Free online course: “Schubert’s Lieder: Settings of Goethe’s Poems” [via @OpenUniversity]

I just stumbled onto a free online course, Schubert’s Lieder: Settings of Goethe’s Poems.  It’s offered by OpenLearn, a website that hosts free online courses offered by The Open University.  I haven’t delved into the course yet, but it could be useful – here’s the course description:

Schubert’s Lieder: Settings of Goethe’s Poems

This unit looks at the short poems in German that were set to music by Franz Schubert (1797–1828) for a single voice with piano, a genre known as ‘Lieder’ (the German for ‘songs’). Once they became widely known, Schubert’s Lieder influenced generations of songwriters up to the present day.This unit then discusses a selection of Schubert’s settings of Goethe’s poems, and recordings of all of them are provided. You can find the poems, in German with parallel translations into English and the music scores of four of the song settings, on the unit home page. You are not expected to be able to read the music, but even if you are not very familiar with musical notation, you may well find the scores useful in identifying what is happening in the songs.

By the end of your work on this unit you should:

• have learned about Schubert’s place as a composer in early nineteenth-century Vienna;
• have learned about the place of Schubert in the history of German song and the development of Romanticism;
• be able to follow the words of songs by Schubert while listening to a recording, using parallel German and English texts;
• be able to comment on the relationship between words and music in Schubert’s song settings.

The course was created by Dr. Robert Philip.

Description of OpenLearn (from their website):

OpenLearn gives you free access to learning materials from The Open University.

We launched OpenLearn back in October 2006 thanks to a grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Our shared vision was free online education, open to anyone, anywhere in the world. OpenLearn is the result and we have since reached over 23 million people.

In the first two years, OpenLearn grew to include over 8000 study hours of learning materials from Open University courses. The website continues to grow with new course materials being published regularly in our OpenLearn ‘Try’ section.

Description of The Open University (from their website):

The Open University is a world leader in modern distance learning, the pioneer of teaching and learning methods which enable people to achieve their career and life goals studying at times and in places to suit them.

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ClassicalSongSearch.com: A search engine for vocal repertoire

Well, the ink is hardly dry on my previous blog post, Web search tips for thematic programming of a concert/recital, and now fellow techie singer Katia H. has created a search tool that searches all of the websites mentioned in my post, in one fell swoop!  It’s over at classicalsongsearch.com.  It’s still in alpha so there still might be some kinks to work out, but give it a whirl and let Katia know if you have any problems or suggestions!

Grazie mille, Katia!

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• Web search tips for thematic programming of a concert/recital

Web search tips for thematic programming of a concert/recital

So one of the things that’s been sucking away at my time for blog-writing these last couple months is that I’ve been organizing and programming a benefit concert.  While hunting for pieces related to the concert themes, it occurred to me to share some of the Google-fu that I use for finding music.  I’m sure these tips are old hat to some of you tech-savvy singers, but others might find them useful.

So, one of my objectives was to find vocal solo or small ensemble pieces from the opera, art song, musical theater, or popular genres on the theme of “gold” or “golden”, since the concert benefits an organization celebrating its golden anniversary season.  I did this by using keyword searches on the following websites:

• The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive – for art song and other musical poem/text settings
• Aria Database (aria-database.com) – for aria texts
• Opera Guide / Opernführer and OperaGlass (opera.stanford.edu) – for opera libretti, to get ideas for duets/trios/ensembles
• AllMusicals.com – lyrics from musicals
• Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) – texts of choral works in the public domain
• Spotify – all genres including popular
• iTunes – search my own music collection or the iTunes store for ideas

Several of these sites contain texts in various translations, so I made sure to search for translated versions of my keywords, too.  E.g., in addition to searching for “gold” I would also search for terms “oro”, “d’or”, etc.  (It had to be “d’or” for French since “or” would yield too many search results in English texts!)  Translating the search terms is less necessary for some of the sites, like The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive and  Aria Database because they have English translations of many texts, so my keyword search for “gold” will still yield songs in other languages.  Other sites like Opernführer might only have the libretto in the original language or in German, for example, so translating the search keywords is a definite help there.

