response 51 of 141:

Jul 31 15:17 UTC 1996

Going way back to void in #14 and some subsequent responses, here's 
a memory dump on supertitles.
 
I vaguely recall that supertitles were invented in Toronto in 
the early 1980s.  By 1989, when I became interested in opera,
titles had become ubiquitous.  Among the major American opera companies,
there were two notable holdouts: The Metropolitan, in New York, 
and Santa Fe.  

Audience demand drove this rapid spread of titles.  Opera companies
would try titles as an experiment, and the audience reaction would
be so overwhelmingly positive that titles would be promptly added 
as a regular feature of productions.  Unfortunately I can't find
the New York Times story from last fall which reported on the growth
of the opera audience -- opera attendance is up something like 20-30%
since 1980, in an era when the classical music audience has 
generally been shrinking.  My belief is that this growth is 
largely due to the introduction of titles.

Before the introduction of the electric spotlight, the opera house 
was lit.  Those who cared to follow the story on stage -- and according 
to most reports, it wasn't many, as the opera house was primarily 
a social center -- had librettos they could read.  The introduction 
of the spotlight and the darkened house put an end to libretto reading;
my theory is that titles return the libretto to a place where it can 
be read, thus restoring an older style of opera experience.

I think it was Rane who wrote that titles wouldn't be necessary
if the audience would do their homework and study the opera before
the performance.  I have done this, most notably before seeing
an untitled SIGFRIED at the Met.  But I'm a bit of an obsessive,
and I think Rane is too.  The number of opera obsessives is not 
large enough to support the business of live opera.

This is a long enough response; I'll come back later to write about 
the titling of the Met.

response 53 of 141:

Jul 31 17:57 UTC 1996

Librettos are readily available. They even come with good opera
recordings.  You can buy them at the opera (but they are cheaper in music
stores). When we were going to the MET in Detroit, we took along a copy of
The Victrola Book of the Opera (1921) and whoever wasn't driving read it
out loud - just to remind outselves of all the characters and Act/Scene
organization. 

response 55 of 141:

Aug 1 06:24 UTC 1996

Re #49:  I knew studying Italian would come in handy some day.

Re #51:  The third opera in Wagner's Ring Cycle is spelled SIEGFRIED.

The only time I don't like titles at opera performances is when
a house uses them for an opera that is already being sung in
English.  The MOT did this with a MAGIC FLUTE a few years ago, and I 
found it quite distracting.  

On the other hand, since I speak a little Italian, and a lot of German and 
French, I sometimes find myself comparing the titles to my own
internal translations, and that can be distracting as well.  Also,
the timing of titles can screw things up, as when the title says something
funny before the singer has actually sung the line in question.

response 59 of 141:

Aug 1 20:42 UTC 1996

(Um, perhaps one gotta love Rossini, but ROSENKAVALIER is Richard 
Strauss.  (Who also wrote Ariadne auf Naxos, which was promptly 
renamed ARIADNE OBNOXIOUS after we saw the MOT production a few years 
ago.  ARIADNE gets my vote for Worst Libretto Still In THe Repetoire.
(But I digress.  Help, I'm trapped in a parenthesis factory!) ) )

response 61 of 141:

Aug 2 02:03 UTC 1996

oops, yoiu are right, it was strauss...I should've known...my
father is an opera fanatic and I was named after his two favorite 
composers, Richard Strauss andRichard Wagner.  

response 63 of 141:

Aug 2 17:05 UTC 1996

Of course the irony in being named after Strauss and Wagner is that 
Wagner couldnt stand Strauss.  When he had to conduct a Strauss work,
Wagner would wear white gloves, and when the work was over, he would not
acknolwedge the audience cheers and would throw the white gloves on the floor
and walk away in disgust.  

Seems that Strauss was jewish and Wagner was  *slightly*anti-semitic.  .
Not unconcidentally, Wagner became Hitler's favorite composer. To this day
you cant play Wagner in Israel.

response 65 of 141:

Aug 3 17:30 UTC 1996

Actually Wagner was not a fascist and was born well before the time of
Hitler...

In fact Wagner despised all organized religions and was a devout athiest,
a passionate follower of Nietzche, and his works strongly echoed his
philosophies about man controlling his own destiny.

His most famous work, the Ring opera cycle was about man triumphing over a
group of totally imperfect and doomed gods.

response 67 of 141:

Aug 3 23:35 UTC 1996

Be careful with the word 'atheist' there are some religions, Bhuddism, for
example, that could be considered 'atheistic' religions.

response 69 of 141:

Aug 4 06:21 UTC 1996

His opinioin of Jews does not endear him to me. I like his music.

response 71 of 141:

Aug 4 12:27 UTC 1996

(Who is bdh again?  He's a pseudo on Grex, but I recall some old timers know
his real name.)

response 73 of 141:

Aug 4 19:54 UTC 1996

Now that I have made my observation, I'm just going to skim this item for a
while - I'm not too much for Opera personaly - though I do want to see Die
Valkura - and anyone who knows me should know why . . .