My lifelong love of opera began the day I heard Tosca in English. It is such a dramatic piece, almost cinematic. I doubt hearing it first in Italian would have had the same effect. Certainly, hearing other operas in the original language did not. But when I heard this one, I suddenly realized that opera was music AND drama and for the uninitiated, at least, there is no drama when listening in a foreign language. As Puccini certainly knew. In his day, opera was to be savored and its text immediately understood by everyone. It was not just a jewel to be admired from afar by the elite. Otherwise he'd have written Tosca in English. Or Sanskrit. Roger Hecht