From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: Supertitling
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 13:53:27 GMT

In article <Btvo94.FwK@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> smitra@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Samindranath Mitra) writes:

>Most of the critics of supertitling seem to come from
>among those that already know the various operas rather well.
>For such folks the only way to go would be without translation
>as well. 

Not at all!  No matter how good my German, and how well I know the RING,
in a production in English I realize how much I miss (though I'm still
working on improving that).

>In the present day most people listen to operas more
>than see them staged. 

A pity, agreed?

>Not too many translated recordings exist.

But there are some, and good ones too.  The 4 parts of the RING done by
ENO.  Rigoletto, same company.  Janacek's Fate, same company.  Cunning
Little Vixen, Covent Garden.

>Repeated listening in the original language would certainly
>turn one off the incongruent results that most translations
>turn into. 

I've never found this to be the case when I listen to the ENO Ring.
Rather the contrary.

>There are indeed
>very few exceptions. I can only think Andrew Porter's
>translation of the Ring.

Any of Porter's translations will do an an example:  Tristan, Parsifal,
several Shakespeare-based operas (Falstaff, Otello, Romeo et Juliette,
Thomas' Hamlet).

>	Here at Indiana University, the Opera 
>School productions are sometimes in an English version.

When I was there (total of 12 years), they all were.  I saw them all.

>If I don't sit in the first 7 rows I can't figure out
>the words. 

That's puzzling.  I can't recall ever feeling that way at any of the
operas I've attended there over the years.  Either (a) they've gotten
worse at this, or (b) there's a skill to listening attentively as there
is to projecting effectively.  Without meaning to congratulate myself,
the latter may be true; I remember going to The Love for 3 Oranges with
a friend at IU; at intermission he told me he'd not understood one word,
whereas I had understood just about all.  And it wasn't an opera whose
plot or libretto I knew.

>I'd rather not follow the words in the original
>language than not follow them in English! 

Well, that's not much of a choice, is it?  :-)  I'd rather understand
them than either of those alternatives.  It can be done.

>And since no one,
>even here, a place where a sizable chunk of the audience is
>informed, laughs at the right places if there are no 
>supertitles (operas not staged in English always come with
>supertitles) I figure they could use some. 

Maybe the use of supertitles has lulled the audience into listening as
passively as they would when sitting in front of the tv, not expecting
to have to work at it at all?  It DOES take active attentive
listening.  I think it's worth it.

>	Incidentally, more often than not, it is the
>blockbuster operas that come with supertitles. Among
>last years productions Carmen and Rigoletto were 
>staged in the original languages. With supertitles. The
>IU music school seems too think that if you "know"
>the opera you'll want supertitles.

I'm sorry they've adopted this practice.  I saw them do Carmen 3 times
over the years, always in English, and it was always gripping.

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical