# Opera in translation



## Guest (Apr 16, 2007)

can an opera be translated?


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## Frasier (Mar 10, 2007)

Sometimes. The ENO make a good go of it.


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## zlya (Apr 9, 2007)

Can't stand translated opera. Saw ENO's "Abduction from the Seraglio" and hated it. Firstly, I still can't understand the words, because the singers are concerned about beautiful sound and projection more than diction. Secondly, all the beautiful German vowels get changed into disgusting English dipthongs.


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## Manuel (Feb 1, 2007)

They can: I lombardi a la prima croacciata = Jerusalem

And I've heard Die lustige witwe many times, as well as The merry widow.


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## Guest (Apr 17, 2007)

I think that what is important in a opera is not just the plot, but especially the poetic expression or verses which develop the drama. The reason for not performing an opera in translation is that the musical values of certain syllables are not preserved when one changes languages. The translator provides a new set of linguistic sounds to replace those anticipated by the composer.


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## Morigan (Oct 16, 2006)

I prefer watching opera with subtitles.

Also, I love what they do in my city : they display the translation of the lyrics on a wide digital screen suspended above the curtain. I don't know if it's a common thing or not?


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## Manuel (Feb 1, 2007)

Morigan said:


> I prefer watching opera with subtitles.
> 
> Also, I love what they do in my city : they display the translation of the lyrics on a wide digital screen suspended above the curtain. _I don't know if it's a common thing or not?_


That's what they do here also. But they're hanging a bit to high, so they're easy to look at only if you are in mid-height level seats. I don't find those _overtitles_ comfortable, so I just try to memorize the whole text before attending to the opera.*

* Here they always perform well known works, so this is not a problem, actually.

This is how the theatre looks like. (A 19th century lyric house...  )


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## Morigan (Oct 16, 2006)

It looks nice Manuel!

I agree that it's not ideal to have "overtitles". It also drags your attention away from what's happening on scene...

However, I find that understanding everything that's being said adds a whole new dimension and a lot more depth into opera. So, until I learn Italian...


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

zlya said:


> Secondly, all the beautiful German vowels get changed into disgusting English dipthongs.


'Beatiful' and 'German language'. How can those words go together? 

No kidding, _Lieder_ sound just fine, but German simply isn't what I would generally call a 'pleasant-sounding language'.


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## cato (Dec 2, 2006)

Lisztfreak.... Your comment about German, reminds me of the part in the movie "Amadeus", when Mozart and the Kapellmister are trying to sway the Emperor to use either Italian or German in a new opera, and the Kepellmister say's, "Excuses your highness, German is a..... a...... too brute for singing."  

About opera in translation through, I'm totally against it. I'm really into Russian opera, and if you put Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame into English, (or any Russian opera) you would strip it of it's historical and cultural meaning.

Think about this..... Could you see Girshwin's Porgy and Bess proformed by white Germans singing this America opera in German? There is NO WAY you could faithfully translate the American Black Southern Slang using German. NO WAY. Girshwin wrote that opera to be sung in English, by Blacks, speaking/singing in a Black Southern American slang style. German cannot bring out all that Porgy and Bess contains. And English cannot really bring fourh the emotions that Russian opera has.

No, keep an opera the way it was writen, that's what each composer would want.


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## Frasier (Mar 10, 2007)

Manuel said:


> That's what they do here also. But they're hanging a bit to high, so they're easy to look at only if you are in mid-height level seats. I don't find those _overtitles_ comfortable, so I just try to memorize the whole text before attending to the opera.*
> 
> * Here they always perform well known works, so this is not a problem, actually.


I'm prepared to accept any devices within reason to promote opera. So many people are offput by the social conventions of its performance; then they're offput by the price of tickets. It can cost a good chunk of your wages to visit the opera house regularly.

To the hard-core opera fanatic, translations, sub or supertitles are probably abhorrent - so are incompetent singers, or singers you particularly don't like for some reason, bad productions and bad sets.

Because it isn't likely to be produced in London in the near future, I bought a DVD of Somnambula. The singing is refined and beautiful in parts and the music is excellent - but the set is horrid - a real eyesore! But as I'm not hard-core, just a moderate enthusiast, and know I can't have everything, I'll bear with it until 
something altogether better comes along.


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## Manuel (Feb 1, 2007)

Frasier said:


> I'm prepared to accept any devices within reason to promote opera.


Me too. If you don't know the language the opera is sung in, you go to the opera for the music only. When I was I child my parents took me to see Carmen and I understood nothing of it.

It reminds me of a comic opera written by an argentinian group of music-comediants (*Les Luthiers*)... The opera is sung in _gulevace_, an invented language (with a lot of comic terms), and when they play it in theatres their introduction to the piece says "The opera is sung in _gulevace_, the idiom from the land of *Gulevandia*; this is a rare language so overtitles are provided; it's not like those german and danish operas *everybody *understands."


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## Guest (May 5, 2007)

most of classical opera plots are absolutely incomprehensible. – and when I listen Cosi Fan Tutte, for example, I close my eyes, I let me be carried away by the music, - and I don’t care of the trifles of the libretto.


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## Morigan (Oct 16, 2006)

Daffodylls said:


> most of classical opera plots are absolutely incomprehensible. - and when I listen Cosi Fan Tutte, for example, I close my eyes, I let me be carried away by the music, - and I don't care of the trifles of the libretto.


Lol! Cosi isn't that complicated... and the story is so funny!  I love the "movie" version directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle.


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## Guest (May 5, 2007)

The story is funny : that is precisely the problem, because Mozart’s music is sublime and divine, and not just funny!


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## cmb (Dec 20, 2006)

Cosi's music is SO funny - it alternates between the two divine and funny - but to get back to the original posters question - I know I thought it was extremely odd to hear Le Nozze in English the first time, and I have a recording of Les Contes D Hoffmann in German (which is not entirely a bad stretch, since the characters are German) but it is just odd sounding.

The music and the libretto are meant to be wedded, so a translation into another language when performing must be done carefully. I have never heard one that would make me give up the original, thats for sure.

And anyone who thinks German is not a beautiful language when sung has never heard Dietrich Fisher-Diskau sing the Songs of A Wayfarer.


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## zlya (Apr 9, 2007)

Re German vowels:

I find German vowels absolutely delightful. My keyboard has no umlaut, but pretty much any umlauted vowel sounds absolutely DIVINE when sung. Compare those to the most common English vowel (American at least) the delightful dipthong. I=ah-ee. Say=seh-ee. Really foul to try to sing.
I think German has a reputation as an unpleasant language largely because of the consonants, many of which have a bit of throatiness to them, which can sound a bit phlegmy (though not HALF as bad as French!). Whether or not you object to German consonants, the fact is that singing tends to emphasize the vowels--which resonate in pitch, and de-emphasize consonants.

Re Germans singing Porgy and Bess:

If only black people can sing Porgy, does that mean that only Asians can sing Madama Butterfly, and only Italians can sing Verdi? Seems a bit limiting.


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## cato (Dec 2, 2006)

I think I have been misunderstood.  

You are confusing race/culture and opera which is translated into another language.  

I'm NOT saying that Germans can't sing Porgy and Bess, or that Mexicans can't sing Prince Igor.  

What I'm saying, is that Porgy and Bess was writen, not just in English, but American, Southern, Black English, designed to mimic the Black/Negro Southern Drawl and slang that Blacks in the south spoke at the time. If you translate it into Greman, and sing it in German, something is lost in translation. Period.

Likewise, if you take a 19th centuary Russian opera like Prince Igor, and translate it into Spanish, and sing it in Spanish, something is lost in translation.  

21st centuary Spanish, as spoken by Mexicans, is VERY different then 19th centuary Russian, as spoken, or sung by Russians living in that era, like the composer Borodin. Sure, Mexicans can sing Prince Igor in Spanish, but like Germans singing Porgy and Bess in German, something is lost in translation.

That's all I'm trying to say.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

I'm definitely in favour of hearing operas in other languages. Having seen countless operas at ENO in the 80's and 90's it seldom felt like a problem, and singing in the native language creates an immediacy and connection between singers and audience, particularly in comic operas.

