The practical difficulties in listening to operas/oratorios

[Moonfish]

It is important to remember who the audiences were for these operas back in the day. It wasn't you and me (unless the aristocrats have invaded our board of a sudden! ), it was solely the elite, who were well educated in any case, and who usually spoke a variety of languages. The two constants among the panoply of Euro languages were French and Italian. So in answer to your question, yes, virtually all of the intended audience spoke the language it was presented in, even if it wasn't their own. Even if they weren't paying attention all the time, as Ken says.

That said, I have trouble understanding English when it is sung operatically. Probably just me, though.

I had that feeling. Like you I struggle with understanding exactly what is being said/sung during an opera with languages I know.  It all depends on the singers and how strongly they articulate. I wonder if the practice of articulation in singing has decreased over the last century as the audiences generally do not master the language? Only CMG fans with libretti in their hands get angry!   

[Moonfish]

Interesting question. A lot of the time from what I read the audience paid only intermittent attention! But a lot of operas before Mozart were based on very familiar stories, Orpheus, julius Caesar, etc, which doubtless helped.

So people just went to the opera to hang out, get intoxicated and be recognized by the other VIPs while enduring the arias?   

[knight66]

Not just VIPs, lots just went in the way people go to bars. They would often have talked and laughed through the performances, only shutting up when their attention was caught. The cheap seats were in the Gods and in Italy paid factions were often employed to boo specific rival singers, the claque. At times two opposing claques would be making a din and throwing fruit etc at one another.

The London Prom concerts were set up enabling the audience to promenade about, today we all sit as though in church.

A few years ago I went to English National Opera doing Handel in English and the whole three hours were supplemented by a signer...not a singer.....signing for the deaf, while above our heads ran the surtitles. That seemed like a very strenuous effort on equality, especially as she would have been signing in Standard British Sign Language which quite a proportion of deaf people don't use.

Mike 

[Ken B]

So people just went to the opera to hang out, get intoxicated and be recognized by the other VIPs while enduring the arias?   

If you read the descriptions, more or less! The fashionable would arrive late, the hoi polloi --and there were not enough elite to fill an opera house -- were rambunctious.
The stars of the show were usually the castrati at least as much as the music. Farinelli is the best example.
I,m talking pre Mozart again.

[Gurn Blanston]

Em, I don't like to be difficult, but certainly in Italy and I thought in central Europe, all and sundry did go to the opera in the 19th Cent. Verdi was a musical and political hero of the masses, not of an elite. Organ grinders had his music on their machines, message boys whistled his big tunes.

Mike

Here is an item which, not a complete review, does describe audiences in France and England, but not Italy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parterre_(theater_audience)

Oh, sorry, I don't take the 19th century into consideration usually. Of course you are quite correct, although by then the same was true in Austria and points north also. Just not my thing.