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

[Guest]

I am the one with eyes frequent and frenzied averted to the jumbo tron, my daughter loves opera and begs of me to please not need the translation. I would love to watch a discussion form here so that I may learn.

sigolene euphemia.

Here is an excerpt from Opera News by H Macdonald born and educated in the United Kingdom.
http://music.wustl.edu/files/music/H...um%20Vitae.pdf


Do any of us ever stop to ask ourselves how this has come about? Does anyone even realize how strange a situation it is? For most operagoers, it seems, there is no debate. The cognoscenti never even discuss it. Singing teachers dismiss translations as beneath contempt. Someone, somewhere, sometime laid down the law that Italian opera is sung in Italian and German opera in German, and so on. In the bad old days, as everyone knows, esteemed houses such as Covent Garden and the Met would sink so low as to perform Così Fan Tutte or Boris Godunov in English, forgetting that Mozart was Ital — oops, I mean, Austrian — and Mussorgsky Russian. Now, everyone agrees, we know better; we respect the composer's wishes, we thrill to the very vowels and diphthongs that the masters themselves heard in their heads. We don't know what they mean, but they sound lovely. We learn all we need to know from reading the projected titles somewhere above or at the side or on the seat in front. Do the meaning and the content of the words even matter?

http://www.operanews.com/operanews/templates/content.aspx?id=18113

[Eudaimonia]

To answer the author's question, of course the meaning and content of the words matter! I've always found learning songs and arias to be a wonderful aid to studying foreign languages. My German and French improved quite a bit-- and when I was in Italy, I certainly got along better having memorised all that extra vocabulary. When you think of it, you can recite poetry in languages you don't even know.

Last year when I went to hear Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle at the ENO and found they were doing it in English only after the curtain was up, I was so mad I could spit. Oh well. At least I was on the front row for the Rite of Spring...right over the brass, too. When I leaned forward, I was looking straight down into a tuba. YES! I wanted to dive in.

[rauschwerk]

Singing in the vernacular is all very well, but how often can one understand what is being sung, especially from the back of a big theatre? Does not the ENO use surtitles? And is there not a good reason for this?

[Bert Coules]

It seems to be the fact that the current fashion in vocal training emphasises line and tone over clarity and diction. Couple that with the cavernous acoustics of many opera houses and the way our habits of listening have changed in this age of electronically-reproduced music adjustable at will, and it's small wonder that sung English in a theatre has become hard to catch. Actually, spoken English in theatres is suffering the same fate: look at any West End audience and you'll see people unaccustomed to live unamplified sound levels struggling to hear.

It should be said, though, that English isn't the only language affected. Even to someone fluent in the languages concerned, are all the words really audible and clear in a Wagner opera performed in German? Or a Verdi one in Italian? No, of course not. But given a willingness to listen properly, a good cast and (a consideration not often mentioned where clarity is concerned) a sympathetic, intelligent and sensible singing translation, enough words are usually audible in an English language performance to make a crucial difference to the experience.

However... the technology exists now to amplify voices from the stage subtly and undamagingly. Not to West-End musical levels but just enough to help them cut through the orchestra and gain some bite and clarity. That's the route I'd like to have seen the ENO try, rather than those damned surtitles, which encourage laziness in the audience and take you out of the moment, making what should be a visceral, direct dramatic experience into a secondhand one.

If operas are dramas rather than long musical compositions which just happen to have words in them, then there should be no argument. For an English-speaking audience they should be performed in English.

[Chris Newman]

ENO use surtitles as Rauschwerk reminds us. It was not always thus. In the 60s and 70s when Sadlers Wells Opera first moved to the London Coliseum everything was sung in English (except Montiverdi's Orfeo). They soon became ENO. Surtitles had not been invented. Moving from their tiny matchbox at Sadlers Wells to Frank Matcham's gigantic horseshoe (the West End's largest theatre) raised many eyebrows. It was supposed to be a temporary transition to a new venue at London's South Bank.

