of the libretto. I have dedicated years of my life to studying English, learning new words, and exposing myself to language from other eras. But that does not mean I can simply understand every English word sung on stage no matter what. In something like the live Norman Treigle productions of Susannah and Markheim? Sure. I understand 99% of what's said, no libretto required. In an old recording, or with some of the odd language in Handel? I miss stuff. 

As for foreign languages, I am a proficient foreign speaker of French, German, Russian, Swedish, Spanish, and others that don't crop up in classical music. I'd say honestly that just listening, I don't understand a great deal, despite being able to have a long conversation with no problem. If I follow along with a libretto, I have no difficulty (just the occasional word that I attempt to glean from context). But even though I speak French every day, trying to understand figurative language with archaic liaisons sung at length from a poet in Berlioz's time is just not that easy. I end up unconsciously tuning in and out of the text. And I only really understand native speakers of all those languages. The foreign accents are just too much to decipher most of the time. 

I can read Italian news or simple prose very easily, and I can have a light conversation in it, but operatic language tends to be so archaic that I don't always glean much at all simply listening. Following along with the libretto tends to be fine, though not always.

Art song is often easier for me to understand. But it's always the same problem: old poets. I listen to a lot of Swedish stuff, but the language used is almost inaccessible sometimes, coming as it does from early-19th-century Finnish poets. They use conjugations and vocabulary that simply don't exist anymore. Translated songs tend to be much simpler, since there is much more focus on transmission of meaning than there is on literary merit. A French version of Che gelida manina (Que cette main est froide) or a German one (Wie eiskalt ist dies Händchen) is much easier for me to understand because the language is straightforward, and often the translations are updated, unlike the original. I do happen to speak those two languages better than the original, but I don't think that's the reason. It's just one example. 

Speaking Russian often means I listen to singers and operas that most Westerners pretend don't exist, so that can be frustrating and isolating. But it does give me access to TONS of singers and spaces that would otherwise be inaccessible to me. And Russians have extraordinary diction, so I understand them better than most, but two factors militate against that: most of the recordings I like are between 1900 and 1920, and the texts tend to be from Pushkin, who's not always an easy read. Or listen, I should say. But when they sing things in translation, again, it's quite easy to follow. 

As for Spanish, the only classical music I really listen to in Spanish is from Miguel Fleta, and I can't understand a damn word he says. It's unbelievable. It sounds like Martian language to me. Listening to Armando Pico, I understand every single word. 

Just to give an example of how hard it can be to understand some foreign texts, here's one in English (it's a translation, so I know it goes against my point on translations, but just bear with me): Morning skies are aglow, while the lilac trees blow and I breathe of the fresh morning wind. By the shadowy pool where it's dewy and cool, I must see if my fortune I'll find. Ah, of luck there's scant dole, yet it's everyone's goal and my own lies out there in the dell. Hidden there all around﻿ cluster'd lilacs are found, and my own little fortune, as well.

As pronounced by Jussi Björling (whose enunciation and pronunciation were never admirable), it is absolutely incomprehensible. But the phrasing is so abysmally unnatural for a modern speaker that the task would be heavy for any singer. "Of luck there's scant dole"? I mean come on! Now imagine that in a language that you know only 90% as well as English. Or 80%.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

PaulFranz said:


> As pronounced by Jussi Björling (whose enunciation and pronunciation were never admirable), it is absolutely incomprehensible. But the phrasing is so abysmally unnatural for a modern speaker that the task would be heavy for any singer. "Of luck there's scant dole"? I mean come on! Now imagine that in a language that you know only 90% as well as English. Or 80%.


I understand every word Jussi Björling sings here:






I also understand his son perfectly:


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sloe said:


> I understand every word Jussi Björling sings here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


His son was better looking. I never knew about him. Did he have much of a career?


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> His son was better looking. I never knew about him. Did he have much of a career?


He had domestically just did not had an international career as his father. Jussi Björling had his son Rolf when he was only 17 years old with a four year older woman.


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

Sloe said:


> I understand every word Jussi Björling sings here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You already know these songs. Ask a young Swedish speaker who knows nothing about classical music to listen to these. I am extremely confident that he would get about 85% of Till havs and about 30% of Ingen sover. Their style of singing is so far from speech that it mucks up the speech sounds.

Of course, Jussi in foreign languages was far worse than in Swedish. He of course had no Swedish pronunciation issues, but he made many, many errors in foreign languages. Still my favorite tenor.

People are very bad at judging how much of intelligibility is due to exposure, in foreign languages and in sung texts. For example, you hear Greeks saying all the time that Koine and even Ancient Greek are comprehensible to modern Greek speakers. Well, yes, but only because you study them in school! Because of exposure, almost everyone in the UK would understand what you did if you told him you shoved a flashlight into your boxers. But very few Americans would have any idea what "I shoved a torch into my pants" actually means coming from a UK speaker.

Modern Americans, for example, sometimes have trouble parsing "where seldom is heard a discouraging word." That's really, really simple, but "seldom" is a rare word in the US, and the syntax is old-fashioned and formal. It really doesn't take much to interrupt fluid understanding.

