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First words in foreign languages you learned from opera

8K views 71 replies 46 participants last post by  Macbeth 
#1 ·
Inspired by mamascarlatti's post in Verdi DVDs thread:

It struck me how bonkers a lot of opera plots are when I realised that the only two words I can reliably recognise in Russian are "love" and "second" (as in "Will you be my second in this duel").
Is it that bad? Let's all go back in memory to times when we still were getting used to languages we don't speak too well but which we know from operas.

Mine would be:

Italian:

1) "pensieri (thoughts)" - it felt into my ears while I was listening to Recondita Armonia over and over again and then I recognized it in aria from Norma, it wasn't hard to work out what it means

2) "donna (woman)" - it would be hard not to learn this word. I never listened to Rigoletto :eek: but there are plenty of donnas in Puccini (dialogue between Rudolfo and Marcello in Boheme comes to mind, and the act I of Manon Lescaut with Donna Non Vidi Mai)

3) Mille (milion), serpi (serpents), divorami (devour), il, petto (chest) - these words make one sentence in Traviata and Domingo was so kewl with them in Zefirelli's movie that I had to write down the whole sentence and learn it. Now I use it daily. Someone tells me bad news and I shout MILLE SERPI... DIVORANMI IL PETTO!, grab my frock coat and leave to duel with barone.

German:

1) "Wehe! (Woe!)" - probably Wagner's all-time favourite word.

2) "Schmerz (grief, ache)" - another Wagner's favourite, or is it just that 99% of characters in his operas suffer from große schmerzen im herzen?

I suppose I would learn diffrent, more obvious words but I already knew basics of German.

I don't think I learned any French word from opera :eek: and I'm a bit into French actually. Perhaps it's because I don't listen to much of French operas.

Btw, try to learn ANY word in Hungarian by ear after one listening to Bluebeard's Castle.
 
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#3 ·
factotum (which oddly enough, dictionaries often translate as, well, "factotum" -- but I was unfamiliar with it in both italian and english).

Knowing French helps muddle through some Italian lyrics as a lot of Italian words are cognates (mano / main, dolce / doux, etc)
 
#4 ·
To limit it to FIRST words...

Italian: questa, quella, piuma, and of course maledizione- honorable mention to giubba.

French: knew about oiseaux rebelle before I knew about oiseau d'feu, if you know what I mean.

German- if I had to pick one, I'd say teure

Czech- pivcecko...(sp?)
 
#9 ·
'She is dead' in whatever language - that line seems to crop up more than any other from what I can remember.
 
#10 ·
I started picking up German words while doing listening assignments for my first music history class (19th century) and was amused even then by the words I heard often enough to remember. Listening to lieder and opera is a funny way to pick up bits of a language.

Yes, weh and schmerz (like Aramis said), but also lieb, herz, leid, lied, tod, trauer, traum, and lindenbaum. Oh, Romanticism. :rolleyes:

(Some of those should probably be capitalized. German capitalization is weird.)
 
#12 ·
The first italian I learnt was from listening to relatives, all other languages I picked up from meeting people, normally the typical 'meet and greet' words as kv466 said. Studied Latin, Spanish, French, German, ancient Greek and Hebrew at school - a lot of the ancient languages used to study texts so not necessarily spoken.

But from picking up bits and bobs of language I can say some greetings in Welsh, Gaelic, Dutch, Polish, Danish, Swedish, Suomi, Arabic, Farsi, Mandarin, Japanese, Hrvatski, Russian, and loads of others - language is just like music to me, I just remember it; I'm bloody useless at faces and names though :D
 
#14 ·
But from picking up bits and bobs of language I can say some greetings in Welsh, Gaelic, Dutch, Polish, Danish, Swedish, Suomi, Arabic, Farsi, Mandarin, Japanese, Hrvatski, Russian, and loads of others - language is just like music to me, I just remember it; I'm bloody useless at faces and names though :D
I always try to learn how to thank someone in their language. Always good to be polite. :)

(Some of those should probably be capitalized. German capitalization is weird.)
In German, all nouns are capitalised. As far as I know. :p

Btw, try to learn ANY word in Hungarian by ear after one listening to Bluebeard's Castle.
I have an English version on CD, but did get a copy of it on DVD. I recognised the word for "thank you" in it, but that is the only Hungarian work I know. :p Kosornom!
 
#13 ·
Odd that this post appears just when I was contemplating starting my own list of Italian words from various operas. I studied Spanish to A-Level at school and Italian is very similar. Aside from the titles of the operas themselves (Il Trovatore, La Traviata), I couldn't tell you what the first new word was, but one of the first was definitely "figlio". I tend to sit down with the libretto in Italian (or whatever language) and the English side by side so that I can compare them. An interest in languages does help make opera a lot more interesting, IMO.
 
