From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Supertitling
Date: 9 Sep 92 18:58:46 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <1992Sep9.020719.16782@credence.com> jeffw@or.credence.com (Jeff Winslow) writes:

>In OPERA, April 1992, "Sense, Condoms, and Integrity", David Pountney, 
>director of productions at English National Opera, writes many sensible
>things against surtitles... [>> lines are from this article]

>>But why *not* have surtitles?  Why not, for instance, contradict the
>>efforts of the theatre architects ...

>And does he really believe that a theatre designer, on hearing that someone
>looked at this repulsive part of the proscenium during an act, will smite
>his forehead, wince painfully and own himself a failure?

He might well think the production a failure; rather than smite his
forehead he'd be likely to want to smite the director's, or at least
grumble and pour himself a drink.

>>Why not, for instance, contradict the efforts of the composers and
>>dramatists who have striven to integrate music, text, and action into
>>one concentrated thread by isolating one element miles above our heads?

>Because the integration and concentration is improved for a certain large
>segment of the audience by doing so? 

Comprehension, maybe.  But you must be unused to concentration in the
theater if you think it (and the integration it allows) is unaffected by
switching one's attention to a different view field and switching into
"read" mode.

>>Why not, for instance, have surtitles also describing the nature of the
>>music: "This bit is in F major," etc. etc.

>Because none of those bits of information are necessary for the comprehension
>of the performance.

Nonsense.  You don't need to know the precise musical terms, but people
who are (on whatever subverbal level) aware of harmonic tension and
release, thematic working, etc., are indeed getting more out of the
performance.  Pountney's point is that these bits of info would, indeed
"help" in some sense -- but not in another (just like "the words"),
since one would not be receiving them as an integrated part of the
performance.

>>In fact surtitles do strike directly at the integrity of what we do
>>because they are an extraneous technical device superimposed on top of
>>an extremely delicately poised balance of interaction and participation
>>between audience and performer. 

>It's a lovely sentence, but what does it mean? Surtitles are no more
>extraneous than librettos and programs, either of which, in the hands of
>an insensitive nearby person, can be far more distracting than any
>surtitles. 

So what?  Did anybody say they were in favor of people perusing
librettos and programs during the performance?  Those are indeed equally
destructive; away with all of 'em.  (Something being "no worse" than
another doesn't make it *good*.)

>The image he creates attempts to convince that somehow the
>performers and audience must change their ways in order to accommodate
>this new technical device, thus causing some kind of delicate balance to
>crumble into rubble. I don't see that the performers have any kind of
>adjustment to make, especially if the timing is improved. The greater
>part of the audience "adjusts" by getting a little more eye exercise,
>which is better than the maladjustment of ignoring words they don't
>understand.

And thereby stops paying real attention to the performance onstage.
That is the point.  You may say "flipping one's eyes to another spot to
read, and back, doesn't hurt my concentration" but it certainly does.

>>Once you have given in to this
>>quick-fix solution, the absolutely inevitable long-term deterioration of
>>artistic integrity on all sides may be summed up as "why bother?"  Why
>>should the singer bother to acquire the discipline of good diction, etc.

>This all sounds so much like the proverbial overprotective parent
>haranguing the hapless youth about dirty fingernails leading to pot
>smoking leading to a short life of crime, disease and heroin that I have
>a hard time keeping a straight face while reading it. 

Glad to have provided some innocent merriment.  Your proposed analogy is
a poor one, though.  Cause and effect are much more directly
demonstrable in the instance of public performance.  We've seen it
happen in spoken theater too: the same theaters which easily held
unamplified dramatic speak now have to be miked for the performers to be
"heard."  The acoustics of the building haven't changed, only the
audience's and performers' attitudes and expectations.  And again, a
part of it is the audience's unwillingness to really pay attention.

>The short answer
>to "why bother" is that if the performers weren't used to bothering they
>wouldn't be there in the first place. 

But if such aids are the norm, will the next generation of performers
(the ones about to start college training, let's say) ever start
bothering?  We have already seen a generation of opera singers for whom
such niceties as tonal focus, dynamic control, precisely tuned
enunciation, are by and large dispensible luxuries.  Audiences don't
seem to notice if they're missing, so "why bother" is indeed the
prevailing attitude.  That mediocre level then becomes what the next
generation *aspires* to (and falls short of).  Next stage, projection 
and timing are dispensible too.  Who needs 'em?

>I won't say it's impossible for a
>performer to get far if all they care about is how a relatively uninformed
>part of the audience feels about their work - I'm sure somebody would come
>up with counterexamples if I did - but I can hardly believe that's the
>usual case. 

Dream on.

>And, the kind of people who are going to be affecting the course
>of one's career are not likely to be the ones reading the surtitles. 

Who affects one's career, if not the general operagoer who creates the
demand (and, in the long run, the standards)?

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical