Absolutely disagree. I would far sooner read it than sit and watch it. This method might fall down a bit on some of the English historical, but then I wouldn’t read that for pleasure either.
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That’s okay, I don’t insist on everybody agreeing with me… Well not all of the time. You’re entitled to be completely wrong.
Generous of you to say so. I have made a note and shall try it one day. I’ll let you know how it goes 
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You can’t steal people, or so they tell me, repeatedly, when I suggest that Will felt that Ed stole Emma away from him.
I didn’t get TMoF then, haven’t tried since, though I did once see the entire Ring cycle in a week, performed by the Welsh National Opera with fabulous scenery. That, I understood. Clearly I am Nordic rather than Italianate, or something – though I did like Anna Russell pointing out the obvious reason for Siegfried to fall in love with someone was that she was the first woman he had ever met who wasn’t his aunt.
(And then I had to go and listen to the whole thing.)
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I’m not really a fan of opera. The odd bit of Joe Green perhaps, but other than that. G&S is more to my taste.
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That is Utterly and Unimprovably Wonderful. Ta muchly.
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She gets samey if you listen to too much, but in small doses she is Terrific.
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Well, compared to 20 hours, that really is quite a small dose
But how about this?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1atzuy_what-s-opera-doc_shortfilms
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Exception: Pericles. I know because I did. Though I haven’t the slightest desire to see it performed, or to read it again.
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Loud snorkling noises. And now I must go to bed; I have left Emma in bed with Ed at the end of her hen-night, and I think I really ought to make him utterly miserable before I retire…
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More power to your elbow.
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TMoF was the first opera I saw, at WNO, when I was at school. It was in English.
Thomas Allen was Almaviva and I came out enraged at his assumption that he could have any woman he liked but that his wife was to be nothing but a locked-up, unloved doll, and at his attitude to the “lower orders”.
So they must have done it right. And I’ve got opera ever since.
(How pleasant it is to see threads wander where they will).
Anyway, on the subject: I’m hearing exaggerated inflection and difficult to grasp enunciation from a lot of young people. And some things about DB’s accent - glottal stops, “l” morphing into something else - just seem to be the way English English is going. But it is the job of actors to convey meaning - emotional as well as textual - and for me she misses completely.
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The problem with Ms Botcher is that the accent is inconsistent, often within a single sentence. It’s poor technique and even poorer direction.
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True, Joe, but I’m not sure any director could get the actor to be consistent. And it’s not as if she confines herself to exaggerating the T at the end of the sentence and dropping it in the middle. That would be consistent! Here is the latest crop of examples from Friday’s episode. Pip outdid herself!
- No one knows ‘ow i’s actually gonna pan ou’
- Most farmers in this country do a preTTy gooD joB.
- Why can’ you can Rex just ge’ on with each other?
- No’ in fron’ of everyone.
- Stop iT. I mean iT.
- It’s no’ thaT.
- It’s no’ tha’.
- Did you Really just say thaT?
- We haven’T goT any money.
- Did he suggesT iT?
- I’m just no’ like you.
- We just don’.
- It’s too la’.
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The only a in the village, it b old an’ cd, moind!
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I saw that production! There was an outstanding Don Giovanni by the WNO at about the same time. I sometimes wonder whether the WNO’s change from English to the original with English surtitles is due to general inability to enunciate correctly. At Cardiff not too long ago an actor with a non-singing part in Die Fledermaus had fun with the fact that one of the boards translated into English and the other into Welsh by suddenly speaking one and then the other instead of German.
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