TITLES TRIUMPHANT

By Kelley Rourke (American University, 1998)

She sang, of course, "M'ama" and not "He loves me," since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

—Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

The first American impresarios relied heavily on European imports to build an operatic tradition. Today, the Italian, French, and German works introduced by pioneers such as Manuel Garcia, John Davis, and Leopold Damrosch still make up the bulk of the "American" operatic canon. But the collaborative nature of staging an opera ensures that these works are part of a vibrant native tradition. American directors, designers, and performers continue to make contributions both subtle and shocking to the familiar pieces, to the delight or chagrin of operaphiles.

One of the most contentious issues in staging foreign opera in America has been the language of performance. Some believe that an opera should be performed in the language of its composer, since that is the only way to preserve the precise original relationship of text and tune. Others say that opera is most appropriately performed in the language of the singers and audience, arguing that vernacular presentations are most appropriate for a dramatic art form.

Projected titles (simultaneous translations) are the most recent solution proposed to the language dilemma. After initial suspicion and hostility, most American opera companies have embraced them. Both purists and populists have been (for the most part) placated, and the push toward opera in the vernacular (still the standard practice in many European houses) has subsided. This paper will examine historical methods of dealing with foreign opera in America, and consider the implications of finding a single "solution" to the dilemma.

Opera Comes to the New World

American opera production has been marked by a glorious linguistic eclecticism since its beginnings. The earliest operatic pioneers in America were British touring companies. Itinerant "vocal stars" first appeared in theaters throughout the northeast in the 1820s. Their repertory consisted of both English pieces and "Englished" adaptations of Italian works. Their popularization of contemporary Italian pieces paved the way for companies from that country. [1]

Manuel Garcia's Italian Opera Company arrived in New York on November 6, 1825. The company opened three days later with Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, a work already well-known (albeit in English) to much of the audience. The Italian Opera Company went on to give New York its first Italian performances of nine popular works, including Mozart's Don Giovanni. Although American audiences embraced the Italian style, they were put off by the unfamiliar language. A critic from the New York Mirror grumbled that "the Italian opera threatens to exclude the English from the stage." The Garcias left New York in 1826, but they were soon replaced by similar touring companies headed by Giacomo Montresor, Vincenzo Rivafinoli, and others. At the same time, English opera groups continued to grow and flourish. [1]

In early nineteenth-century New Orleans, opera in the vernacular meant French opera. The first Théâtre d'Orléans, which opened in October 1815, presented popular works by Boieldieu, Spontini, Auber and other French composers. The newest territory of the United States was determined to hold on to its culture and language, even in the face of Yankee occupation, and opera became a rallying-point for intensified Gallic self-awareness. Under impresario John Davis, New Orleans saw more than 700 performances of about 150 operas. His mission was showing off French opera, "the pride and hope of the generation raised on the ruins of the old French regime." This mission took him all over the country, playing to enthusiastic French emigres in Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Boston.

But the feared cultural colonization of New Orleans came with the arrival of James Henry Caldwell, an English actor who presented the first serious challenge to French music and drama. He designed seasons for both the uninitiated frontiersmen and the more operatically sophisticated French population, presenting both English opera and English translations of other European works. The growing company demonstrated its confidence by building the St. Charles Theater, the largest and grandest in America at the time.

As his company grew, Caldwell's next step was the popular American tradition of importing Italian opera troupes: the Montresor company from Havana in 1836, and the Antonio de Rosa Company in 1837. These troupes enjoyed enormous success with a repertoire that included works by Bellini and Donizetti. New Orleans audiences continued to see productions in both vernaculars, as well as an increasing number of Italian pieces imported by Caldwell.[1]

By the mid-nineteenth century, opera was becoming an established part of the cultural scene in most major American cities. The type of presentation was often a reflection of the city's political, social, artistic, and intellectual values. Philadelphia was originally colonized by touring companies presenting English farces, but European immigrants "supplied the theaters with admirable orchestras and modified the manners of the town". By the 1830s, operas were performed in French, German, and English. The choice of language was mainly dependent on the singers available.

