Operas are "heard" / more about opera: smotret' or slushat'?
Michael Denner
mdenner at STETSON.EDU
Fri Mar 10 19:08:30 UTC 2006
I agree entirely with Vera -- "to hear an opera" has a distinctly
1930-ish, New Yorker air to my Midwestern ear. I would never say it
myself, immediately recognizing it as an affectation; but I would
approve of its anachronistic and smug ring, nonetheless. Nor would I
ever say "see an opera" (very gauche!) -- instead, I'd just
circum-locute the problem with "went to" or "attended."
I don't know, though, that the distinction arises because of opera's
synaesthetic nature and appeal. Let me point out that, as illogical as
it may seem, I would say it is now _standard_ American English to say
"see a concert."
"Do you want to see a concert next Friday?" "What're they playing?"
"Bach." "Oh, I was just listening to his partitas for violin on my
iPod..."
No one I associate with says "hear a concert" any longer, and "listening
to a concert" implies listening to a recorded one. I am tempted to say
that this usage of "seeing a concert" has arisen as a way to
differentiate the ways of experiencing music nowadays -- shorthand to
clarify whether the experience is directed (see) or mediated by
technology (listen). I wonder if the same gravitational pull isn't
exerted on Russian, as well.
mad
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Dr. Michael A. Denner
Editor, Tolstoy Studies Journal
Director, University Honors Program
Contact Information:
Russian Studies Program
Stetson University
Campus Box 8361
DeLand, FL 32720-3756
386.822.7381 (department)
386.822.7265 (direct line)
386.822.7380 (fax)
www.stetson.edu/~mdenner
-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of atacama at global.co.za
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 1:50 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Operas are "heard" / more about opera: smotret' or
slushat'?
Oh dear oh dear !
There is a definite class distinction in how one
enjoys opera.
Upper-class/educated/intelligenzia - both in English and Russian -
"go to hear an opera" - since music is the reason for an
opera's existence, not costumes or pretty faces, which are 2nd-ary.
It is very working class/uneducated to go and "see an opera" -
an opera is not a spectacle.
To listen to an opera is obviously on a CD or records or tape.
The English now 'avoid' being explicit, and would say:
"We went to La Traviata last night" (contemporary educated English)
or
"We went to hear La Traviata last night" (considered now a wee-bit
pedantic)
In Russian also slushat' ne smotret'.
If you go see or smotret' operu, it means that you might be tone-deaf
or musically uneducated.
Regards,
Vera Beljakova-Miller
Johannesburg, S Africa.
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Sara Stefani sara.stefani at YALE.EDU
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:43:47 -0500
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] more about opera: smotret' or slushat'?
Liz makes a good point, and in thinking about my own native language, I
would
give this addendum to my previous posting: I think that in English the
verb you
use could conceivably depend to some degree on the venue in which you
view
the
opera. If someone is going/went to an opera at a rather small venue (the
Met,
the Bol'shoi), I would definitely use "to see." It sounds a bit strange
to
me
to say "We heard 'La Traviata' last night," although perhaps not outside
the
realm of possibility. If, however, someone said, "They are playing 'La
Traviata' in Central Park tomorrow," you could follow it up with the
questions
"Do you want to go see it/go listen to it/go hear it?" The implication
here
being that the venue is so large that you probably won't be sitting near
the
stage and therefore won't see much of anything, so you won't have much
other
choice than to hear it or listen to it, depending on how much attention
you're
going to pay to it!
I agree that the major focus in opera is the singing, but there is also
quite a
lot of spectacle and pageantry involved in watching an opera (sets,
costumes),
and that is perhaps what English speakers focus on?
ss
Quoting Elizaveta Moussinova <emoussin at INDIANA.EDU>:
> Privet Inna! :))
>
> Kak dela?
>
> It might depend on the focus with which one looks at the opera. To my
> opinion, the primary focus of opera is music and voices of singers;
> the visual part is secondary. I am not sure how the cast is chosen
> for an opera exactly, but I suppose that they mainly pay attention to
> voices (soprano, tenor, etc). An adult singer may be chosen to sing a
> part of a 16-year-old thin fragile shepherdess. I think then
> "slushat' operu" is right.
>
> Liz Moussinova
> Indiana University
>
>
> Quoting Inna Caron <caron.4 at OSU.EDU>:
>
>> Here's another controversial item, also likely to be written off as
an
>> archaism.
>>
>> When I was a little girl, my parents always corrected me when I said
"my
>> smotreli operu," - "Operu ne smotryat, a slushayut." Now it would be
as
>> difficult for me to use "smotret'" (regardless of how pompous and
>> pretentious it may sound to other native speakers), as to accept the
>> legitimization of neuter for coffee, and not mentally wince when
someone
>> says "moe/chernoe kofe."
>>
>> So, I'm wondering - and this is not the matter of conducting a
research
>> - just plain curiosity:
>>
>> 1) Do other native Russian speakers use "smotret' operu," or
"slushat'
>> operu," when referring to live (not recorded) performance?
>>
>> 2) Do native speakers of English say "to see" or "to hear" in the
same
>> context?
>>
>>
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