From: ca_ac@gsbacd.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Supertitling
Date: 29 Aug 92 21:38:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: gsbacd.1992Aug29.153826.1

In article <Btp9nG.MuI@news.udel.edu>, conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes:
> In article <1992Aug27.215817.13690@fid.morgan.com> steve@fid.morgan.com (Steve Apter) writes:
> 
>>One of the reasons I enjoy NY City Opera is their use of supertitles.
>>Sorry, my Italian** is just not good enough to follow the story line
>>of an unfamiliar opera.  Any opinions on the use of this technology?
> 
> I have an opinion, an unpopular one.  I hate them.  I think they wreck
> the live experience of an opera, and turn it into television (I don't
> despise television, but a live theatrical experience is something else).
> This gives us a reading-medium and a visual-medium that our eyes can
> flip back and forth between, to keep us from being bored.  But it wrecks
> the involvement that I go to the opera for.  (No, I can't "just ignore
> them."  They're rather conspicuous.)

   This is a complicated subject, I suppose, and there can be no categorical 
single answer. However, I don't think any amount of supertitling can convert 
an opera performance into television as Jon seems to suggest, even though it 
clearly changes how the audience perceives what is happening on the stage and 
as a result  modifies the medium. I do agree that it reduces the involvement
of the audience in the drama in that they have to "flip" their eyes back and
forth. But it does not eliminate (or wreck) the live experience as such,
only waters it down somewhat.
    On the flip side if one is watching an unfamiliar opera (and this will vary
from audience to audience, of course) in an unfamiliar language without 
supertitles, it is very hard to get dramatically involved if one does
not have much of an inkling of what the characters are saying. 
 
>  My objection is more fundamental.  I really think that the
> prevalence of supertitles will kill opera in the next few decades,
> because the medium will become nothing more than an idle evening's
> time-killer, just like 3 hours of prime time.  You *have* to keep your
> eyes on the stage in the opera, if you're serious about getting
> everything the medium has to offer.

If supertitles encourage more people to come to the opera (from personal
experience I think they do. I have friends who I have persuaded to go to
the opera whose initial reaction to the idea was - " But I won't follow
what's going on!", and they changed their mind when they heard about
supertitles.) then I don't see how this can kill opera. I disagree with your
assumption that 
		opera + supertitles = television

The experience is not quite the same as one without the supertitles, but it
still is an unique (and, for me, irreplaceable) experience.   


> 
> As an alternative:  Why has everybody given up on performing opera in
> translation?  THAT is a live, compelling experience.  

Not everybody. In Chicago, at least, there are a few small companies that 
perform opera in translation.  Chicago Opera Theater for one, I think, and the
the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists put up translated productions.
And a couple of years ago the Lyric Opera performed Die Fledermaus in English.
But I do agree, it should be done much more than it is nowadays.

> I do think there are occasional times when supertitles might make sense:
> a visiting company doing a very rare work in a language likely to be
> unfamiliar to most of its viewers.  In such a case, the loss entailed by
> using supertitles may be offset by the gain in comprehensibility.  But
> for other cases, it's not that hard to do your homework about CARMEN.
 
> Jon Alan Conrad

   Not everyone who may enjoy opera has the time and/or desire to study the
libretto of even as familiar an opera as CARMEN. Perhaps because Carmen is
so well entrenched in the popular consciousness, it may not matter quite so
much if there are no supertitles, but it is pretty likely that any opera
outside the very popular standards (e.g. Bohemes, Traviatas, Carmens) is
unfamiliar to many casual opera goers. For instance, what percentage of the
average opera going audience would be familiar with Simon Boccanegra or
Mephistofile (for instance)?  As far as language is concerned, I am pretty
sure that French, or Italian, or German would be reasonably unfamiliar
to significant portions of the opera going audience in the U.S. 
   My position is that there should be a reasonable mix of alternatives, like
one has in NYC where one can see supertitled operas at the NYC Opera and the 
"pristine" form at the MET. I don't think one should, as is perhaps happening,
supertitle everything in sight, since the full impact of an opera without the
distraction of supertitles, with total attention on the stage is a matchless 
experience.

                                                   Alak Chakravorty