I'm working on something for Just sheet music about the large portion of the operatic canon that has Shakespearean inspiration. Consider this a preview. One of the operas I plan to highlight is Le Marchand de Venise (1935), by French composer Reynaldo Hahn and librettist Miguel Zamacois. I've just described Hahn as a "French" composer advisedly. Though he was born in Venezuela in 1874, he arrived in Paris at the age of three, and stayed there through two world wars, dying there in 1947. Indeed, one reference book calls Hahn "one of the most fragrantly Parisian of composers." I'm not sure that isn't a misprint. Wouldn't "flagrantly" have been a more natural turn of phrase? Nothing in the context supports the notion that it's an intentional pun. But, hey, follow the above link and decide that for yourself. The opera involves the usual compressions: the five acts of the Shakespeare original are turned into three, and some...