Evening star., 1935-07-28

performance I have witnessed in diff;
ferent European countries can recol-
lect scarcely one which did not in
larger or smaller degree misrepresent
an operatic work of foreign origin
the moment 1t set out to render 1t
in another tongue. 1t will not do to
brush the question aside with the
claim that q German production of,
let us say, Carmen" must inevitably
suffer from the inability of the Ger
man race to grasp the French spirit:
that Italians will deprive 'Meister-
singer or 'Siegfried' of their true
character because Italians cannot en-
compass the distinctive elements OF
the German nature; or that the
slancio which Italians give out Of
the fullness of their souls to 'Caval-
leria' or to 'Rigoletto' is absent from
French presentation of these works
for the reason that it forms no part
of the Gallo temperament. All these
things are the truth, but not the
whole truth.
something goes baSically wrong when
music written by one people is sung
in the language Of another springs
from the fact that the pace, the
rhythm, the contour, the physiognomy
of nations music are primarily
determined by the character and the
movement of that nations language.
Aa fnnnItn VuhiNh haC
nodded the vocal writing of Schu-
bert and Brahms and shaped the
defamation of Wagner, just as Chi
vuol la Zingarella,' Largo al Fac
totum,' Celeste Aida and Mi CHA
mano Mimi could only have grown
out of the italian language and 'Salut
Demeure.' Nous Irons a Paris or
'C'est rExtate Langoureuse' from the
French. And when you mate the
music of one race with the language
of another your success in creating
the illusion of agreement between the
two will only be in proportion to the
kinship of the original tongue and
the one substituted for it. To the
extent that the language into which
you translate the original differs from
it in what I might term its density,
its intonation, its mobility, its over
tones-to that extent you will be near
er to or farther from q stylistically
correct performance when you sing
your opera in it.
"a language determines not only a
racial style Of song, but also the tone
formation and production Of the sing
ers belonging to that race. The throaty
voice, the 'Knodel Stimme.' Of the
German tenor is as much a by
product of the German language as
the voice blanca of the Italian Is
of the Hingua Toscana' And so even
German tenor singing Turiddu In
Italian or an Italian soprano singing
Elsa in German is ikerer than other
wise to prove a misflt.
From half a dozen different stand
points the translation of an opera from
its original language into another I'M
plies a Justification in its style OF
performance, corruption of its spirit
ives. even if the work is called Boris
or The Bartered Bride or Halka' and
even If I do not know 10 words OF
Russian, Czech or Polish). The cor
rectness and the authenticity Of most
of the representations it has sponsored
for half a century have been the jus1-
fable boast of the Metropolitan and
the envy of the most enlightened
music lovers abroad. Is this lordly
advantage ON the point of being sur
rendered (for foreign operas trans
lated into even the best Of English are
going to be falsified as surely as ever
was Bizet or Verdi in Germany or
Wagner and Weber in Paris) on the
specious plea of bringing opera closer
to a people whose real desire for it I
gravely doubt? I, for one, am too good