I was also struck when reading a Wagner book to discover he was rather positive with a suggestion that his works be performed in other languages. The Goodall English Ring is certainly worthwhile. I'd really love to hear an Italian Ring Cycle.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I can't stand operas in English. We have an opera company here in town that only does their operas in English...I didn't mind it at first, but now I don't think I can tolerate them any more. It's like eating spaghetti with taco sauce. And besides, you can't really tell what they're singing even in English, so you might as well stay with the original language. I'm perfectly fine with subtitles. Who needs to hear it in English, anyway? Italian opera makes more sense in Italian, even if you don't know the language. At least, that's my opinion.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

If you don't like opera in translation, do you also not like reading literature in translation? (Obviously there are _good_ translations and _bad_ translations. Lets assume good translations here.)


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

It depends on how well you know the opera. I could sit through a performance of Fidelio and know just about everything that is going on although I cannot speak German. I got to know many of the Opera is in performance through going to see opera in English. You know what is going on and the drama is more vivid as a result. Okay, the drawback is the words don't fit so well. But as a dramatic experience I'd sooner have my own language. When I'm at home with a libretto then the original.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Goodall's Ring cycle in English is one of the best in stereo. Yet I doubt many people here have heard it. Those who say they don't like opera in translation have probably never heard opera in translation.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I have mixed feelings about this iissue . Today, with subtitles., Met titles , DVDs with subtitles, the easy avilability of complete operas on CD with English transltions next to the original libretto etc, there is far less need for opera to be sung in English trnslation than in the past .
Also, with major opera houses, which use singers from all over the world , and Italian, French,German, and Russian singers going ll over creation singing roles in their their native languages, it's just not practical to have them learn to sing those roles in translation , and singing role with a foreign accent can be very distracting .
And today, young aspiring singers in conservatories learn foreign languages and study the correct pronunciation . With the increasing popularity of Czech opera, more and more young voice students are actually learning how to sing that language, which is extrmeley difficult to pronounce, even more so than Russian . Even estanblished opera singers are learning how to sing Czech .
In Germany, for example, it used to be the norm for German opera companies to sing Italian and French operas in German translations, but since casts have become so interntionalized, this is no longer the case .
There are a number of live CD recording from Germany of Italian operas sung in German from past decades .
Even some studio recordings . 
German is not an ugly language at all if properly sung . Austrian German sounds quite different, soft and lilting . Very pleasant to hear .


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

The vast improvement of subtitle technology in the last decades, has rendered singing Opera in translation almost such a thing of the past as painted curtains. There are a few exceptions, like ENO or the Berlin Komische Oper, but this is the sign of the times. And this is a good thing, in my view.

However, as mentioned above, there are great performances of operas sung in translation. Verdi's operas as sung in Germany by German, Austrian, Nordics,.. singers during the first decades of the 20th century are really a joy for the listener:


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

IMO it is not absolutely necessary for an opera to be sung in English (i.e. for English native speakers) especially taking into account the importance of the relationship between vocal syllables and their musical expression in the original language. But an understanding of the libretto greatly enhances our listening pleasure and makes opera what it is - drama that is sung. I mean, imagine watching a movie without hearing the spoken dialogue! Yes, in opera we can follow the narrative set out for us in the music, but without an understanding of the story, we are effectively short-changing ourselves. At the very least one should read (carefully) the libretto in English translation - many of which can be googled.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

superhorn said:


> and singing role with a foreign accent can be very distracting .


most of them sing with an accent  sometimes with hilarious results.


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

Opera can be translated. I understand the philosophy behind the ENO where they will only stage in English. I have no experience with it, but I prefer original language. It's not that hard to read the surtitles. We do this also in the cinema (well in The Netherlands all foreign movies are subtitled, whereas in other countries like Germany they are overdubbed in the native language) so I'm used to that.

Also, the words and music are strongly linked, so the translation would have to be very good to keep the same level the composer and the librettist accomplished. In most cases, it will probably be a loss, also because the composer didn't work with the translator.And I love the Italian language, so no translations for me.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

I guess the computer programmer nerd in me is curious about opera translated into English because it's an exercise in linguistic problem solving.

As for ENO, and their ethos of bringing opera to the masses, there was that time when they commissioned a new opera (how we looked forward to those!) and it was sung in a language no-one spoke - Ancient Greek. Hmmm.


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