Michel Legrand (1932-2019): 6-10/1/25

[Master Jacques]

Is there anything more ridiculous than Puccini sung in English?!

Yes. Puccini sung in Italian, in England. I won't repeat my anecdote about the first English production, except to stress that Puccini would agree with me 100%.

Personally, I grew up on the traditional English translation of La boheme, and those are the words in my mind as the "original" ones when I listen to "Your Tiny Hand is Frozen" or "As through the Streets".

As for The Umbrellas... in the West End, it was of course sung in English. It had to make a profit, after all, and most audiences heartily dislike hearing opera in pretentious foreign.

[Master Jacques]

Me too, I find it very touching. But I think sung scripts do sound more ridiculous in your own language - for me, the French makes it sound very exotic but for my French husband, though a Legrand fan, he cannot help giggling when he hears them singing banal everyday conversation to music.

An interesting and unusual take on the whole "language" debate. Personally, I would pay extra to hear anything and everything sung in my own language, rather than some imperfectly-comprehended (and often imperfectly uttered) foreign tongue. We're all different.

The modern movement towards "original language" productions around the world, where most of the singers - let alone the audience - don't understand a word they're singing, is a historical aberration which has slowly gained ground since the distribution of recordings became global. And incidentally, I'm currently editing a book chapter by a leading conductor, who is prepared to argue that surtitles are killing opera completely: his arguments are chillingly convincing.

[Roger Webb]

Yes. Puccini sung in Italian, in England. I won't repeat my anecdote about the first English production, except to stress that Puccini would agree with me 100%.

Personally, I grew up on the traditional English translation of La boheme, and those are the words in my mind as the "original" ones when I listen to "Your Tiny Hand is Frozen" or "As through the Streets".

As for The Umbrellas... in the West End, it was of course sung in English. It had to make a profit, after all, and most audiences heartily dislike hearing opera in pretentious foreign.

Well I'm sure Italian as sung by an English cast in the early years of the 20th century wouldn't be up to much, as judged by an Italian. Although if Puccini had heard it in English translation he wouldn't have noticed the laughable translation....in the same way that MickeyD doesn't notice anything particularly amusing about the French sung in 'Parapluies', but has the husband in stitches.

I saw my first 'Ring' sung in English (Porter's translation), and studied it before I went...although the first Ring I got to know was the Solti. It was a fine Ring (WNO).....but I can never quite get out of my mind the 'helpful' menu translation of 'Crème Brûlée' (delicious!) to the indigestible 'Burnt Cream'!

[MickyD]

Oh yes, menu translations are great fun. I'm always amazed at how bad some of them are here, even in the fanciest of restaurants. Maybe I should offer my services!

But we are of course quite used to using French or other language names for famous dishes without needing any translation. My husband (again!) often says "what do you call this dish in English ?" and is surprised when I say there is no translation, we just use the French word. I think we are often more ready than other nationalities to just use the original name.

[Master Jacques]

Well I'm sure Italian as sung by an English cast in the early years of the 20th century wouldn't be up to much, as judged by an Italian. Although if Puccini had heard it in English translation he wouldn't have noticed the laughable translation....in the same way that MickeyD doesn't notice anything particularly amusing about the French sung in 'Parapluies', but has the husband in stitches.

I saw my first 'Ring' sung in English (Porter's translation), and studied it before I went...although the first Ring I got to know was the Solti. It was a fine Ring (WNO).....but I can never quite get out of my mind the 'helpful' menu translation of 'Crème Brûlée' (delicious!) to the indigestible 'Burnt Cream'!

We should perhaps be wary of disparaging the Italian of English and commonwealth opera singers in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era, as many of them would have trained in Italy and would have been entirely conversant with the language (my strictures on pronunciation would exclude Italian and German, though not French). Nobody complained about Melba's Italian, for starters.

Puccini's firm belief was that opera should always be sung in the local language - it was only on that condition, that he agreed to conduct the Manchester British premiere - and the actual quality of the translations was quite beside the point. No doubt they passed well enough in their time. On that point, it makes little sense to mock texts written for distant times, when the English language itself obeyed different rules, and when what was considered appropriate for "poetic-operatic" diction was so very different from 21st century prose.

