Sometimes things are so obvious you miss 'em.

If being blind in one eye counts, then it must be Wotan, mustn't it?

I've just thought of another blind character, although he doesn't sing. In Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri, Mozart, when he first enters, brings in a blind violinist who plays an abominable version of Voi che sapete. Salieri is not amused.

ARIA – CONSTANCE.
   Dear friends, take pity on my lot,
      My cup is not of nectar!
   I long have loved – as who would not? –
      Our kind and reverend rector.
   Long years ago my love began
      So sweetly – yet so sadly –
   But when I saw this plain old man,
   Away my old affection ran –
   I found I loved him madly.
      Oh!
(To NOTARY)   You very, very plain old man,
      I love, I love you madly!
NOTARY.   I am a very deaf old man,
      And hear you very badly!
CHORUS.   You very deaf old man,
      She loves you madly!


The Sorcerer Sullivan

I was a stupid nurserymaid, on breakers always steering,
And I did not catch the word aright, through being hard of hearing;
Mistaking my instructions, which within my brain did gyrate,
I took and bound this promising boy apprentice to a pirate.
A sad mistake it was to make and doom him to a vile lot.
I bound him to a pirate, you, instead of to a pilot.

Pirates of Penzance  (If you ever think of dipping you toes in the waters of G&S, IGI, Pirates is probably a good place to start as a shameless send up of Verdi.  Not that most people who have hummed along to it realise that.)

It's basically a set of bad untranslatable puns, in which Frantz constantly mishears Crespel and Crespel abuses Frantz.  Think Basil Fawlty and Manuel 

Agreed, let's move on to a new question!   Who has something interesting?

I've got another deaf, well, hard of hearing character: Kaspar in Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors.
In response to Amahl's questioning whether his parrot can talk, Kaspar responds, "How would I know?!"


Following Don B's Manon explorations and raising the prospect of the Puccini opera in the French opera thread, which operas of essentially the same stories exist in versions by different composers? And, as a supplementary, which version do you prefer, and why?