Aesthetics of translation
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Yoshiko Takebe
Abstract
This chapter discusses the question of how Western European drama such as plays written by William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett can be translated into the Japanese operatic forms of Kabuki and Noh theater, which are traditional, composite arts of music, dance and drama, corresponding to Western opera and ballet. The study reveals that the translated plays enable 21st-century Japanese audiences to depart from the established assumptions about the Western source texts, and that translations are able to capture the essence of the plays written by Shakespeare or Beckett in a way which is familiar to those audiences. At the same time, by transposing Western drama into the world of Japanese opera, the traditional Japanese theater also becomes more accessible to contemporary Western audiences through a synthesis of music, dance and drama, beyond the barrier of language.
Abstract
This chapter discusses the question of how Western European drama such as plays written by William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett can be translated into the Japanese operatic forms of Kabuki and Noh theater, which are traditional, composite arts of music, dance and drama, corresponding to Western opera and ballet. The study reveals that the translated plays enable 21st-century Japanese audiences to depart from the established assumptions about the Western source texts, and that translations are able to capture the essence of the plays written by Shakespeare or Beckett in a way which is familiar to those audiences. At the same time, by transposing Western drama into the world of Japanese opera, the traditional Japanese theater also becomes more accessible to contemporary Western audiences through a synthesis of music, dance and drama, beyond the barrier of language.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
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Open perspectives
- Opera and intercultural musicology as modes of translation 13
- Surtitles and the multi-semiotic balance 35
- Tradition and transgression 53
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Across genres and media
- When Mei Lanfang encountered Fei Mu 75
- Fluid borders: From Carmen to The Car Man . Bourne’s ballet in the light of post-translation 95
- Aesthetics of translation 117
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Text and context
- Translations, adaptations or rewritings? 135
- The voice of the translator 159
- “Ordne die Reih’n” 175
- The migration of Madama Butterfly 195
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From text to stage
- The intertwined nature of music, language and culture in Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle 219
- Translating Wagner’s Versmelodie 243
- Operetta in Turkey 271
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Libretto translation revisited
- Two English translations of Jaroslav Kvapil’s Rusalka libretto 291
- Intertextuality in nineteenth-century Italian librettos: To translate or not to translate? 315
- Multilingual libretti across linguistic borders and translation modes 337
- About the contributors 359
- Index 365
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Open perspectives
- Opera and intercultural musicology as modes of translation 13
- Surtitles and the multi-semiotic balance 35
- Tradition and transgression 53
-
Across genres and media
- When Mei Lanfang encountered Fei Mu 75
- Fluid borders: From Carmen to The Car Man . Bourne’s ballet in the light of post-translation 95
- Aesthetics of translation 117
-
Text and context
- Translations, adaptations or rewritings? 135
- The voice of the translator 159
- “Ordne die Reih’n” 175
- The migration of Madama Butterfly 195
-
From text to stage
- The intertwined nature of music, language and culture in Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle 219
- Translating Wagner’s Versmelodie 243
- Operetta in Turkey 271
-
Libretto translation revisited
- Two English translations of Jaroslav Kvapil’s Rusalka libretto 291
- Intertextuality in nineteenth-century Italian librettos: To translate or not to translate? 315
- Multilingual libretti across linguistic borders and translation modes 337
- About the contributors 359
- Index 365