The great virtue of translation, is - or should be - that every generation can reinvent the wheel. Remember those German fans who flocked to ENO for the Porter Ring, because it enabled them to understand the text with a depth and precision they couldn't grasp in Wagner's horrible, muddled, antiquated German. Yet the poor things are stuck with that, which in the end will kill Wagner's operas stone dead, until they reach the point where even the Germans themselves will have to translate them. The questions we're starting to ask here about Shakespeare...

Honestly, the Porter translation (listened to in full by me last year) seems rather creaky now, fifty years on. We need a new one, though getting one of such quality for its time would be a miracle.

[Roger Webb]

Oh yes, menu translations are great fun. I'm always amazed at how bad some of them are here, even in the fanciest of restaurants. Maybe I should offer my services!

......... My husband (again!) often says "what do you call this dish in English ?" and is surprised when I say there is no translation.......

We had a french student staying for a while a few years ago, and one night we had our Burns' Night Supper, which led to the question, what is French for Haggis?! But our guest described it to her mother as an Andoillette Écossaise avec navets et pommes de terre! But 'Cranachan' defeated her descriptive powers!!

[Roger Webb]

................Nobody complained about Melba's Italian for starters......

No doubt something on toast.................with her Peach for pudding!

Didn't know about Puccini's predilection for native language perfs. Agree that the Porter is a bit long-in-tooth though.

[Ein Heldenleben]

We should perhaps be wary of disparaging the Italian of English and commonwealth opera singers in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era, as many of them would have trained in Italy and would have been entirely conversant with the language (my strictures on pronunciation would exclude Italian and German, though not French). Nobody complained about Melba's Italian, for starters.

Puccini's firm belief was that opera should always be sung in the local language - it was only on that condition, that he agreed to conduct the Manchester British premiere - and the actual quality of the translations was quite beside the point. No doubt they passed well enough in their time. On that point, it makes little sense to mock texts written for distant times, when the English language itself obeyed different rules, and when what was considered appropriate for "poetic-operatic" diction was so very different from 21st century prose.

The great virtue of translation, is - or should be - that every generation can reinvent the wheel. Remember those German fans who flocked to ENO for the Porter Ring, because it enabled them to understand the text with a depth and precision they couldn't grasp in Wagner's horrible, muddled, antiquated German. Yet the poor things are stuck with that, which in the end will kill Wagner's operas stone dead, until they reach the point where even the Germans themselves will have to translate them. The questions we're starting to ask here about Shakespeare...

Honestly, the Porter translation (listened to in full by me last year) seems rather creaky now, fifty years on. We need a new one, though getting one of such quality for its time would be a miracle.

I’ve listened about 10 times to the ENO Valkyrie recently and have to say I prefer the English to try German . But that’s partly because of Remedios’s and Baileys consummate diction. But largely because he’s updated Wagner’s old fashioned German.
I suppose the problem with subtitles is that people are looking at them and not the stage action.

[Master Jacques]

No doubt something on toast.................with her Peach for pudding!

That one made me fervently wish that the Forum had a "like" button to press!

[Master Jacques]

I suppose the problem with subtitles is that people are looking at them and not the stage action.

That's the root of it. When something goes as fast as Janacek, for example, I've seen entire audiences completely glued to watching the proscenium arch.

The two worst knock-on effects (which our conductor has plenty to say about) are (1) that stage directors devise ever more desperately outrageous scenarios, in the vain attempt to get people to look at what's going on; and (2) that singers stop bothering to even try and project the texts over the footlights, and ever-louder orchestras, let alone trying to make theatrical sense of those texts. The net result - for him - is the kind of forensic perfection, delivered with soulless musical unanimity, which our forbears would have absolutely hated, as still-born artistic nullity. Surtitles, for him, kill opera dead.

I'd only add that they make opera audiences even lazier than ever, in not "doing their homework" before attending these expensive charades.

[Sir Velo]

The great virtue of translation, is - or should be - that every generation can reinvent the wheel. Remember those German fans who flocked to ENO for the Porter Ring, because it enabled them to understand the text with a depth and precision they couldn't grasp in Wagner's horrible, muddled, antiquated German. Yet the poor things are stuck with that, which in the end will kill Wagner's operas stone dead, until they reach the point where even the Germans themselves will have to translate them. The questions we're starting to ask here about Shakespeare...

