| Subject: |
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Re: HOT TOPIC - Text Message (language in opera) |
| Name: |
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James Conway |
| Date Posted: |
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Sep 17, 07 - 6:40 AM |
| Email: |
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james.conway@englishtouringopera.org.uk |
| Website: |
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http://www.englishtouringopera.org.uk |
| Message: |
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(CONTINUED) there is no black and white about it.
Don’t get me wrong: I have often valued surtitles in foreign language shows, and I respect and cherish captioning. There are some people who are extremely careful display technicians, there are gifted translators, and there are cases where there is enough rehearsal to make sure that titles or captions and stage actions match beautifully. It can work, inasmuch as it works at all: but it is currently no more useful than a printed label alongside a museum display, or a printed handout about a picture in an art gallery. I don’t think it is yet the dynamic, shaded counterpart to performance that it should be, not as various and particular as the work that is so carefully shaped for the stage. That said, I hope that somebody is working on something now that will prove me wrong next week.
In the meantime, at ETO we are advertising a variety of solutions, the best ones we can find to the particular pieces we are producing, offering a variety of experiences to audiences. Teseo is sung in Italian (because there isn’t a good translation, and there wasn’t time to prepare one) with a powerpoint display of the wordbook in its original format; Country Matters is presented in a lively, clear English translation; Bridgetower has many elements of the script and the stage direction projected as part of the setting; in the Spring, Don Giovanni will be presented in an English translation that attempts to address DaPonte’s layered language, Anna Bolena will be sung in the (beautiful! literary!) original Italian of Felice Romano, and selectively surtitled, and Susannah will be sung in English, albeit in the Tennessee dialect in which it is written, with advertised performances captioned for the hearing-impaired.
James Conway |
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