The Last Post Game!!!!

[Swatopluk]

What can be quite painful is Western opera singers trying Russian opera in the original language.
Even I who does not speak Russian often cringe when I hear it.

Last _{until now I was able to avoid Boris Godunov sung in Italian*} Post

*yes, there is at least on recording availabe on CD

[Griffin NoName]

Surely they just need to re-organise the notes in the right order for whicever language is desired?

[youtube=425,350]R7GeKLE0x3s[/youtube]

Watch...it's brilliant. Probably their best sketch ever.

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[Swatopluk]

When I find the time

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[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

What can be quite painful is Western opera singers trying Russian opera in the original language.

You mean bad phonetics? Native speakers from certain languages have problems pronouncing others (and with some frequency that part of the training is lacking).

Last _{English speakers are particularly bad pronouncing romance and slavic languages} Post

[Swatopluk]

I had to endure professional German opera singers bungling Russian pronounciation in atrocious ways more than once. As I said, I don't speak Russian but I own a number of (I think) very good recordings of Russian opera, so I have a point of reference. There are non-Slav singers where I am not able to tell. To Russian ears they may have a terrible accent* but at least they get the words right.

Last _{Note bed fort nun-nerdive spiggers} Post

*Christopher Lee has recorded a few Russian opera pieces. From Russian youtube commenters I hear that he has a bad accent but I can spot no word mangling.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Translating an accent into singing is a very difficult task, French for instance is very guttural but general voice technique doesn't like guttural, as a result it is rare to find a non-francophone singing a French piece without an accent.

English speaker singers are particularly bad at accents because the language itself has a different set of vowels many of which would be consider diphthongs in other languages, making their normative readings of other languages atrocious.

Last _{at home we make fun of our family physician because he is fluent in Spanish but has a very thick American accent} Post

[Swatopluk]

I was thinking more of leaving letters out (slavte instead of slavt-ye), garbling syllables etc. than classics like "Ish bin ayn Bör-lee-nuh"

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[Griffin NoName]

Afraid to write a word, seeing as I'm English.

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[Swatopluk]

Blame the French for it. Without William the Bastard all of that would not be a problem.

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[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Last _{but he was a Norman not a true French (and in opposition to the French crown)} Post

[Swatopluk]

But he did outfrench the French. Opposition to the crown was standard at the time. And let's not even talk about the royal family itself.

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[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I still have trouble understanding why hating the French is the national pastime in some countries.

Last _{as if the rest of the western powers had their hands clean} Post

[Griffin NoName]

We have a choice of Ireland or the French (until Scotland votes OUT).

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[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Are you telling me that the English hate the Irish as much as they hate the French?

Last _{that's news to me} Post

[Swatopluk]

The Irish were among the earliest to be hated for profit.
English domination of Ireland originally got justified by declaring the Irish subhuman and not really Christians (ignoring that it was the Irish church that christianized England). And later the Irish were not included among 'white' people in the US (they got upgraded to make room for the Italians who in turn moved up to make room for Slavs asf.).

They got their revenge by forming the FBI

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