Despite common belief, not everyone who attended operas during the 18th century spoke Italian which is and was the language of most operas. Because of this, operatic actions became highly exaggerated over the evolution of the artform to act as a kind of subtitle to fill in the blanks. Patrons were also provided small booklets with the entire opera in print, much the same as a modern day screenplay script so that they could follow along in the event that they became lost