As for search engines – some of the sites above have a very good site search feature, e.g. The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive and AllMusicals.com, so you can just go directly to their website and enter the keywords into the search form there.  But sometimes a website doesn’t have a site search feature (e.g. OperaGlass), the site search feature is too specialized for a general text search (Aria Database), or the site search does not return results of sufficient quantity or quality.  In this case, you can do a Google search with the following syntax in order to narrow your search results to a particular site – just include “site:” followed by the domain name of the website to search, with no space in-between:

gold site:opera.stanford.edu

Once I found song texts that fit my programming theme, I was able to track down scores for songs through online sheet music sellers, IMSLP, CPDL, or by using WorldCat to find scores in libraries local to me.

8/26/13 UPDATE 1: Fellow techie singer Katia H. has created a search tool that searches all of the websites mentioned above, in one fell swoop!  It’s over at classicalsongsearch.com – check it out!

8/26/13 UPDATE 2: Glendower Jones contributed this very useful info in the comments for this post:

This is great advice. Many folks may not know of the many massive reference books on vocal repertoire that were written by Sergius Kagen, Noni Espina, Michael Pilkington, Judith Carman, Graham Johnson, Shirley Emmons and Carol Kimball. A very useful reference is Pazdirek, the BBC Song Catalogue and Classical Vocal Music in Print and of course Groves and MGG. I don’t know, but possibly some of these books may now be on Google books.

These are some of the major references but still only a drop in the bucket. Pazdirek, Universal-Handbuch der Musikliteratur was produced in Vienna from 1904-1910 and contained the compilation of practically every music publisher active at the time. This was reprinted in 1967 in the Netherlands and is now free online. Few musicians know of this amazing work. http://archive.org/details/universalhandboo01pazd

Also, in a Facebook comment, Nicholas Perna adds:

As a shameless plug, I can also recommend readers search for Britten’s entire output using The Comprehensive Britten Song Database! www.brittensongdatabase.com

Related Posts:

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• Russian Art Song website & free download: “A Guide to Russian Diction”
• ItalianMadrigal.com: The Italian Madrigal Resource Center – Scores, texts, translations, and more
• Italian resources for stage pronunciation, common word endings, & dictionary apps [via @DictionPolice]
• App Review: Collins Italian/English dictionary for iOS [via Ellen Rissinger/@DictionPolice]
• Digital dictionaries for translating archaic words and spellings

Streaming Internet radio: Opera, choral, art song, and operetta channels

I was inspired to compile a list of streaming internet radio stations that are of interest to classical singers, after reading a thread on this topic on Facebook some weeks back.  You can listen to these audio streams on your computer using your web browser; on mobile devices, you can use an app like TuneIn to access most (not all) of these audio streams.  For some channels, e.g. Operavore, the player on their website provides more real-time information about the work, performers, and composer than you get through an app like TuneIn.  Other channels do display that information within the TuneIn interface.

If you have suggestions for streaming audio channels that belong in this list, let me know in the comments section.

