[L']Orfeo in English: Opera on 3 Monday 2 March

[doversoul1]

Claudio Monteverdi's first large-scale opera "Orfeo" from the Roundhouse in North London, as the Roundhouse and the Royal Opera collaborate for the first time in this new production by the director, Michael Boyd.
[…]
Christopher Moulds directs a young cast of soloists, a chorus from the Vocal Department of Guildhall School of Music and Drama and musicians from the Orchestra of Early Opera Company in this production which is sung in English in a new translation by the poet Don Paterson.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b053zy84

Monteverdi's first large-scale opera?

It is good to see young singers being given an opportunity like this but wouldn’t it make more sense if they mastered their performance in the original language (I assume they are perfectly capable of singing in Italian)? I must say I don’t quite fancy listening to [ L’]Orfeo in English.

[Roehre]

I must say I don’t quite fancy listening to [ L’]Orfeo in English.[/B]

Makes two of us I'm afraid

[MrGongGong]

I went
and it worked really well IMV

[Flosshilde]

I must say I don’t quite fancy listening to [ L’]Orfeo in English.

I've heard it in the past at ENO & as far as I can remember (it was some time ago) it worked. I think the simplicity (or should that be purity, as I don't think Monteverdi's music is 'simple' in the sense of being easy) of it makes it worth doing in English for an English-speaking audience (especially in a relatively intimate venue, where it will be easier to hear what is being said).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Monteverdi composed the work using an Italian libretto for Italian people - the language they spoke and understood. When performed to an audience who speak and understand a different language, it makes sense to sing it in the local tongue, the proviso being that the translation is a good and sensitive one (in my opinion)..

[Bryn]

Monteverdi composed the work using an Italian libretto for Italian people - the language they spoke and understood. When performed to an audience who speak and understand a different language, it makes sense to sing it in the local tongue, the proviso being that the translation is a good and sensitive one (in my opinion)..

And one I am happy to share.

[gurnemanz]

Monteverdi composed the work using an Italian libretto for Italian people - the language they spoke and understood. When performed to an audience who speak and understand a different language, it makes sense to sing it in the local tongue, the proviso being that the translation is a good and sensitive one (in my opinion)..

Yes, but he wrote it for the way the Italian language sounds. As a matter of principle. I would always favour the original language for opera (and song). We went to the Roundhouse and it was a most rewarding evening, but we were not hearing exactly what Monteverdi wrote. The use of English did not greatly aid comprehension of what was being sung and surtitles were provided. Also, Orfeo, Gyula Orendt, is not a native speaker of English.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - vowel sounds and syllabic rhythms can get compromised.

I don't mind attending performances of opera in an English translation, but on radio (without the visual aspects of live performance) hearing the words in English always emphasises how silly the drama is.

And then the whole issue becomes redundant when singers' diction/projection/intonation is so lousy that it's impossible to discern what (if any) language is that they are supposed to be using.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, but he wrote it for the way the Italian language sounds.

That's why translations need to be sensitive. Had Monteverdi been setting an English text, it is unlikely he would have composed music that was significantly different, though there would have been subtleties of rhythmic variation. It's interesting to view scores of works with bilingual texts, to discover how composers themselves tackled the problems.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes - vowel sounds and syllabic rhythms can get compromised.

I don't mind attending performances of opera in an English translation, but on radio (without the visual aspects of live performance) hearing the words in English always emphasises how silly the drama is.

And then the whole issue becomes redundant when singers' diction/projection/intonation is so lousy that it's impossible to discern what (if any) language is that they are supposed to be using.

[doversoul1]

I am in rather an odd position in this matter. Firstly, I find it hard to follow English when it is sung, which gives the practice (sung in translation) little advantage over performances in any other original (foreign) languages. Secondly, I spent my youth watching films with subtitles and developed a way of feeling the sound of the language and understanding the dialogues by reading them. With this, when it comes to operas, as long as I know what is being said (sung), I am perfectly happy with the original language.

I also spent my youth reading literature in translation and believe that the world would have been a very much poorer place without translated literature.

However, I think the difference between literature in translation and translated opera performance is that, a literary work is complete in itself but the libretto of an opera is only one part of the work and the music is still there in the original form. Of course, you can say that, to those who come to the work for the first time this isn’t a problem, but I am not and no matter how good the translation is, when it is heard with the music, it just sounds….odd. I wonder what Dowland’s songs sound like in Italian.

I suppose this is a similar argument to Bach played on the modern piano. Bach may have been delighted to hear it but I’d rather imagine he would have composed something completely different for the piano from what he did for the harpsichord.

All this is entirely my personal preference and I have no objections as such to opera in translation, or Bach on the piano for that matter (well, mostly).

Also, the point of my first post is that it may have been more profitable to these young singers to have experience in performing in the original language.

[Flosshilde]

Also, the point of my first post is that it may have been more profitable to these young singers to have experience in performing in the original language.

I think that's an interesting point & discussion. Most comment about opera in translation focuses (I think) on a) the audience experience and b) the match between the sound of the language & words in relation to the music. Doversoul's comment introduces another aspect - the experience of the singers. I don't mean in terms of their CV, but how they experience the drama. If they understand what they are both saying/singing themselves, and what other actors/singers are saying it surely helps inhabit the drama. I can't imagine a play being performed where the actors don't understand what the others are saying. I take on board the issues of a non-native English speaking performer, but in this case if they are studying here then they must be able to speak & understand English to a reasonable level?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I suppose this is a similar argument to Bach played on the modern piano. Bach may have been delighted to hear it but I’d rather imagine he would have composed something completely different for the piano from what he did for the harpsichord.

Whilst agreeing with many of the points you make on the choice of language in opera, I must challenge this one. Bach wrote in very much the same style, whether he was writing for orchestra, organ, voices or keyboard. Had he been writing for the early piano, it's unlikely there would have been any significant difference.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Interesting point, Floss - I would imagine that singers learning a role would use a vocal score which included an English translation; and that Voice Coaches would draw attention to salient vocabulary (and the way the composer has emphasised this in the vocal line).

I think dovers is right, though - if these young singers wish to have a decent career as opera performers, then they would profit more from learning the original - not only to ensure their being hired in other productions, but also because the translation they're using for this particular production may well be different from the one they're asked to use in an Opera North/Welsh/Scottish Opera/whoever production of Orfeo - which proudly advertises the "new translation" that the production has commissioned!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Whilst agreeing with many of the points you make on the choice of language in opera, I must challenge this one. Bach wrote in very much the same style, whether he was writing for orchestra, organ, voices or keyboard. Had he been writing for the early piano, it's unlikely there would have been any significant difference.

The same "style", certainly - but Bach was a superb craftsman writing for the special characteristics of instruments. The arrangements and transcriptions he made of his own Music (the rewriting of the E major Violin Concerto as the D major Harpsichord concerto, for example) shows how telling his ear for sonority and instrumental timbre is: had he written for piano, or transcribed, say, the Italian Concerto, then the subtle differences would have been quite as evident as the alterations of a rhythm to accommodate a vocabulary substitution in a libretto translation.