This week, I attended my first event organised by the ITI Media, Arts & Tourism Network: a workshop in Birmingham on the topic of “Music and Translation in Opera, Music Theatre and Popular Music”. This isn’t an area I work in directly or even expect to in future, but it does fall within the broader field of creative and cultural translation that I do work in, so I was hoping it would still be of some interest and relevance.
The workshop, which was held at Birmingham Conservatoire, started with a talk by opera director John Lloyd Davies on the translation of opera lyrics. He described the implications that the different dimensions of musical performance have on the translation process. In addition to the dimension of fidelity to the written text, opera lyrics (or other musical lyrics) have to match the qualities of the music itself. This is not simply a matter of matching the number and pattern of syllables and stresses (though that can be challenging enough when these differ significantly between source and target language) but also of ensuring that significant words correspond to significant points in the music. The performer also needs to be considered: the words must be such that the performer is able to perform them, both physically (in terms of which sounds are easier or harder to sing) and emotionally (in terms of words which do ring true and feel like an authentic form of expression for the character). John highlighted this latter aspect as a particularly important reason for translating opera lyrics in the first place: performers who sing in a language other than their own will be less able to invest their performance with the shades of meaning and texture they have mastered in their own language (this marks a contrast with subtitled films, of course, where the subtitling allows viewers to experience performances that do have this richly textured quality).
The second talk, by Professor Klaus Kaindl, complemented the first. It thematised the translation of opera and pop music as a process of movement and change: for example, adaptations that update details into modern settings. Particularly interesting was the point that texts are often also adapted in terms of genre – he gave the example of Tom Jones’ “Delilah”, which in German was translated into the “Schlager” genre:
The second talk, by Professor Klaus Kaindl, complemented the first. It thematised the translation of opera and pop music as a process of movement and change: for example, adaptations that update details into modern settings. Particularly interesting was the point that texts are often also adapted in terms of genre – he gave the example of Tom Jones’ “Delilah”, which in German was translated into the “Schlager” genre:
It can pose an obstacle to the international success of artists if their genre is not popular outside their country or language (for example, Edith Piaf was never able to achieve success in Germany). Here, too, the performer is key to the form that the adaptation must take; when Elvis Presley sang translations of Italian songs, the music, lyrics and style were adapted to his distinctive personality and performance.
There was plenty of interaction throughout the workshop. In John Lloyd Davies’ talk we had to stand up and sing words in our languages so we could appreciate some of the difficulties involved in translating opera (how to hold a note on a single word like “love” or “peace” if the word has two syllables in your language, for example?) and in Klaus Kaindl’s talk I was summoned on stage to give a bravura one-line performance as Leporello from Don Giovanni (fortunately, no singing was involved that time). We also worked in groups (very different from translators’ normal modus operandi!) to translate choral pieces – that were then performed live by a choir so we could witness first-hand what worked and what didn’t when our translations were actually performed. We also worked in groups to compare different language versions of “La Paloma” – in English, rendered in characteristic crooner style by Dean Martin (in German, a similar comparison might have been made between German and English performances of "Mack the Knife").
After a fascinating workshop, I am not planning to give up my day job and become a full-time musical translator (aside from anything else, I am probably far too tone-deaf). But it was very valuable to hear a variety of different perspectives on the translation process both from the speakers and the group participants, who brought a variety of different experiences and approaches to bear. And aside from that, it was fascinating to gain an insight into a world of music and musical translation I hadn’t previously been especially familiar with.
There was plenty of interaction throughout the workshop. In John Lloyd Davies’ talk we had to stand up and sing words in our languages so we could appreciate some of the difficulties involved in translating opera (how to hold a note on a single word like “love” or “peace” if the word has two syllables in your language, for example?) and in Klaus Kaindl’s talk I was summoned on stage to give a bravura one-line performance as Leporello from Don Giovanni (fortunately, no singing was involved that time). We also worked in groups (very different from translators’ normal modus operandi!) to translate choral pieces – that were then performed live by a choir so we could witness first-hand what worked and what didn’t when our translations were actually performed. We also worked in groups to compare different language versions of “La Paloma” – in English, rendered in characteristic crooner style by Dean Martin (in German, a similar comparison might have been made between German and English performances of "Mack the Knife").
After a fascinating workshop, I am not planning to give up my day job and become a full-time musical translator (aside from anything else, I am probably far too tone-deaf). But it was very valuable to hear a variety of different perspectives on the translation process both from the speakers and the group participants, who brought a variety of different experiences and approaches to bear. And aside from that, it was fascinating to gain an insight into a world of music and musical translation I hadn’t previously been especially familiar with.
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