Why is it that opera singers never sing in English?

Question:

Why is it that opera singers never sing in English?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: They always sing in English if the opera was written in English. In fact, "Bluebeard's Castle" by Bela Bartok is frequently sung in English, because he wrote it in Hungarian. Hungarian is beyond many singers. "Vanessa" by Samuel Barber was written in English and is sung in English. A lot of opera is written in the most popular language during that time. Operas were commissioned and the commissioner would often select which language they wanted it written in. There are opears written in English as the person stated above, but when opera was in its height of popularity, English wasn't the main language of the world. There is a wealth of Opera written in English that is frequently performed by the worlds leading Opera companies. Most operas where written by Italians and Germans... they had a bit of a competition for a long time. Part of the argument between the Germans and Italians was which language was more musical, so opera became not only a musical play, but an important tool to promote one language over the other. It had no value to play an Italian opera all over the world if people sang it in English or German... it wouldn't be italian anymore. So the native language became very important to the opera and the opera composer as a national symbol of pride. Today they really don't have a feud between which language is better, but we still connect certain operas with certain languages and many people would be very resistant to hear it in a different language. Personally, I want to hear the Magic flute in German, and I'd hate to hear La Boheme in English. It's just not natural. Back in Mozart's day, some composers wrote operas in Italian because it was considered "the language of music", but nationalism became an important force in music in the 19th century, and composers started to write opera in whatever their native languages were. German, French, and Italian opera were the most popular, but later Russian, Czech, English, and many other languages were also used.

For many years, operas were frequently sung in the language of the the audience, to promote understanding of the text, but in the 20th century, there has been a move back towards singing in the original language--in part because singers fly around the globe to engagements, rather than singing all year in one city, as was true for most singers before the modern age.