Episode 68

After an unexpected extended delay due to a climbing accident and travelling over Easter, we're back! Italian bass Maurizio Muraro, discusses Banco's aria from Macbeth in this episode, focusing on the palatal consonants GN [ɲ] and GL [λ], the combinations NG [ŋg] and NC [ŋk], double consonants and phrasal doubling, plus the suffixes -MENTO and -MENTE with stressed closed E [e]. Here is a libretto for Verdi's Macbeth--for Banco's aria scroll down to Nr. 8 1/2 Scena Banco. Sometimes the Opera Guide link will revert to the German text, or even to the Synopsis page, so make sure to click on Libretto and then I for Italian. The resources I talked about on this episode were the Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia from RAI (the Italian television station) and the Wikipedia entry for standard suffix endings in Italian, including lists of words ending in -MENTO and -MENTE. The iPad apps that I now use for translation and diction purposes are the Harpers Collins Italian-English Dictionary and lo Zingarelli Italian Dictionary (which also gives open and closed Es and Os for all verb forms!). Please feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com