Imagine going to a gala performance of one of Benjamin Britten's choral classics and hearing an Italian tenor sing the English lyrics in an appallingly comical accent.
If you go to a concert or opera in the West, and hear a vocal piece from Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov or Rachmaninov you're likely to hear something similar -- whether you realize it or not.
"I've been to concerts in the States and squirmed in my seat as otherwise fine singers butcher `Eugene Onegin' by bellowing it out in simply God-awful Russian," said Laurence Richter -- the man who wants to change this.
The fall of the Iron Curtain has seen more and more Russian works performed in the halls of the running dogs of capitalism as interest in the shrouded culture of the "evil empire" hits an all-time high.
However, many singers are lost when it comes to singing the songs of Russian masters because they have no training in Russian classical vocal diction.
Professor Richter has 25 years behind him as a lecturer in Russian phonetics at Indiana University. He has worked with many singers over the years to help them master the intricacies of Russian pronunciation.
Although his training has been in phonetics and the Russian language he has always had a passion for the world of song.
Prof Richter professes to have a "not very good voice" himself but he relishes the chance to work with those who can stir us to the depths with the power of their voice.
But because a good voice without the right tools and training is never enough, he has become convinced of the need for a systematic transliteration into the phonetic alphabet of the corpus of Russian choral works but he has been hampered by a lack of appreciation of his project.
In St Petersburg both to teach and to continue his search for a publisher, Prof Richter explains that there are two types of experts consulted by the publishers: Western singing diction teachers and Russian singers.
He added that the diction teachers were ignorant of Russian in general and saw no reason to redress this ignorance, while Russian singers take one look at the transcription of Russian into the international phonetic alphabet and say "That set of maths formulae is not Russian."
"But to not have this system is ridiculous," Prof Richter said. "After all, no English-speaking singer can get through classical training without learning at least one language from German, French and Italian and doing diction training in all three."
Prof Richter has prepared the complete set of Tchaikovsky's romance songs using his system. Every line of each song is written as four lines. The first line is in Cyrillic script, the second gives the phonetic transliteration, the third line is a word-for-word translation to allow the singer to know which words to emphasize and the last line gives the sensible translation of the whole line.
And for those who think it makes no difference to the quality of the performance, Prof Richter cites the example of last year's Bloomington Chamber Ensemble performance of Rachmaninov's "Vespers."
The choir had spent six weeks of intensive training using his transliterations prior to the performance.The end result was so profoundly affecting that many in the audience were moved to tears -- even those who had heard the piece anew.
One ecstatic spectator, a veteran Rachmaninov listener, said it had been "like hearing it for the first time."