John G. Deacon wrote a carefully prepared post cogently presenting his case
against surtitles in opera, to which I'd just like to make a few points in
rejoinder:

>I concede that for Czech & Russian operas they are a help as the language
>gap is total.

It's not just the language gap.  Many's the time I can't understand words
sung in English or German, both languages I've spoken since childhood.
(Interestingly, I often have less trouble following a text in Italian, a
language I never studied!)

>A most crass example (of (d) above) for a most inappropriate surtitle might
>be the magnificent opening, in Philip II's bedchamber in Don Carlos, where,
>after the beautiful cello introduction, you hear enunciated as no surtitle
>can illustrate "Ella giammai m'amo ..." To read the surtitle "She never
>loved me..." is flat and cold and too ludicrous to contemplate.

I would disagree.  One is a perfect translation of the other.  Both, IMO,
a vast improvement over the French original ("Elle ne m'aime pas....") of
which the Italian itself is a translation.

I must admit to having been left cold reading the surtitles to Gounod's
*Romeo et Juliette* knowing as I did the "real" English texts from
Shakespeare.

Walter Meyer