Honestly, the Porter translation (listened to in full by me last year) seems rather creaky now, fifty years on. We need a new one, though getting one of such quality for its time would be a miracle.

Ah but the risk is that much is lost in translation. The correct approach surely is to prepare oneself for an opera in a language in which one is not fluent by reading the synopses and translations so that when one attends the actual performance in the original tongue one has a close grasp on what is being sung, even where one does not understand the exact words at that precise moment. A large part, one might say a moiety, of any opera is the libretto; there is a precise musical effect in the very words chosen by the librettist which cannot be conveyed in translation, however skilful the translator. I am reminded of those risible attempts of translators to render the title of "The Importance of Being Earnest" with such ludicrous examples in the French as L'Importance d'être sérieux, Il est important d'être aimé, Il est important d'être Désiré (for a man!!!) !!!!

[french frank]

Ah but the risk is that much is lost in translation. The correct approach surely is to prepare oneself for an opera in a language in which one is not fluent by reading the synopses and translations so that when one attends the actual performance in the original tongue one has a close grasp on what is being sung, even where one does not understand the exact words at that precise moment.

Unfortunately, that is a counsel of perfection: few can be bothered to go to all that trouble. The argument that Puccini wanted his operas performed in the language of the audience doesn't carry much weight either: Henri Murger might have protested: "Oi! If you're going to pinch my story of French Bohemian life in Paris, the least you could do is respect my original and the fact that the story requires a French libretto or it makes no sense. Why did you set it in Italian?"

There is no right or wrong, surely? The individual favours one option or another.

[Master Jacques]

Unfortunately, that is a counsel of perfection: few can be bothered to go to all that trouble. The argument that Puccini wanted his operas performed in the language of the audience doesn't carry much weight either: Henri Murger might have protested: "Oi! If you're going to pinch my story of French Bohemian life in Paris, the least you could do is respect my original and the fact that the story requires a French libretto or it makes no sense. Why did you set it in Italian?"

There is no right or wrong, surely? The individual favours one option or another.

Actually I agree with Vaughan Williams that there is a right and wrong here. He considered original-language opera as the height of snobbery, for dilettantes who were more interested in some false notion of musical purity and social exclusion than in opera as living theatre. Without throwing stones in that way at people who dislike hearing opera in their own language, I concur that such a stance makes it far harder for people to get to the heart of the dramatic experience which opera offers.

That 's the nub: we're dealing with theatre, not music as some holy art or other, where everything might as well be in Glagolitic. And even under a "counsel of perfection" the nuances available in one's own language will far surpass any boning-up an audience can do - and I should like to see how such an idea fares with Czech, say, or Russian! More is lost by not translating, than was ever lost in translation. We wouldn't sit through Chekhov in Russian, so why sit through Mussorgsky plus Pushkin in Russian? (especially as the poet owes much of his diction and imagery in Boris to Shakespearean drama).

Puccini wasn't alone by the way. Wagner, Verdi and Janacek (to name the first mighty handful that come into my head) were of exactly the same mind. They wanted their operas to be understood by their audiences, not treated as some sort of exquisite, musical rite for the cognoscenti (RVW's "snobs"!)

We're all guilty: I only discovered today that the dog I saw (and mocked) sitting around in a production of La voix humaine which I reviewed a while back is there in Cocteau's verbal text, which I bothered to read today for the first time in ENGLISH!

[Master Jacques]

I am reminded of those risible attempts of translators to render the title of "The Importance of Being Earnest" with such ludicrous examples in the French as L'Importance d'être sérieux, Il est important d'être aimé, Il est important d'être Désiré (for a man!!!) !!!!

Would you condemn the French to listening to the thing in Victorian English, which even the English have difficulty with nowadays (how many of us even realise now that the title's a pun, when nobody's called Ernest any more?)

In any event, Wilde wrote one of his plays at least in French, and translates well into the language.

[Master Jacques]

I am reminded of those risible attempts of translators to render the title of "The Importance of Being Earnest" with such ludicrous examples in the French as L'Importance d'être sérieux, Il est important d'être aimé, Il est important d'être Désiré (for a man!!!) !!!!

Presumably, by the same token you'd castigate Berlioz for translating Much Ado About Nothing into French, to make a libretto out of it; and how much did Boito "lose" by translating Othello and The Merry Wives of Windsor into Italian? Where would you draw the line?