Also, people in general tend to vastly overestimate how much of something they understand. They gloss over unfamiliar or misheard words and retroactively fill in the blanks. Actually putting them to the test--having them write a full transcript of what they are hearing--is illuminating.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

PaulFranz said:


> You already know these songs. Ask a young Swedish speaker who knows nothing about classical music to listen to these. I am extremely confident that he would get about 85% of Till havs and about 30% of Ingen sover. Their style of singing is so far from speech that it mucks up the speech sounds.
> 
> Of course, Jussi in foreign languages was far worse than in Swedish. He of course had no Swedish pronunciation issues, but he made many, many errors in foreign languages. Still my favorite tenor.
> 
> ...


I never watch a show on TV without the subtitles on, especially if it is from the UK. I am from the South and have trouble understanding folks who talk fast LOL. In English pop songs, unless it is Barbra or Ella or Sinatra, I often don't catch the words.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I never watch a show on TV without the subtitles on, especially if it is from the UK. I am from the South and have trouble understanding folks who talk fast LOL. In English pop songs, unless it is Barbra or Ella or Sinatra, I often don't catch the words.


Good diction is not a foregone conclusion in Pop music. I learnt many Beatles songs phonetically at first, before I spoke English regularly, and still get them wrong (is the mind a muscle? - I still have muscle memory when singing certain songs).


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## Don Fatale2 (Mar 27, 2020)

I have tourist level of Italian, Hungarian and Russian. It's great for visiting the countries and socialising, but it's pretty meaningless when it comes to listening to or seeing opera live. Though fans of languages love dual titles above the stage!

When I saw Rigoletto at La Scala a few years ago, the vast majority of the Italians around me (prima galleria, not tourists) were glued to their title screens for an opera 1) they should know in their DNA, 2) sung in their native language by native speakers 3) in a theatre with a great acoustic. At that point it confirmed that aside from a few words, understanding the language of the voices just doesn't happen in larger theatres. Sub 500 seat venues are rather different.
ENO is the same... in a different way. I try to just listen to the voices, but am always by necessity drawn back to the surtitles.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Don Fatale2 said:


> I have tourist level of Italian, Hungarian and Russian. It's great for visiting the countries and socialising, but it's pretty meaningless when it comes to listening to or seeing opera live. Though fans of languages love dual titles above the stage!
> 
> When I saw Rigoletto at La Scala a few years ago, the vast majority of the Italians around me (prima galleria, not tourists) were glued to their title screens for an opera 1) they should know in their DNA, 2) sung in their native language by native speakers 3) in a theatre with a great acoustic. At that point it confirmed that aside from a few words, understanding the language of the voices just doesn't happen in larger theatres. Sub 500 seat venues are rather different.
> ENO is the same... in a different way. I try to just listen to the voices, but am always by necessity drawn back to the surtitles.


Especially with sopranos. So difficult up high. Great points.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Regretted 15 characters


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

When I was a teenager living on Long Island, not far from New York city , only abut a 45 minute drive with good traffic to Manhattan and easy access through the Long Island railroad , I discovered opera through the numerous LP recordings of complete operas ,long before CDs existed in my local library, which had an extensive collection of classical LPs. 
Just as with CD operas today, the LP sets had librettos with the original language and an English translation next to it, plus a synopsis and often notes about the operas and the composers . 
So I managed to become familiar with Italian, French, German, Russian and even Czech .
In school where I took German, I could already read and understand German pretty well, so I did very well in class . 
Later in college I took a class in Russian and did very well also , and could already read the Cyrillic alphabet, which is actually very easy to learn . Opera in fact, caused my lifelong fascination with languages and linguistics . 
Familiarity with Italian made it much easier to understand Spanish and other Romance languages . 
Knowing German made me able to understand Dutch and even the Scandinavian languages pretty
well. Familiarity with Russian made it easier to understan Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian etc .


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

I understand French and German and a bit of Latin. Singing in choir plus reading the first two has helped me understand better, but it's really getting to know the music that brings familiarity. I don't usually understand operas sung in those languages without surtitles. Opera translated into English is fine with me. Opera (like ballet) is a highly stylized art form where complaining that things are not "natural" is kind of stupid. As someone wrote, you learn opera by loving it.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Seattleoperafan said:


> His son was better looking. I never knew about him. Did he have much of a career?


In 1972 I sung in the chorus with the Vancouver Symphony in Beethoven's Ninth; one of the soloists was Rolf Björling. The tenor soloist's part is ungrateful and let's just say that night Rolf was off. I've heard him sing much better on recordings and don't know how his career unfolded, but it must have been difficult to be compared with his father.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Roger Knox said:


> In 1972 I sung in the chorus with the Vancouver Symphony in Beethoven's Ninth; one of the soloists was Rolf Björling. The tenor soloist's part is ungrateful and let's just say that night Rolf was off. I've heard him sing much better on recordings and don't know how his career unfolded, but it must have been difficult to be compared with his father.


You probably saw Sutherland in her early roles with the Vancouver Opera. So jealous if you did!!!!!!!!!!! First Norma was there.


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## Sieglinde (Oct 25, 2009)

I'm fluent in English and actually understand English singing better than Hungarian (old-timey Hungarian opera has too much coloratura). I understand enough German to follow opera and I learned a lot of Italian from opera but never officially studied it.


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