I regularly sat (or stood) in the gods and built up my appreciation of the operatic repertoire beginning with Goodall's Mastersingers, Mackerras's Magic Flute, La Traviata, Carmen etc. The experience put me in good stead for performances in the original elsewhere. I learnt the basis of the libretti because the singers in those days could sing words. I then mention names like Norman Bailey, Margaret Curphey, Gregory Dempsey, Francis Egerton, Denis Dowling, Raimund Herincx, Rita Hunter, Patricia Kern, William MacAlpine, Valerie Masterson, Jill Neville, Eric Shilling, Derek Hammond-Stroud, Richard Van Allan and Alexander Young: the enunciation of each of these singers was clarion clear and although many were character singers some like Bailey, Hunter, Masterson, van Allen and Young were amongst the most beautiful voices of their generation. A couple still sing company roles at the ROH. In those days at the London Coli you could hear every word. There were exceptions in those days: I adore Joan Sutherland and Peter Pears but I often never had a clue about what they were singing. Now singing teachers make great (in my opinion, far too great) emphasis at beauty of tone at the expense of meaning. Listen to old recordings of Derek Hammond-Stroud singing Schubert, English SONG, Wagner or G & S and not only are the words clear but the tone and line are as secure as DF-D or Janet Baker. "Words, words, words!" should be the motto of every singer. The lovely thing for me was the old Sadlers Wells opera broke the ice in the repertoire: I was able to go to Covent Garden or the National Theatre in Prague and know what the words meant. In Prague the surtitles are in English. I can ignore them thanks now to Chandos recordings in English with Charles Mackerras. There is definitely a strong case for opera in your own language (Wagner said so, too) for singers and audience alike to learn meaning. There is even a greater case for teaching singers to get the bloody words out clearly (Ohh! I have shocked myself: been watching "Waiting for God", Christmas DVDs).

[Mary Chambers]

I learnt the basis of the libretti because the singers in those days could sing words.

Yes!! An apparently lost art. I am surprised, though, that you put Peter Pears and Joan Sutherland in the same bracket when it comes to INaudible words. I could never hear Sutherland's, but could always hear Pears's. I'm talking about recordings in the case of Sutherland - I never heard her live. I heard Pears live in the concert hall and recital, but not in opera, so perhaps that was different.

I usually read the libretto before I go to an opera. Many are available online now, so there's no excuse.

[Chris Newman]

I feared I would tread on your toes, Mary. Forgive me. It is just that there were times when hearing PP live he drifted off into a melismatic line of vowel sounds. I did not mind as I knew the works he was singing: usually Bach, Britten or Purcell. He could also be very clear.

[Bert Coules]

Chris, I'm fortunate enough to have heard in the theatre almost all the Wells/ENO singers you list and I couldn't agree more with your simple summing up: the singers in those days could sing words. And not only could but wanted to, which is perhaps a crucial element in the whole question. That said, the performing space does definitely make a contribution of its own: in my experience you can move a few seats sideways or a row or two backwards or forwards in the Coliseum and sometimes find yourself hearing a surprisingly different sound.

I've often thought that most opera houses are the worst places in the world to hear most operas. Stephen Arlen, ENO's managing director at the time of the move to the Coli, wanted to tour the company to unconventional spaces: factories, town halls, tents and the like. That would have been an interesting experiment, and one that recent times have seen attempted, of course.

I've now read the whole of Hugh MacDonald's piece, and very splendid it is too, full of good sense and well-reasoned argument. Many thanks to sigolene euphemia for the link.

[Eudaimonia]

If operas are dramas rather than long musical compositions which just happen to have words in them, then there should be no argument. For an English-speaking audience they should be performed in English.

But you lose so much with corny ham-handed translations that are forced to fit the music and barely even make sense. What's wrong with making the effort to appreciate the total work of art as the composer intended? Learning operas by sitting down with a crystal-clear recording and a translated libretto and/or score in front of you is far preferable to trying to get your head around the work in the theater anyway. As a student, I always tried to study what I'm going to hear live beforehand in the privacy of my home or the music library.

[Bert Coules]

But you lose so much with corny ham-handed translations that are forced to fit the music and barely even make sense.

Well, that's an argument in favour of better translations, not of forgetting the whole idea.

