Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Eurovision

Ah opera!

Carmen that Spanish story sung in French and when we saw it performed by the Russian state opera.

Surely that is a boggling of the mind?

Hey, I've got nothing against English (I said that already didn't I?). And my post is about the Eurovision song contest, nothing to do with the EU or the use of English within EU institutions.

Geeez ... I never knew Morgan owners could be so into drifting

Sorry I had not intended to be rude to you Mario. I do love a good drift though. Ask my local tyre dealer.

Drifting heavy right foot in and out of wet roundabouts can cause undemanding drifts

Not sure it's been enforced in the mother tongue for a long time Mario?

It used to be more entertaining back then.

I always liked watching the stalled presenters not getting the queueing correct when giving the results, modern technology has almost resigned these hiccups to the past.

Well I''ve just started learning a finger style guitar version of La Bamba so decided to have a look at the words. I'd only really heard them shouted drunkenly loud at parties before so learning the actual words has made it sound rather better. Great way to learn a foreign language as well, which is my excuse for why people from outside the UK speak English but we don't speak much 'foreign'.

The ENO have, for at least 20 years to my knowledge and possibly for much longer, sung exclusively in English.

English opera has had a very mixed history, but is in rude good health today. Before they were renamed English National Opera in the 1960s, the Sadler's Wells opera company sang the world premiere of Britten's Peter Grimes, which was the first really internationally successful opera in English for 300 years or so, since Henry Purcell's day. But today you'll find ENO, the Welsh and Scottish national companies, and many of the great festival operas (notably Glyndebourne and Garsington) regularly putting on works in English translation, in addition to vast numbers of professional, semi-pro and amateur productions across the UK and North America.

Otherwise, operas tend to have been written in the language of their sponsor or librettist. Mozart, for example, was equally happy composing music for Italian (La Nozze di Figaro) librettists as he was for German (Die Zauberflöte) words. It mostly depended on who commissioned the work.

The Aboriginals by and large have chants that accompany dancing. Often they do not last all that long. I once had the pleasure of taking part in an impromptu party that involved dance. They insisted on painting me to take part in the dance and at the end I took part in a smoking ceremony to help cure my bad leg (actually seemed to have an effect). The smoking was done by a young guy who did not speak a word of English but offered, via an interpreter, after he saw me limping. All together an incredible experience.

Anyway the following is an example that I found on the web. Note this is not something staged for tourists, you don't see a tourist anywhere. It is a bit long so if you get bored jump ahead a bit

Gilbert and Sullivan considered light opera but that is not to detract from the skills of the perforners, just that whilst the lyrics are brilliant and witty, the music is fairly derivative.
Eno always in English. Royal Opera House in original Language.
Huge amount of opera in Italian. A large canon of French opera but it never gets performed! Beethoven wrote one opera in German, there's Wagner of course. Mozart magic flute in German.
Amusingly Handel, a German living in London wrote mostly Italian operas.....
Not much English opera. Britten of course but he's not performed much anywhere else in the world.
So says my opera singer.
It seems to me that English took over popular song worldwide after the Beatles conquered the world!
Nick

Thanks Peter, that is interesting. I love the fact they included you in the dancing and tried to help you out with the limp, they sound a genuine friendly caring people.
I guess the post is a rallying point.

God forbid we should ever win this ridiculous event as we would have to be the hosts the following year and thanks to Brexit, we couldn't afford it, also I know I'm getting old and silly but what part of Europe is Israel in let alone Australia?