Translations, adaptations or rewritings?
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Pierre Degott
Abstract
This paper analyses the various English translations of Da Ponte and Mozart’s Don Giovanni, with an aim at showing that each version tends to adapt the social, cultural and sexual contexts of the opera. From Natalia Macfarren’s Victorian translation of the 1870s to Jeremy Sams’ modern version currently in use at the English National Opera, via Edward Dent’s sprightly text written in the 1930s for the London lower middle classes, Ruth and Thomas Martin’s version meant for a conservative American public and W. H. Auden’s most poetical reinterpretation, all versions resort to strategies aimed at drawing on the new receiver’s culture. Whatever their own specificities, all versions tend to reduce the strangeness and otherness of the original text, offering their own interpretations of Mozart and Da Ponte’s universal masterpiece.
Abstract
This paper analyses the various English translations of Da Ponte and Mozart’s Don Giovanni, with an aim at showing that each version tends to adapt the social, cultural and sexual contexts of the opera. From Natalia Macfarren’s Victorian translation of the 1870s to Jeremy Sams’ modern version currently in use at the English National Opera, via Edward Dent’s sprightly text written in the 1930s for the London lower middle classes, Ruth and Thomas Martin’s version meant for a conservative American public and W. H. Auden’s most poetical reinterpretation, all versions resort to strategies aimed at drawing on the new receiver’s culture. Whatever their own specificities, all versions tend to reduce the strangeness and otherness of the original text, offering their own interpretations of Mozart and Da Ponte’s universal masterpiece.
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
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