What's wrong with making the effort to appreciate the total work of art as the composer intended?

But that's exactly what I'm arguing for. The experience of the total work of art surely includes the visceral effect of hearing the words - the meaning of the words - directly and not secondhand, either by consciously remembering what they mean from prior homework or by reading them on titles.

Learning operas by sitting down with a crystal-clear recording and a translated libretto and/or score in front of you is far preferable to trying to get your head around the work in the theater anyway.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Theatrical works belong in the theatre. Dramas are for experiencing first-hand not for learning in advance.

[Eudaimonia]

Dramas are for experiencing first-hand not for learning in advance.

Yes, but operas are so much more than dramas, yes? Oh well. I think learning them in advance frees you for the immediate, visceral experience to be enjoyed when it's in front of you, rather than trying to do both on the fly. Especially if you know you're in for an extraordinary performance: why mickey-mouse around picking up the basics when you could already have it under your belt and concentrate on appreciating the nuances that set a truly great performance apart? The more you know and the more effort you put in, the richer and more meaningful the experience.

For me, music came first. I started appreciating opera as a little kid by listening to the Texaco Met Broadcasts when I had nothing to go on but the announcers' summaries before and after each act. I loved it anyway: in my mind's eye, I invented all sorts of fantastical visuals and plot details to go with the beautiful, thrilling sounds...it was so vivid to me, the first time I actually saw an opera, it was a bit disappointing. I'm sure that colors how I came to view things later.

[Bert Coules]

For me, music came first... I'm sure that colors how I came to view things later.

Yes, I think that's a central point in this argument. I came to opera from the theatre rather than the concert hall or the music broadcast, and in my mind operas can never be, to use your phrase, "so much more than dramas" since drama for me is at the top of the artistic-experience tree. And operas - or at least the best of them - can be dramas of the greatest, most affecting and involving kind: plays intensified with music.

[Mary Chambers]

I feared I would tread on your toes, Mary. Forgive me. It is just that there were times when hearing PP live he drifted off into a melismatic line of vowel sounds.

I do recognise that description! And he sometimes forgot the words and invented alternatives

[Donnie Essen]

I went through a small period of not looking at surtitles, because music, and the drama in the music, comes first for me too, but then I went back to looking, 'cause I felt I was missing stuff. Nowadays, I figure it's better to stay with the drama that's happening on the stage. I got my surtitle-glance perfected. I look at the stage, and glance and the words just enough to get the general meaning. Works okay. Worked well with Tannhauser the other night, because the lines don't run too fast at all.

As for translations, I've been pondering about that lately. I saw Don Giovanni one time, untranslated. The surtitles were okay, gave the meaning n' all. But I saw the one at ENO just passed and the translation kicked ass. It obviously played fast and loose with the libretto, but in doing so it made it a work in itself and kinda makes the drama feel more closer and relevant to yourself and the era and country you're in. It's more within yer natural headspace. That's one benefit to having a proper translation, and not one that's just done in a workman-like way just 'cause they're singing in foreign. Man, I laughed my ass off that night, what with the Don's catalogue being a spreadsheet n' all. I'm hoping ENO's Parsifal will provide some chuckles with the translation this year.

That don't mean I prefer stuff that's translated as a given. The foreign language makes it more alien for me, and more beautiful. That's just me, though. I don't try to figure what the words are or translate them for myself as it's going on. My knowledge of other languages ain't too good, so I tend to approach it almost as just pure singing. But I don't take one or the other as preferred in performance. When I'm standing on the balcony of the Royal Opera House and see that Coliseum ball a-turning away there in the distance, I feel right glad that both exist and life is fine.

[Bert Coules]

Donnie, I agree about the ENO's Giovanni. A lovely, witty rendering of the text, beautifully matched to the inventiveness of the staging.

In contrast, if you find an intentional laugh anywhere in Parsifal, do please let me know: I've been searching for one for years.

You might find yourself smiling (or if you're like me, possibly wincing) at some aspects of the production, but that, alas, is another matter. I'm still puzzling over the significance of the railway track in act three. Maybe, as a friend of mine suggested, it's the Holy Rail...