	VivaLaVoce (WETA, Washington DC) Description from their website: “VivaLaVoce presents classical vocal music in all its forms, from the Middle Ages to the present, 24 hours per day. Featuring Opera, Choral Music, and Art Song, the station offers something for everyone who loves vocal classical music.”
	Operavore (WQXR, New York City) Click on the “Operavore” tab at the top of their website to listen to the streaming audio.  Description from their website: “Operavore is WQXR’s digital 24/7 audio stream, blog and weekly radio show devoted to Opera. The Operavore blog features breaking news, expert commentary and reviews by writers Fred Plotkin, David Patrick Stearns, Marion Lignana Rosenberg and Amanda Angel. The stream features a continuous, carefully programmed mix of classic and contemporary opera recordings. The show, which launches Jan. 19, 2013, features opera news bulletins from the around the globe, previews of new recordings, and interviews with the players and personalities on the scene.”
	MPR Choral Stream (Minnesota Public Radio) Listen from your web browser, TuneIn, or the MPR Radio App for iPhone.  Description from their website: “We’ve created our 24/7 choral stream for one reason: we love this music. We want to share our favorites and some beautiful surprises with you. What’ll you hear? A big range from Palestrina to Pärt, spirituals to Schubert, and new work by Whitacre, Lauridsen, Paulus, and more wonderful contemporaries. You’ll discover great professional choirs, college choirs, amateur choirs, church choirs… anytime you want!”
	Rádio Ópera (São Paulo, Brazil) Description from their website: “Full-length operas 24 hours a day.”
	King FM Opera Channel (Seattle, WA) Description from their website: “All Opera, all the time – only a mouseclick away! Featuring operas 24/7, hosted by Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins.”
	King FM Choral Music Channel (Seattle, WA) Description from their website: “Choral Channel in partnership with Chorus America”
	NDR Kultur – Belcanto (NDR, Hamburg, Germany) Listen to this stream at ndrkulturbelcanto.rad.io.  Description from their website: “NDR Kultur presents the most famous arias from the world of Italian opera. The stars of the international opera stage for an hour draw the listener into the realm of dreams and the ‘dolce vita’.”
	Swissradio.ch Opera (Switzerland) Description from their website: “Opera and Operetta: Enjoy with swissradio Opera legendary and rare opera recordings in full length.”
	GotRadio – Classical Voices Description from their website: “Opera and choral music”
	1.FM – Otto’s Opera House Description from their website: “Listen to over 1000 complete and uninterrupted operas from the baroque era to modern days [sic] performances. You will be dazzled by the greatest singers and composers. A great collection of operatic music!”
	Diveky Radio – Opera (Budapest, Hungary) Description from their website: “The premier opera recordings from Hungary and around the world”
	Diveky Radio – Operetta (Budapest, Hungary) Description from their website: “Famous operettas from Budapest and Vienna, augmented by well known French and English works”
	Radio Caprice (Russia) Their channels include Opera, Mass/Chorus/Cantata, and even a station devoted to popera, if that’s your cup of tea.  The TuneIn app was the most straightforward way for me to listen to these channels, since the web page required browser plug-ins that I was unsuccessful in installing.  If you do use the TuneIn app, you’ll need to search on the exact title of the channel in order to find it, due to the large number of Radio Caprice channels, so search for “Radio Caprice Opera” or “Radio Caprice Mass/Chorus/Cantata”.  Speaking of which, the Radio Caprice website lists a huge number of musical genres for which they have channels, 2/3rds of which I have no idea what they are (what is “funeral doom metal”?).

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A conversation with Dan Molkentin of SingersBabel — with notes on Peachnote, Sparks and Wiry Cries, and Medici TV

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting for coffee with Dan Molkentin, co-founder and co-artistic director of SingersBabel, the subscription-based website with lyric diction resources. He happened to be in town for the Music Library Association conference, so we took the opportunity to get together and talk shop. I knew at once that he was a kindred spirit when our conversation ranged from web technology stacks, media workflows, and website project management, to textual discrepancies in different composers’ setting of the same poems, Italianate vs. German Latin, and whether we should be rolling or vanishing our final R’s in German.

One piece of SingersBabel news that Dan shared was that they will be introducing Russian resources to the website in coming weeks. The resources will include multimedia guides for learning the basic sounds of the language, as well as guides for specific texts and repertoire. Speaking of repertoire, Dan tells me that the repertoire guides on the site will focus on choral works and oratorio, with a bit of art song to boot. (Although I REALLLLY hope – pretty please – that they’ll consider bringing some opera people on board to produce diction resources for the operatic repertoire and Italian. There’s an untapped market there, and even if they just did the arias from those ubiquitous Larsen anthologies, I bet they’d get business from a bunch of vocal performance majors and the like.)

