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