' HUGH MACDONALD argues the case for performing operas in translation'

[RobertLeDiable]

And if what you want is the world's leading performers jetting in for what are sometimes hastily rehearsed singer-orientated productions, then fine

No, I'm sorry, that's a caricature. The ROH is a stagione (mostly) house and productions are generally given decent rehearsal time unlike, say, repertoire houses in Germany where what you suggest does happen. What I think we want from the ROH is the best possible casts of world-class artists. Some of those, but by no means all, may be native English speakers. And we should have the opportunity to hear the best singers from abtoad. But my point is that even British artists who have international careers wouldn't be able to learn their big roles in more than one language, except occasionally. You're right, that we should have an English language opera company to complement Covent Garden - and we do. Insisting that most ROH productions should also be in English would be disastrous.

Why does opera have to be in the vernacular, when we are happy to watch Japanese or French classic cinema with subtitles rather than dubbed into English? In fact, watching most European TV is torture when foreign programmes and films are dubbed into the vernacular using second rate actors with the wrong voices, rather than having a subtitled translation.

[Bert Coules]

Why does opera have to be in the vernacular, when we are happy to watch Japanese or French classic cinema with subtitles rather than dubbed into English?

Opera doesn't have to be in the vernacular, it's just better that way. Just as watching a well-made film in your own language is always going to be a more direct and more involving experience than watching one with subtitles. If there's no alternative, if it's the only way to see that particular film, the work of those particular artists, then it's better than nothing, but it's always going to be a secondhand experience: you're never going to have the same visceral heart-to-heart reactions as a viewer whose native tongue the performance is in. With a film, you can't change that (as you say, dubbing introduces too much of a jarring, unreal shift away from the original, though of course plenty of people accept it quite happily); with a theatrical performance, you can.

[Flosshilde]

I've come rather late to this thread so won't attempt to join in all the discussion, but I think that Scottish Opera used to do some performances in English, & others (of the same opera) in the original language. (this was in the days when they did more than 4 perfromances of each opera). Obviously that makes greater demands on the cast (having to learn a work in English as well as the OL), or means having two casts, so it could cost more.

In general I prefer the original language, but I think the argument for translation is strong, especially for unfamiliar works, or works like comedied where an understanding of what's being said is essential to an appreciation of the humour. I think the suggestion that people should read the libretto & learn it before going to a performance is a bit unrealistic. How many could memorise an entire libretto, including which character was singing, in a language they didn't understand & recall it during the performance (not to mention not getting lost if there are cuts)?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

How many could memorise an entire libretto, including which character was singing, in a language they didn't understand & recall it during the performance (not to mention not getting lost if there are cuts)?

It does sound a tall order. I remember doing Grade 8 singing and having to memorise 2 German songs, which I did by listening endlessly to a CD. The examiner said how I expressed the words with real understanding
The thought of learning an entire opera in a language of which I can understand only 2 words is quite daunting.

[RobertLeDiable]

I like the idea of a sensibly pragmatic policy at places like Covent Garden. For example, when reviving a production of a comic opera, do it in English if its first airing had been in the original language, and vice versa. But Canning seemed to be saying that there was no case for foreign language opera in a British opera house at all, and that it was just snobbery. I can't accept that, and I don't believe he had thought through the consequences of such a poicy. Of course it's alright for someone like him jetting round the world's opera houses, hearing the top singers at his newspaper's expense.....

Outside London, the case for more opera in English is probably stronger, if only because companies like WNO and Opera North often have casts of mostly, or entirely, native English speakers.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Opera North is performing more and more works in their original languages.

[Bert Coules]

Opera North is performing more and more works in their original languages.

Boo!

It's worth noting as an historical fact for those who didn't realise, that Covent Garden went through a post-war phase when foreign singers had to relearn their roles in English if they wanted to perform there: something which Wagnerian greats like Hotter and Flagstad were willing to do.

[RobertLeDiable]

I do remember a production of The Turn of the Screw at the Edinburgh Festival. It was from Aix, I think, with Daniel Harding conducting. The part of the governess was sung, in English of course, by a French singer. It was impossible to understand about 90% of what she was singing.

[RobertLeDiable]

Those were gentler, slower days in the early 50s! You also have to remember that singers like Flagstad were only singing a tiny number of roles and probably a lot fewer productions per annum, so maybe it wasn't such a big deal for her to do Isolde or whatever in English. I wonder if the same policy pertained at the Met in those days.

And of course singers like Hotter must have been used to singing Rossini, Verdi et al in German. It's the globalisation of opera that has changed things.

[Bert Coules]

You know, despite what I wrote earlier I think that actually I agree with Canning. I just heard some of one of the act finales from The Marriage of Figaro on R3, in Italian: some of the wittiest, paciest dialogue ever written for an opera. It was perfectly decently performed - and it was dead. Dramatically totally dead. Just noise. Oh, very pleasant noise, sure, but I refuse to believe that da Ponte and Mozart would have been content with their masterpiece being reduced to noise.