We also talked about the recent SingersBabel website testing program, which I participated in.  One thing that I discovered in the course of testing is that the website has many more resources than I thought; it’s just that they’re hard to find (and the SingersBabel team is working to rectify that).  A sampling of notable resources:

• Audio comparison of vowel and consonant sounds in different languages (subscription required) – with special attention given to vowels that are transcribed with the same IPA symbol but have slightly different shadings in the various languages
• SingersBabel YouTube channel – song texts, IPA introduction, and more
• Dan’s YouTube channel – including his 35-minute Introduction to Lyric German Diction video
• And I really like this video on how to prepare a song text and really break down the text and diction components:

Dan shared some other online music resources with me as well.  One of them, Peachnote, is something I’ve been meaning to check out for a while.  From what I’ve gathered, Peachnote is a provider of a number of interesting music technologies, but one that particularly attracted Dan’s interest was Peachnote’s platform for collaborative online multimedia annotation of music scores.  In plain English, that means that you can use Peachnote’s score viewer to annotate the score with your own text, audio, or video notes and also view annotations that others have added.  Here’s a screen capture of Peachnote’s score viewer with annotations:

Peachnote also makes it possible to embed the score viewer in your own website, and in fact the viewer is already in use over at IMSLP with a number of scores.  For example, you can go to the IMSLP page for Le nozze di Figaro, navigate to the full score for the overture, and click the “View” button:

The Peachnote viewer then displays the score, which someone has annotated with a YouTube video recording of a performance of the overture:

Dan also tipped me off to the Sparks and Wiry Cries blog and e-zine about art song.  (I can’t believe I’ve never stumbled upon this.)  From their masthead: “Our mission is to provide a virtual home for the art song community: performers, students, scholars and fans. We endeavor to provoke thoughtful discussion about the extraordinary art of song.”  One of their contributors is Emily Ezust, creator and maintainer of The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive, and they have a number of other notable contributors as well.

Lastly, Dan mentioned Medici TV, a French website which offers free live broadcasting of concerts, operas, and ballets along with video on demand from their catalog of concerts and classical music documentaries.

Thank you, Dan, for our engaging and enlightening conversation, and best of luck with the SingersBabel venture!

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SingersBabel: Free six-month subscription to online diction tools for volunteer website testers

SingersBabel is a website with learning tools for both general lyric diction study as well as for specific works in the vocal repertoire.  They are looking for tech-savvy or tech-curious singers/teachers/coaches/conductors to use their website and give them feedback as they prepare to do a major revamp of their site.  They are offering free six-month subscriptions to volunteer website testers – here are the details from Dan Molkentin, one of the site’s founders:

[We are interested in] having some musicians that follow your blog test the site. 20-25 people who would be willing to use [SingersBabel] for at least 15-20 minutes a week, speak with us for 5 minutes a week for one month, and complete a survey at the end of the four weeks. There are some more details we’d discuss before doing this but the participants would receive 6 months free access to the full site in exchange for their time and feedback.

We’ll be ready to have people start testing and meeting with us starting on February 1st. I’m not sure how feasible or open your users would be to this, but it would be very useful if they could use a free screen recording like BB Flashback to record their time on [SingersBabel]. This would allow us to see better how people are using the site.

If you’d like to sign up, contact Dan at daniel(at)singersbabel.com.

I’ll be participating as a tester, too.  I’ve been wanting to do a review of SingersBabel here on the blog; I just haven’t had the opportunity to sit down and give the site a thorough test drive.  So I’m looking forward to it.

Just to give you a taste of what’s currently available at SingersBabel, here are some screen captures from their site.  The spoken text recordings are done by native speakers who are credited here.

Multimedia pronunciation guides at SingersBabel lyric diction website

Text, IPA transcription, and translation at SingersBabel website

You can follow SingersBabel on Facebook and Twitter too.

