The idea of giving opera in English has always interested me. I never could understand why there were any more reasons against giving an English version of _Carmen_ in New York than against giving a French version of _Die Freischütz_ in Paris or a German version of _La Belle Hélène_ in Berlin. To be sure, it goes without saying, from a purist point of view it is a patent truth, that no libretto is ever so fine after it has been translated. Not only does the quality and spirit of the original evaporate in the process of translating, but, also, the syllables come wrong. Who has not suffered from the translations of foreign songs into which the translator has been obliged to introduce secondary notes to fit the extra syllables of the clumsily adapted English words? These are absolute objections to the performance of any operas or songs in a language other than the one to which the composer first set his music. Wagner in French is a joke; so is Goethe in Italian. A musician of my acquaintance once spoke of Strauss's _Salome_ as a case in point, although it is a queerly inverse one. "Oscar Wilde's French poem or play--whichever you like to call it--" he said, "was translated into German; and it was this translation, or so it is generally understood, that Strauss set to music. When the opera--a French opera in spirit, taken from French text that was most Frenchly treated--was given with Oscar Wilde's original French words, the music often seemed to go haltingly, as though it had been adopted to phrases for which it had not been composed." Several notable singers have recently entered a protest against giving opera in English. Miss Garden--admirable and spontaneous artist though she be--once wrote an article in which she cited _Madame Butterfly_ as an example of the inartistic effects of English librettos. I do not recall her exact words, but they referred to the scene in which Dick Pinkerton offers Sharpless a whiskey and soda. Miss Garden said, If I remember correctly, that the very words "whiskey and soda" were inartistic and spoiled the poetry and picturesqueness of the act. Personally, I do not see that it was the words that were inartistic, but, rather, the introduction of whiskey and soda at all into a grand opera. My point is that such objections obtain not more stringently against English translations than against German, French, or Italian translations. Furthermore, after all is said that can be said against translations into whatsoever language, the fact remains that countries and races are not nearly so different as they pretend to be; and a human sentiment, a dramatic situation, or a lovely melody will permeate the consciousness of a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a German in approximately the same manner and in the same length of time. Adaptations and translations are merely different means, poorer or better as the case may be, of facilitating such assimilations; and, so soon as the idea reaches the audience, the audience is going to receive it joyfully, no matter what nation it comes from or through what medium:--that is, if it is a good idea to begin with.