To hell with international singers. For opera to be meaningful drama it has to be performed in the language of the audience. To do otherwise is ludicrous and an insult to the original creators of the works.

[RobertLeDiable]

To hell with international singers

No - I can't accept that we should revert to the provincialism of performances only in our own language, even in our greatest international opera house. We need both. And before you object to the word 'provincialism', I know that we have plenty of good singers of our own in the UK, but with an English-only policy we would never have had the chance to hear some of the truly great vocal artists in our own country - Caruso, Pavarotti, Callas, Nilsson et al. And our best native singers would have to resign themselves to not having a great international career, or attempt to maintian a repertoire in two languages, or rarely singing in their own country. Ridiculous and impractical. The Royal Opera would ultimately be opting out of the international top flight, and as a consequence leading conductors would no longer come.

Apart from that, most of us can cope perfectly well with, say, an Italian language Figaro with surtitles. I don't feel distanced from the drama by that at all. When I go to ENO, I still need surtitles otherwise I only understand about half of the dialogue. Partly, of course, that's because of the poor diction that others have remarked on - but it's almost as much to do with the nature of opera and the fact that words will always be obscured to some extent by being sung, however hard a singer tries.

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

"For opera to be meaningful drama it has to be performed in the language of the audience. To do otherwise is ludicrous and an insult to the original creators of the works." Ok - but Wolfi wrote DG to an Italian text for an audience that would have been German-speaking or Czech-German bi-lingual; Figaro for the Viennese [though I doubt if a performance in German would have been permitted by the censor - like the dirty bits in Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis, the inflammatory passages were left in the "decent obscurity of a learned language"]. Handel? Hasse? Graun? Handel's Italian operas required text-books in English which were duly sold at the theatre [Wiki has a picture of the cover of Julius Caesar]. The international singer argument may work for Handel, but not for Mozart, I think - unless you want to argue that "it couldn't be opera unless it was in Italian", which would be a fair point - anything in German was a "Singspiel".

As Devil's Advocate, there's Martinu's Julietta - a translation into Czech of a French play... Cheek By Jowl recently toured Racine's Andromaque in French with French actors to various English venues, including the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton. Many years ago, there was a Festival of International Theatre at The Aldwych. And that was without the music to help...

[Eudaimonia]

How many could memorise an entire libretto, including which character was singing, in a language they didn't understand & recall it during the performance (not to mention not getting lost if there are cuts)?

Opera singers do it all the time. And the point is you learn the language as you go: as I've said, it's improved my French, German, Latin, and Italian immeasurably.

Anyway, if all you're after is an evening's entertainment, sure-- go ahead and hear it it in some mangled, half-baked translation that crudely gets the point across. But for people who are otherwise so concerned about "dumbing down" for the convenience of the ignorant and intellectually lazy, it's a bit of an odd stance to take, isn't it?

[Chris Newman]

Eudaimonia,
I think most of us love opera in the original language but it comes with experience and enjoyment. From personal experience and that of my kids it helped us to get over the first fence hearing (and performing) a few that they were likely to enjoy. I first fell in love with the human voice through hearing Tito Gobbi in "The Glass Mountain" a film. The idae of singing and acting suddenly clicked. I tried Verdi's Ottello and Traviata at Covent Garden which was OK but I was a bit lost with the Italian. I really was converted hearing Sadlers Wells (now ENO) perform in English in The Mastersingers under Goodall. That was, with intervals, a six and a half hour marathon. I went three times in two weeks. My kids began with the Royal Opera House on TV with Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen and similarly ENO with Hansel and Gretel (both in English). A couple of years ago they both happily heard Janacek (live) in Czech. They know he is fantastic dramatically and musically. My son plays in a heavy metal band and my daughter is a professional classical singer but they both have bitten the the opera apple and are prepared to read up with the synopsis beforehand. There hangs the problem. A professional actor/singer friend I know had never been to an opera and never thought he would like it. I dragged him struggling and screamimg to Jenufa at the ROH with Haitink. It was in Czech but, professional that he was, he read up beforehand and was astonished to find it was as dramatic as Les Miserables which he had done a spell in and just as exhilarating (I would argue many times more but in conversation I am polite: I made an operatic convert). I believe strongly that if young people get the chance to hear opera in the vernacular they might learn to love it in the original. We must not expect all to accept Italian, German or French just like that. Nor can we expect all to be like you and me and wish to explore these languages further until they have a good reason to do so. I love languages and study them but at school I only went through the motions. Understanding opera gave me a reason to do so.
bws
Chris.

[Bert Coules]

...go ahead and hear it it in some mangled, half-baked translation that crudely gets the point across.

If you're going to insist on a worst-case scenario, I'm going to ask you if you'd enjoy your original-language performance if it were given by tenth rate singers and an out-of-tune orchestra.