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Tuesday, January 14, 2014

SFO Audience Incapable of Comprehending Other Languages?

SF Opera's web site gives the following style to opera titles:
  • Susannah | Friday, Sep 12, 2014 7:30 PM
  • Norma | Friday, Sep 19, 2014 7:30 PM
  • A Masked Ball | Friday, Oct 10, 2014 7:30 PM
  • Partenope | Friday, Oct 24, 2014 7:30 PM
  • La Boheme | Friday, Nov 14, 2014 7:30 PM
  • Cinderella | Friday, Nov 21, 2014 7:30 PM
  • The Trojans | Friday, Jun 12, 2015 6:00 PM
  • Two Women | Friday, Jun 19, 2015 7:30 PM
  • The Marriage of Figaro | Friday, Jul 03, 2015 7:30 PM
Un ballo in maschera, La Cenerentola, Les Troyens, and Le Nozze di Figaro are hard! I cut the company slack on La Ciociara because so many Americans can't remember what to do with the pesky letter c in Italian. I guess there is no way around Partenope, which many undoubtedly pronounce Party-nope instead of Par-te-no-pee.

Cinderella is just plain confusing, bringing up visions of Disney in my head, not Rossini.

Oh, right, the season announcement was yesterday. Full analysis from me this week sometime; apologies for the delay.
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 18, 2014 at 10:29:00 PM PST

    This too aggravates the hell out of me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 23, 2014 at 8:47:00 AM PST

    As a child, I thought that the written word "Penelope" (which I pronounced Penna-lohp) and the spoken word peh-NEL-oh-pee were different words, though how I thought the latter was spelled I cannot recall.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lisa HirschJanuary 23, 2014 at 4:44:00 PM PST

    I'm trying to remember which Handel opera played at SFO that a friend pronounced as if it did not have a Greek origin. Perhaps Semele, which is an oratorio with such a vivid plotline and libretto that these days it is staged more often than not.

    ReplyDelete

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