#15 ·
Of the major operatic languages - Italian, German, French, English, Russian - I know three. German and Russian I don't. I believe I haven't picked up any Russian from listening to Russian opera. German, yes. I've picked up a word here and there, like Liebe, tote, Frau, Vater, Licht, Zauber, etc. Oh, and Hojotoho! Hojotoho! Heiaha! Heiaha!:p
 
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#17 ·
So... in German can you just stick any words together you want to make new custom words?

Liebe + Tod (Love + Death) = Liebestod
Liebe + Nacht (Love + Night) = Liebesnacht (Night of love)
Gött + Dämmerung (God + Twilight) = Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)
Rose + Kavalier (Rose + Knight) = Rosenkavalier (Knight of the Rose)

What a sweet language.
 
#21 ·
I've learned too many Italian words to remember the first ones, but I guess they were from Tosca. When I first heard it I had no libretto in hand but I could follow it quite ok, and then it became better with each listening. Problem is, I listen to the De Sabata recording so many times now their voices and little mannerisms are in my head and when others deviate from it, I'm all like "not cooool". :D

Some Italian words I definitely learned from operas: scellerato, maledizione, figlio/figlia, fratello/sorella, padre/madre, Dio/Dei/Numi, cielo, amore, onore, morta/muore/morir, mio/mia, voi/vostro, traditore, chiostro, andiamo, vieni, uccidere, gelosia, marito, moglie, sposo/sposa, paura, altare, fazzoletto, re, regina, conte/contessa, principe/principessa, gelo, fuoco, schiavo/schiava, nero, bianco, oro, nome, sangue.


I knew German before opera, but I learned "Wonne", "Not", "Minne", "Segel", "Meineid", "Herd", "Speer" and the like from Wagner.

I learned the word "pretty" from West Side Story - back then I didn't know English.
 
#23 ·
I speak French and Italian and a little German so it's really my Russian that's growing. I like it so much that I think I might try to learn a little - it won't be completely wasted because we have 10,000 Russians living in NZ and a few of them go through my classes. But I think the pronunciation is going to be hard - that dark "l" and it looks as though there are two "sh" phonemes and I can't really hear the difference between them (like Koreans can't tell the difference between our "p" and "f" although it's bleeding obvious to us).
 
#25 ·
First words in a foreign language learnt from opera? Can't recall for sure. But I think it was very likely to be:-

(1) Nozze
(2) Zauberflöte
(3) Empio, dirò, tu sei from this very performance

 
#26 ·
When I was about 12 I saw Pavarotti do a recording "Vesti la Giubba", wearing a white costume, and was completely mesmerized. Mother then explained to me that "Pagliacco" meant "clown" and said clown was sad because his wife and friend had betrayed him. I'm seeing my first live performance of "Pagliacci" in August and can't wait. It's been a long wait :D
 
#36 ·
I still don't know anything, beyond peoples names in most of them. I listen for the musicality, and the enjoyment, I agree with the person who said most opera plots are bonkers, though sometimes it lends to the enjoyment when you know what is going on. Don't think I'd have appreciated Lohengrin without knowing the plot.
 
#38 ·
I can really relate to this. Mostly when i listen to opera, i listen to it for the musicality of it. But sometimes i like to get deeply in to the libberto and score.

On the other hand: understanding and knowing about the lyrics and music helps to apprechiate the music and gives an more profound meaning of it. Yet I for me it is not an requerement, Good music is always good music, even when i don't understand one word of it.
 
#39 ·
@ Manok

I can really relate to that. Mostly when i listen to opera, i listen to it for the musicality. But there are times when i like to get deeply in to the libberto and score.

On the other hand: understanding and knowing about the lyrics and music helps to apprechiate the music and gives an more profound meaning of it. Yet I for me it is not an requerement, Good music is always good music, even when i don't understand one word of it.
 
#40 ·
@ Manok

I can really relate to that. Mostly when i listen to opera, i listen to it for the musicality. But there are times when i like to get deeply in to the libberto and score.

On the other hand: understanding and knowing about the lyrics and music helps to apprechiate the music and gives an more profound meaning of it. Yet I for me it is not an requerement, Good music is always good music, even when i don't understand one word of it.
It's obvious that one can appreciate opera as simply music--Xavier said something similar here not long ago. However, it is indisputable that opera is musical theater, and so if you neither watch it performed nor understand the words, then it is just impossible to catch the theatricality of opera--in actuality, you are missing a large chunk of what opera is all about.
 
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