The Magic Flute - Glyndebourne - cinema screening

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think you may need to rephrase this too. I have no specialist knowledge of opera but even for me, reading the libretto beforehand is definitely not a chore that one goes through as part of a deal.

- as I said in #13, it's all part of the "build-up of excitement", the enjoyment of anticipation before seeing a production.

[Pulcinella]

I've been listening to a recording of Martinu's The Greek Passion in preparation for seeing it in Leeds next month (Opera North) so thought I would look for the libretto, and I found it here:

https://www.supraphon.com/catalogue/libretto

I'm sure that there's a thread devoted to librettos for operas somewhere, but I can't readily find it.
Happy for this link/edited message to be copied or moved there if anyone else can find it.

I shall refrain from otherwise contributing to this thread, but the fact that I'm doing some homework before going to see an opera that is new to me probably tells you which side of the fence I'm on!

[Master Jacques]

I think you may need to rephrase this too. I have no specialist knowledge of opera but even for me, reading the libretto beforehand is definitely not a chore that one goes through as part of a deal.

With me it goes back to the days where I didn't get free tickets, and having invested large portions of my small means in getting one, I would always want to make the most of it by being "on the ball" without having to play catch-up all the way through the evening, by finding out what the subject matter, musical style or dramatic conventions of the piece were in the fleeting moment. As I say, we all go to the opera for different reasons and can approach the experience in any way we like. But because of that, we're not all going to get the same thing out of it.

[Master Jacques]

A bit off topic, but I've been listening to a recording of Martinu's The Greek Passion in preparation for seeing it in Leeds next month (Opera North) so thought I would look for the libretto, and I found it here:

https://www.supraphon.com/catalogue/libretto

I'm sure that there's a thread devoted to librettos for operas somewhere, but I can't readily find it.
Happy for this post to be copied or moved there if anyone else can find it.

I shall refrain from contributing to this thread, but the fact that I'm doing some homework before going to see an opera that is new to me probably tells you which side of the fence I'm on!

Excellent! I'm going to the October performance in Leeds, and will be interested to hear how you find it. There's a good interview with Nicky Spence in the September Opera which captures his immense pride and enthusiasm in being asked to play Manolios, the "Christ Recrucified" of the opera.

[Master Jacques]

Of the many interesting ideas being debated here, I will simply now record my disagreement with MJ's view of surtitles. Even knowing German, I found it useful to be able to scan the subtitles in this film, while also listening to the sung or spoken words.

(I may have had an advantage in having watched innumerable films in languages other than English over more than sixty years - there is an element of learned skill involved.)

I believe it is a mistake to think that surtitles, which I have used in the same way in the theatre, distract from the audience's experience of what is happening on the stage. The human brain is much more versatile than that - we can take in both, in whatever way suits our knowledge of the language concerned, or our disposition towards the theatre experience we are attending.

Yes, I accept there is a contradiction here, because I too have never worried about subtitles for films (although in cases where I know a bit about the language, they can certainly be a distraction!)

Subtitles (an intrinsic part of the framed image) are perhaps not the same thing as surtitles (extrinsic to the stage image, placed above it so as not to disturb the stage picture or the performers). It's true that I'm not half so bothered by them if I'm watching a DVD of an opera production, perhaps for this very reason - once they're part of the picture, they're part of the art form.

The human brain is remarkable, but what it is impossible to do simultaneously is focus on the stage and at the same moment on the proscenium arch (unless we're flies with 76,000 eyes!). Once the thread is broken, so is the theatrical spell.

[Master Jacques]

Well - at least I hope that you are less "baffled" than before, MJ

More baffled if anything! I'm sure you're right, that the lines on both sides of the battle have been clearly drawn and its time to stand down. My "one thing": the picture you paint suggests that every opera is like Oedipus Rex, or parts of Akhnaten, where the meaning of the text is purposefully obscured in favour of its rhythms and vowels. Should we be happy to feel that language might be regularly stripped of communicating ideas directly, by those means? Every good opera is different: they make their own rules, and will not be constrained in such ways.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... the picture you paint suggests that every opera is like Oedipus Rex, or parts of Akhnaten, where the meaning of the text is purposefully obscured in favour of its rhythms and vowels.

That might be the picture that you see when reading what I've said - but it most certainly isn't the one that I "painted", and I would be interested - appalled, but interested - if anyone else has come away with this interpretation of what I've said.

Should we be happy to feel that language might be regularly stripped of communicating ideas directly, by those means?

As you are asking me to comment on a position I have not adopted, I cannot answer this question - but, even if I had meant what you think I meant, I would not presume to impose my "vast preferences" on anyone else: there is no "we" in any of my many egocentric comments.

[Master Jacques]

[previous post quote] ... but to understand it as a source of rhythm and vowels as much a part of the Music as, say, the timbre and register of the instruments

How else is one to interpret these words of yours? Words are "a source of rhythm and vowels", as much a part of the music as "the timbre and register of the instruments".

Given that singers differ so radically in their range of timbres, tonal register (and individuality of "playing" style), I'm not sure that this comparison holds very much water. Whatever sounds they happen to be making (or not), singers are human beings whose instinct will be to get the meaning of their words across: though I agree, the degree to which they achieve this nowadays seems to be much reduced compared with their predecessors fifty years ago - drama is lost in making pretty sounds - but that's exactly what I'm complaining about!

Yet in an earlier post you too deplored today's more "word-free" singers. There are many contradictions in this complicated debate!

