A call to my Italian readers: in Puccini's Turandot, the singers pronounced the name both "Turan-DOT" and "Turan-DOH". Which, if either, is more correct?
Home dry cleaning kits are fun for all ages. Sitting on the kitchen floor with my black dress, I removed all the parts of the kit and experimented with the little plastic pads, cleaning fluid, lemony-fresh steam cloths, and neat little zippered pouch. Tossed in the dryer for half an hour, my dress was as good as new - even if the zippered pouch emerged covered in blue melted crayon. Call that a narrow miss.
Leaving the boys behind, my mother, grandfather, and I had dinner at the local Mexican joint before hitting the opera. I scanned the crowd for my mom's future husband, earning curious glances from several gentlemen who looked like James Bond with their expensive jackets and handsomely creased brows. My mother did not make eyes at anyone, but the opera was beautiful. Much more melodic and charming than the Flying Dutchman (Wagner!!). Still a bit sick, I nodded off during the second act, my head bobbing up and down as I was lulled to sleep and then jarred awake by the flow and crash of the music. Embarrassing. I perked up during the 3rd act and tried to make up for it by applauding until my hands tingled.
hehehe, you knew i'd answer, holly ;)
ReplyDelete"turandot" is a french name, and with french pronunciation the final "t" is silent. which works when italians want to pronounce it, well, frenchly.
but in italian there's no such thing as a silent "t." so the pronunciation in italian would enunciate the final "t."
i'm sure there is musical reason for pronouncing it one way and then another (rhymes, i suppose). or it might be laziness/sloppiness (though i don't know that opera well so i can't make any assumptions)
Oh, pizza! The best indulgence when watching one's dietary intake. If you get a wild hair up your bum, try this tasty pizza concoction:
ReplyDeleteChicken
Bacon
Pineapple
with...Bar B Q sauce instead of pizza sauce....
melt in your mouth, saliva drippin' goodness! :)
to take it a step further, then, would it be "Turan-DOTE" or "Turan-DAHT"?
ReplyDelete(oh, Puccini, giving your Chinese character a french name!)
[crfullmoon again]
ReplyDeleteIf no one else will say it I will;
You look gorgeous!
Thanks! I love that dress, it was so hard to find something other than the lycra sacks with ruffles that are in right now. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in choir school we used to go to the opera 2 or 3 times a year (yay mandatory school trips!) and everyone would wear their fancy clothes and it was all great fun.
ReplyDeleteThe year we went to see Turandot (which we were all taught to pronounce with a silent T) everyone in the opera pronounced it with a T, which made us all cringe. Including my (Italian) conductor. There's no accounting for taste I guess.
But there's always the dilema in singing according to how something is pronounced, and what makes a better musical sound. I remember we got nailed once in competition for our Latin pronunciation, because we were singing some vowel that doesn't (apparently) exist in classical Latin, but it's choral convention to sing it that way. bah.