Title
It’s not over until we read what the fat lady sings. Creating surtitles for modernised opera productions as an example of intersemiotic translation
Conference name
Media for All 8
City
Country
Sweden
Modalities
Date
18/06/2019
Abstract
Since their debut in 1983, both intra- and interlingual surtitles are an inherent element of almost all opera houses and, partly thanks to this technology, opera is currently reliving its renaissance. Nowadays more and more productions are staged in a modernised fashion, and in order to preserve their coherence they need proper surtitles, as what is being sung may not necessarily correspond to what is happening on the stage.
The idea of creating surtitles whose source text is not just the libretto but the whole opera production was first formulated a few years ago (Virkunnen 2004), but it has not been properly developed yet. Assuming that surtitles can be treated as intersemiotic translation and, subsequently, using types of intersemiotic translation described by Gottlieb (2018), it is possible to classify surtitles accompanying modernised productions as either isosemiotic, if they are based just on the libretto, or infrasemiotic and also diasemiotic, if they also take into account other elements of the production.
Surtitles of infrasemiotic nature should include all the sign systems present on the stage – libretto, stage design, acting, and interpretation. This aim can be achieved by omitting certain words or phrases, adding new elements, or stylising the text so that it is adjusted to particular productions. Eventually, in extreme cases what is being sung and what surtitles show do not have much in common.
In my research I focus on the surtitles provided by the major opera houses, i.e. Royal Opera House, Metropolitan Opera House and Bavarian State Opera because they tend to adapt different policies to surtitling modernised opera productions. Analysing these translations, I check how faithful they are to the original libretti, which sign systems were qualified as their source text and whether the role of the adjusted surtitles is just preserving the coherence of the non-standard performances or also lending these productions new significance. Too often are surtitles treated as a mere addition to the whole performance, but, if properly prepared, especially in case of modernised productions, they may become a significant element of the whole operatic production.
The idea of creating surtitles whose source text is not just the libretto but the whole opera production was first formulated a few years ago (Virkunnen 2004), but it has not been properly developed yet. Assuming that surtitles can be treated as intersemiotic translation and, subsequently, using types of intersemiotic translation described by Gottlieb (2018), it is possible to classify surtitles accompanying modernised productions as either isosemiotic, if they are based just on the libretto, or infrasemiotic and also diasemiotic, if they also take into account other elements of the production.
Surtitles of infrasemiotic nature should include all the sign systems present on the stage – libretto, stage design, acting, and interpretation. This aim can be achieved by omitting certain words or phrases, adding new elements, or stylising the text so that it is adjusted to particular productions. Eventually, in extreme cases what is being sung and what surtitles show do not have much in common.
In my research I focus on the surtitles provided by the major opera houses, i.e. Royal Opera House, Metropolitan Opera House and Bavarian State Opera because they tend to adapt different policies to surtitling modernised opera productions. Analysing these translations, I check how faithful they are to the original libretti, which sign systems were qualified as their source text and whether the role of the adjusted surtitles is just preserving the coherence of the non-standard performances or also lending these productions new significance. Too often are surtitles treated as a mere addition to the whole performance, but, if properly prepared, especially in case of modernised productions, they may become a significant element of the whole operatic production.