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Classical Vocal Reprints launches PDF download sheet music store

Classical Vocal Reprints, the long-time mail-order purveyor of sheet music for vocalists, has expanded into the realm of digital sheet music with the launch of their new website for PDF sheet music downloads.  This is great news for us singers because it puts their huge catalog of high-quality editions of opera, song, oratorio, and other solo vocal literature instantly at our fingertips.  From their website:

We have it all (opera, art songs, specialty numbers, new composers, rare music and old favorites) […] We even carry things that are otherwise out-of-print. As our name implies, we have many hard-to-find titles which we reprint ourselves.

You can browse the composer list at their PDF download store, or search by title, composer, or catalog number.

Some of features of CVR’s catalog and service that deserve special mention:

• Many songs and song cycles are available in multiple transpositions
• They carry out-of-print and hard-to-find titles
• They can do custom scans, custom prints and transpositions (given sufficient lead time)
• They are a good source for individual arias when you only need one or two of them and don’t want to buy a complete opera score or anthology
• Custom PDFs – Even if something isn’t in their catalog, you can call/email them and they may be able to create or obtain a PDF and supply it to you
• Great coverage of the standard vocal literature

I’m trying to convince CVR to sell their PDF sheet music in forScore’s in-app sheet music store, too.  That would be super convienient for us forScore users.  If you’d like to see that happen, drop CVR a line on Facebook or Twitter.

If you are not familiar with CVR, they are an independent sheet music retailer founded in 1987 and based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas.  The owner is Glendower Jones, who is himself a singer and knows all the ins and outs of vocal literature, score editions, and music publishing companies.  Glendower is like the concierge of classical vocal music – he’s the guy who picks up the phone when you call CVR, and he is knowledgeable and happy to advise on score editions, provide custom PDFs or other custom services, and track down and help you get your hands on any possible score you can think of (and CVR also has a retail website for traditional printed sheet music, for items that are only in that format).  Even if a item is not listed on CVR’s website, just call or email Glendower and he can definitely hook you up.  Glendower has supplied sheet music to such luminaries as Joyce DiDonato, Martin Katz, Susan Graham, and Thomas Hampson, but I can attest that he provides fabulous personal service to us mere mortals, too.  He’s advised me about art song editions and publishers, given me discounts and free/reduced shipping charges from time to time, and once offered to send me a Bärenreiter edition at no extra charge when the score I originally requested was on backorder.  I’m quite happy doing business with CVR.

A special plea: Please consider patronizing CVR for your sheet music needs (digital AND printed) and not just the “big-box” online sheet music retailers.  The prices are competitive, and for you choristers, CVR’s printed music division carries choral/oratorio scores too.  The PDF download store is not just CVR’s latest venture, it is also Glendower’s bid to keep his business afloat in a difficult economy and a changing music retail market environment.  Except for those who have been living under a rock, musicians everywhere know that independent sheet music retailers, especially brick-and-mortar stores, have been downsizing or flat out folding left and right, and if CVR goes, it will be a huge blow to the classical vocal community.  CVR is one of the last bastions of personal service in the sheet music retail world.  Glendower has been known to look up a specific measure on a specific page of a specific score to provide information to a customer to help them make the right purchase.  Good luck getting that kind of service from S**** M**** P***.  If you’d like to see that kind of personal service and selection thrive in the 21st century, please support independent businesses like CVR.

IPA dictionaries on the web

I’ve been working on some song & aria translations lately and have needed to check the pronunciation for various words.  I own a modest collection of printed dictionaries with IPA at home, but was curious about whether this information is available online.  Here’s a roundup of online dictionaries I found that use IPA:

Italian

• WordReference.com Italian-English
• Wiktionary Italian

French

• WordReference.com French-English (no audio)
• Wiktionary French

German

• Wiktionary German

Russian

• Wiktionary Russian

Czech

• Wiktionary Czech

English

• Wiktionary English – includes American English and British Received Pronunciation (RP)

Note, of course, that the dictionaries above don’t take into account all of the rules of lyric diction (e.g. avoiding uvular R), but they do come in handy when checking things like open vs. closed vowels.  Also, with noted exceptions, the dictionaries listed have audio pronunciation examples for selected words.