[Pulcinella]

I've been listening to a recording of Martinu's The Greek Passion in preparation for seeing it in Leeds next month (Opera North) so thought I would look for the libretto, and I found it here:

https://www.supraphon.com/catalogue/libretto

I'm sure that there's a thread devoted to librettos for operas somewhere, but I can't readily find it.
Happy for this link/edited message to be copied or moved there if anyone else can find it.

I shall refrain from otherwise contributing to this thread, but the fact that I'm doing some homework before going to see an opera that is new to me probably tells you which side of the fence I'm on!

Senior moment!
I didn't look very far, and our friend makropulos has already drawn attention to this site.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?20380-Opera-Libretti

[gurnemanz]

Just a reminiscence ..... when I was doing German at university in the late 60s and just moving across from rock to classical music, I decided I needed to get to know the great German operas - Wagner, Strauss R, Magic Flute, Fidelio and that a prerequisite was knowing the text. You could get libretti very cheaply in the Reclam series. I still have them. The Magic Flute edition contains all the spoken dialogue of which there is a lot. In 1972 I stood there for the Boulez Prom Parsifal - done over two nights - clenching my by now fairly well-thumbed copy of the text in my hand with pencilled-in notes about leitmotivs in the margin. I took it with me again when it was done recently - over one night and we sat down. I have seen Parsifal in English (ENO a few years ago) and Magic Flute (ENO many years) ago, but for me it's not quite the same as hearing the original words.

PS. Coincidentally, just as I write, R3 is playing "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön" ("What a lovely picture!") from Magic Flute with Ernst Haefliger. I've just acquired the Centenary Edition he mentioned and its thoroughly recommendable. Also contains my first Dichterliebe.

[Master Jacques]

Just a reminiscence ..... when I was doing German at university in the late 60s and just moving across from rock to classical music, I decided I needed to get to know the great German operas - Wagner, Strauss R, Magic Flute, Fidelio and that a prerequisite was knowing the text. You could get libretti very cheaply in the Reclam series. I still have them. The Magic Flute edition contains all the spoken dialogue of which there is a lot. In 1972 I stood there for the Boulez Prom Parsifal - done over two nights - clenching my by now fairly well-thumbed copy of the text in my hand with pencilled-in notes about leitmotivs in the margin. I took it with me again when it was done recently - over one night and we sat down ... [snip]

Now why I am not surprised that gurnemanz is a Parsifal afficionado!? Yes, those little yellow Reclams have been worth their weight in (Rhein)gold down the years for me also. I'll be packing my Parsifal tomorrow for a little trip I'm making to see the work myself... in German, and mercifully with no surtitles!

[doversoul1]

Now why I am not surprised that gurnemanz is a Parsifal afficionado!? Yes, those little yellow Reclams have been worth their weight in (Rhein)gold down the years for me also. I'll be packing my Parsifal tomorrow for a little trip I'm making to see the work myself... in German, and mercifully with no surtitles!

I hope you’ll enjoy your little trip and let’s hope the weather will be more enjoyable than it is at the moment. It was very interesting to hear that translation of libretto influenced the music. And this has been the most grown-up thread in the recent weeks . Many thanks to you and ferney.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How else is one to interpret these words of yours? Words are "a source of rhythm and vowels", as much a part of the music as "the timbre and register of the instruments".

Like this:

Listening this morning to Ernst Haefliger singing "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubern schön", it struck me how well the sounds of those German words fit the pitches, the rhythm, and the contour of the melodic line that Mozart wrote for it - the vowel sounds, the subtle "landing" on the "z" sound in "bezauber", the way the phrase ends on "schön" - that lovely sound moving from the "shh" to the "ern". It was lovely, and Haefliger, without overdoing things (as some singers are wont to do when singing German - no names, no blackheads) re-emphasised just how perfect was Mozart's skill in matching the sound - the "timbre" - of the language(s) he set.

What happens when you translate this to English? Immediately, unless the singer pronounces "This" in a way that nobody in England has ever pronounced it, so that Tamino sounds like a comedian from the 1950s "doing" a Mexican accent - immediately the vowel sound from "Dies" is flattened to that of "This" - "bildnes" becomes "picture" or "portrait" (or "photo[graph]" or "selfie" - or whatever) which necessitates different sounds: changing the "i" vowel sound of "bild" to that of "pic[ture]", and expecting the singer to be able to get that top G as easily in tune, as comfortably on the voice as can be done with the original is unrealistic. The "nes" of "bildnes" becomes "tcha" or "tret" - or whatever - which is a different sound from that in the original. The "ts" in "bezaubernd" becomes - what? A "w" in "bewitching" - come off it! The "ow" becomes an "itch" - and as for "schön" (to be held for four times as long as the five preceding semiquavers): what do you do with that that doesn't alter the sound that Mozart placed on that Ab (the first time we hear the note - the subdominant - in the Aria)?

And that's just five words: I've avoided considering translations that completely distort the rhythm/accent of Mozart's word setting. For me, these alterations of the timbres have a similar effect on the Music as replacing an Oboe phrase with a Clarinet - it's not horrendous, and the composer would certainly not have objected on practical grounds that the company couldn't find an oboe player - but it's just so much better when you get closer to the ideal setting that Mozart wrote. And, for me, these things matter.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And, yes - enjoy Parsifal <greenwithenvyemoticon>

[Master Jacques]

And, yes - enjoy Parsifal <greenwithenvyemoticon>

Thank you, FG, I'd be a (holy) fool not to! The weather in Bavaria is looking pleasantly cool for the time of year, which will suit me very well.