From: jeffw@or.credence.com (Jeff Winslow)
Subject: Re: Supertitling
Organization: Credence Systems Corp. Beaverton, OR
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 02:22:28 GMT

In article <BuBrDz.n4I@news.udel.edu> conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes:
>In article <1992Sep9.020719.16782@credence.com> jeffw@or.credence.com (Jeff Winslow) writes:

>>"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.

I didn't say it was unaffected. I said it was improved - for those who
don't know the text. They can't integrate two things when they only have one. 
Poor integration is better than no integration. But read on.


>>"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.

I see I shouldn't have cut the part of Pountney's remarks where he referred
to outside traffic conditions as possible material for surtitles.

Maybe I overstated. But to me, there is a clear difference in the magnitude
of contribution to comprehension, between the text on the one hand, and 
even these analytical details of the music on the other. Two reasons come
to mind: one, it takes much longer to realize the basic significance of
structural hints than it does the text of the drama, and two, intuition
gets you farther into the music than into the words. 


>>>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? 

No, but equally so, the question arises - if one is as bad as the other,
why isn't Pountney advocating getting programs and librettos out of people's
hands during the acts with the same passion he decries surtitles? Both
are provided by the house, are they not?

You may well argue that to do so would penalize the many who know how to
keep quiet to solve the problems of the few who can't. But if, as I suspect,
the number of people who like surtitles is much greater than those who are
distracted by them, that argument would seem to lead in an undesirable
direction.


>                     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.

I'm not prepared to argue the point. If what you say is true, I agree
that is a cause for concern. But I am not a fan of slippery slope
arguments generally.

>>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.

Um, what does this mean? Are you saying that the typical top-flight
opera performer has no standards for their own work beyond the amount
of uninformed adulation they can garner?


Don't get me wrong, Jon.  First, I was not really arguing with you. I was
taking issue with some remarks by someone you quoted that seemed to me
exaggerated all out of proportion. And, I take your points against
surtitles, and I sympathize with your attitude towards them - my natural
allegiance tends more to the connoisseur rather than otherwise. But at
this point I think that the main faults lie with the implementation rather
than the concept of surtitles. Translation and timing could be improved,
size and colors could be experimented with to provide a minimum of
distraction without seriously impairing their usefulness for those who
want them. (Although, of course, this does not address the issue of
performance standards.)

The ideal, at least for us mono-linguists, remains good translations
well sung to an audience who has done its homework.

						Jeff Winslow