Another FYI: WordReference.com has iOS/Android apps, but the IPA (for selected languages) is only on the full website, not the apps.  I’d like to do a survey of online/offline dictionary apps with IPA in a future blog post – if you’re aware of any, please let me know.

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• Digital dictionaries for translating archaic words and spellings
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MP3 accompaniment tracks for arias and art songs, and where to find them

Credit: Amazon.com

MP3 accompaniment tracks are a really handy thing to have loaded up on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop.  They are useful as a mobile practice aid when you’re away from your pianist, especially in conjunction with a music score reading app like forScore or unrealBook that lets you link an audio track to a score for easy playback during study.  MP3 accompaniment tracks will even do in a pinch for  performance situations where live accompaniment is not an option (but see the note below about performance licenses).

Many of the websites that sell accompaniment tracks have audio samples so you can judge the quality of the sound and the pianist.  They may also sell spoken-text diction audio tracks in which a coach or native speaker runs through the pronunciation of the aria or song text.  In fact, some sites offer whole packages of learning tracks for full opera roles that include diction tracks and accompaniment tracks with and without the vocal line and vocal/orchestral cues.

If you want to use your MP3 track for live performance or on YouTube or other recordings, you will probably be required to get a license.  Some of the websites make this very easy – you can add a license to your shopping cart the same way you add an MP3 track you’re purchasing.

Here are some websites that offer accompaniment tracks:

MP3 Accompaniment Tracks

Your Accompanist – MP3 piano accompaniment tracks of songs and arias, with or without the vocal line.  In addition to their broad catalog, they handle custom requests.  (I’ve purchased tracks and custom orders from them with good results.)

MP3Accompanist.com – MP3 piano accompaniment tracks of songs and arias.  Some tracks are available in different tempi or different keys.  They have a sizable catalog and also accept custom requests.  In addition, they offer spoken text tracks for selected songs and arias.  (I’ve had a decent experience purchasing from them as well.)

Opera Karaoke – MP3 piano accompaniment tracks for arias, vocal line tracks, and diction tracks.  They also sell video tracks that display the aria text as the music plays.  The video tracks are supposed to be compatible with iPhones and Android in addition to Windows/Mac/Linux.  They accept custom requests.  Also, they provide a useful tutorial on using Audacity to change the pitch and or tempo of an MP3 accompaniment track (this method works on any MP3 track, not just theirs).

Karaoke Opera – MP3 orchestral accompaniment tracks (using a real orchestra) for greatest-hits arias and duets from opera, Gilbert & Sullivan, Messiah/oratorio, and Broadway.  Available from Amazon and iTunes.

CANTOLOPERA – Orchestral accompaniment tracks (using a real orchestra) for greatest-hits arias and a couple of full operas, plus some Italian songs.  They sell the tracks on CD (which you can probably rip) but also as MP3 albums and individual MP3 tracks on Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play Store.

Opera Practice Perfect – MP3 and CD piano accompaniment tracks of roles, complete operas, and accompagnato recits.  They also have a couple of the major concert works, e.g. Messiah and Verdi Requiem.

Pocket Coach – MP3 piano and orchestral accompaniment tracks, diction tracks, scores, and libretto/translation booklets.  Repertoire is pretty diverse and includes opera, oratorio/concert works, art song, religious solo, vocal method books/student repertoire, songs for children, and Gilbert & Sullivan.  Many languages are represented, including Czech and Spanish.  They have a separate storefront for MP3 downloads.

I sometimes run into random one-off collections of MP3 accompaniment tracks, for example this Schubert: Lieder without Singer album on Amazon.

Accompaniment CDs

(You can probably rip these to MP3 for use on your mobile device)

Coach Me – CDs with piano accompaniment tracks for full roles (with and without vocal line) plus spoken-text tracks by native speakers and a libretto/translation booklet.  They also have assorted lieder and some major concert works, e.g. Messiah, St. Matthew Passion, Mozart/Verdi Requiems.

Music Minus One – Piano and orchestral accompaniment tracks for arias, songs, and other styles (e.g. Broadway) on CD.

Classical Karaoke – An umbrella site that showcases accompaniment CDs from different publishers.  One nice thing about this site is that you can browse by album, composer, opera, role, or aria.

Aria and song anthology books often have corresponding accompaniment CDs, for example the art song anthologies from Hal Leonard.

MIDI Tracks

Classical MIDI with Words – A modest selection of free MIDI tracks for arias and songs.  The sounds are a bit cheesy, but hey, it’s free.

Classical Archives: MIDI – Large collection of classical MIDI tracks, and not just for vocalists.  This is a pay site and I’m not sure if it’s subscription-based or pay-by-the-track.  They do have a free trial period and they may also offer a free download or two of your choosing.

Many thanks to Jeffrey Snider who started the thread on the New Forum for Classical Singers that helped me to write this post.

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Digital dictionaries for translating archaic words and spellings

Credit: Greg Lindahl

Following up on the topic of an earlier post, “Working with music texts, Part 2: Translate the text,” there are times when we need to translate archaic words or spellings that have fallen out of modern usage and are nowadays only encountered in a literary context such as poetry or libretti.  Fortunately, there are quite a few websites, apps, and e-books to help with deciphering these bits of antiquated language. Note that several of them are historic dictionaries in the original language, so depending on your level of fluency, you may want to have a translation reference or tool handy for translating the definitions.

Italian

• Florio’s 1611 Italian/English Dictionary: Queen Anna’s New World of Words – You can search the dictionary online or download the entire book as a PDF file.  The smaller 1598 edition is available too.
• Zingarelli – Available for iPad/iPhone, Android, and several other mobile and desktop platforms.  A web-based version is available for a fee; the first week is free.
• Garzanti Italiano – Register for a free account to search the dictionary on the website.  Also available as an app for iPad or iPhone and for desktop platforms as a download or CD-ROM.
• Dizionario Etimologico Online – Search the dictionary online.
• Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini – Search the dictionary online.
• Archaic Italian Verb Conjugations – Not a dictionary per se, but a useful aid for translation.
• Google Books – Pre-1900 Italian dictionaries here and here (online or downloadable e-book).

French

•  A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues: Compiled by Randle Cotgrave (1611) – You can search the dictionary online or download the entire book as a PDF file.
• Dictionnaires d’autrefois: French dictionaries of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries – You can search the set of dictionaries online.
• Garzanti Francese – Register for a free account to search the dictionary on the website.  Also available as a CD-ROM.

German

N. B.: I’ve heard that for translating much of the German repertoire, one might have more success using a pre-WWII dictionary that pre-dates the spelling reforms of the mid- to late-20th century.

• Cassell’s German Dictionary – Preferably a pre-war version from the 1930s or earlier.  I couldn’t find a digital version anywhere, but I saw this recommended often enough that it deserved special mention.  Try your local used bookstore.
• Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary) by the Brothers Grimm – Free and available online at this website, at Google Books (online or e-book), and at Barnes & Noble as an e-book for NOOK devices and apps (iPad/iPhone, Android, PC, Mac).
• Google Books – Pre-1940 dictionaries here (online or downloadable e-book).
• dict.leo.org – Online German dictionary and language forums.
• dict.cc – Online English-German dictionary with user-contributed definitions; you can also ask the user community your translation questions.

English

• A Concise Dictionary of Middle English

If you have any digital resources to add to this list, let me know!

This post was inspired, and much of the information gleaned, from this discussion thread in the archives of the New Forum for Classical Singers.  A hat-tip to the folks there who share their expertise.

Related Posts:

• Working with music texts, Part 2: Translate the text