Hi. I thought a lot of you would find this article from today's NY Times of interest: TinaO
Audience Connection Gets Lost in Translation
January 23, 2002
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Over the last 20 years, the use of projected English supertitles has "given a shot in the arm to opera, for sure," the mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne said to an audience that filled the Juilliard Theater on Friday night for the ninth annual Marilyn Horne Foundation recital. Since promoting the song recital is the purpose of her foundation, Ms. Horne continued, she decided to try an experiment in the first half of the evening's program and use supertitles to provide simultaneous English translation of the German texts to 18 songs by Mozart, Korngold, Brahms and Strauss.
The main goal of the event was to present four promising young singers, all recent winners of foundation awards, who are being sponsored in various recital appearances around the United States. The theme of the program, "Vienna to Broadway," was the influence of 19th-century Viennese song on 20th-century American operetta and musical theater. But Ms. Horne's experiment with supertitles, which has not been tried much in recital format, is likely to generate the most debate.
Opera has indeed benefited overall from the development of titling systems. They have helped audiences understand that opera is theater, that you should sit back and enjoy the show. But, as the evening proved, using supertitles for song recitals is a more complicated matter.
In opera, singers mostly adhere to the theatrical convention of the invisible fourth wall. Other than for those moments when someone breaks character and addresses the audience directly, a drama is being enacted onstage. So most people find that taking your eyes off the singers for a moment in order to read a line of dialogue does not significantly impair the experience.
But in recitals, singers mostly do address listeners directly. Glancing away from the singer disrupts that connection, which can be so intense that many audience members feel compelled to watch and listen carefully as a song is being sung, even in a language they do not understand, rather than sit there, head bowed, reading translations.
In theory, the use of supertitles might foster comprehension. But when the first performer on this occasion, Lawrence Brownlee, an ardent young lyric tenor, accompanied by Howard Watkins at the piano, began a group of Mozart songs with the familiar "Das Veilchen" ("The Violet"), I found it distracting to have to keep looking at the screen above him for the English translation. It seemed almost discourteous.
Then there is the problem of translating poetry. Most opera librettos are like play scripts, thick with dialogue, just as some song texts relate conversation and tell little stories. But many poetic texts are metaphorical and elusive, like those in Korngold's "Unvergänglichkeit" cycle, sung by Liesel Fedkenheuer, a bright mezzo-soprano, with Miah Im accompanying, and several of the Strauss songs sung by Monique McDonald, a soprano with a rich, large, though insecure voice, accompanied by Brian Zeger. As the songs were sung, the isolated poetic lines were projected one by one on the screen. This made it hard to glean the continuity and imagery of the poems, something accomplished with little difficulty in recital formats by quickly reading an entire printed text before a singer begins a song.
When Keith Phares, a robust baritone, sang a Brahms group with Thomas Bagwell accompanying, the paradox of the song recital was evident. His singing was so vivid and expressive, the German words so crisp, that the specifics of the texts almost didn't matter.
Of course song texts do matter, crucially, which is why the supertitle experiment is worth trying. But a more successful experiment took place at a few years back at another Horne Foundation recital when several young singers performed European songs in English translation. All of a sudden, audience members hearing Schubert's popular "Die Forelle" ("The Trout") sung in English sat up in their seats. You sensed everyone saying to themselves, "So that's what the song is about." This staple of the lieder repertory never seemed fresher.
The value of hearing songs sung in your native tongue was reinforced during the second half of the program, a selection of waltzing operetta arias and songs by, among others, Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Straus, Franz Lehar, Rodgers and Hart, and Lerner and Loewe, accompanied by the guest artist Marvin Hamlisch, no less. When Mr. Phares broke into a jaunty account in good old English of "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" from the Rodgers and Hart musical "Jumbo," every snappy line and witty rhyme was an utter pleasure.
No one would suggest that translating song texts into English is the best solution to this nettlesome problem. But based on this experience, using supertitles is not ideal either. Still, Ms. Horne deserves credit for trying it out. Supertitles in the recital hall may catch on anyway. As in the opera house, dissenters will have to get used to it.
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