Foreign opera did not enjoy as much success in Boston, where the morally upright population saw itself as a bastion of integrity. An opera house was finally justified for its commercial value: the mayor pointed out that traveling businessmen would be attracted to the city by dramatic and operatic entertainment. But the performance of French and Italian works divided nineteenth-century Boston in much the same way it divides twentieth-century America. The intellectual citizenry of the town had a great desire for the "authentic," and thus had a predisposition toward opera in its original language. At the same time, they found it difficult to justify an art form unintelligible to much of its audience. However, unintelligibility did have its benefits for the Puritan audience; as one reporter said, "If an English company should use a literal translation, no modest woman could go a second time."[1]

Operatic production in the West reflected the wild, unsettled atmosphere. The Pellegrini troupe, a motley crew of Italian, French, and German singers, arrived in El Dorado in 1851. They presented La sonnambula, a well-known Italian work, in an English/French version with all-male chorus. Their competition was a Cantonese troupe, who in 1852 mounted a production of The Eight Genjii, Offering Their Congratulations to the High Ruler, Yuk Hwang, on his Birthday, sung in Chinese.[1]

Tom Maguire, an illiterate New Yorker born in the 1820s, traveled to California with the intention of owning and managing a theater for classic drama and opera. Though he could never hope to move in elite circles in his native New York, he believed that an association with European opera would establish his place in society and in history. Speaking of a popular English actor, he said, "Not much of a man to look at. And he's not rich. Well, I'd give all the money I ever made...if I could take his place. I don't mean as an actor; I mean as a man in the world."[1]

The idea of opera as a social indicator was already well-established in New York. This made operatic endeavors both desirable and loathsome. "The 'native' organs are very savage against theatrical entertainment," said a reporter in1844. "The opera--the ballet--the acted drama--are all abominations maintained by foreigners, and imported into this country by foreigners."[1] The Astor Place Opera Association, formed "for the permanent establishment of Italian opera," was the site of several riots. After four troubled seasons, it was sold and converted into a library.

But the upper class would have their opera. In 1880, fifty-two of New York's leading citizens subscribed $100,000 each to what was to become the Metropolitan Opera. The new theater opened on October 22, 1883 with Gounod's Faust, sung in Italian. The choice of Italian for even a French work demonstrates that Italy was well-established in the American psyche as the official source of opera. Impresario Henry Abbey programmed mostly Italian pieces but also included works such as Carmen, Mignon, and Lohengrin in Italian translation.[1]

In 1884, the Met's new manager, Leopold Damrosch, adopted a new language policy designed to appeal to a large, intellectual segment of the population. For the next seven years, the Met produced German opera. The repertory consisted mainly of works by Wagner and other Germans, but Damrosch followed Abbey's policy of translating other pieces (including Rigoletto, Aida, and Norma) into the "house" language.[1] One could argue that this policy was actually part of America's vernacular opera tradition: at that time, New York may have had more German-speaking inhabitants than any city after Vienna and Berlin.[1]

After the German period, records show that opera at the Met was usually produced in its original language. The exceptions were unfamiliar works, such as Liszt's St. Elizabeth (1918). Mussorsky's Khovanshchina (1950), and Berg's Wozzeck (1959), which were given in English for their first performances.[1] As a major international venue for opera, the Met has largely justified its original-language policies on practical grounds: many of the singers presented at the Met are not native English-speakers. And even the most flawless diction is likely to be lost in such a cavernous house. For the most part, the Met's constituency seems happy with the policy. Even by 1983, the Met was described as a "a repository of the past rather than as a trendsetter, and prefers, as a museum, to carry the weight of its own history.[1]" And, unlike companies in rural areas, the Met is not concerned with "popularizing" opera.

On the other hand, New York City Opera (NYCO) was founded as a venue for "opera for the people." The opera's first director, Laszlo Halasz, had always shown a preference for opera in the vernacular, and he planned that each season would include at least one work given in English. (This could mean either a translation of a foreign piece or an American or English work.)[1] For many years, NYCO seasons were sprinkled with works in the vernacular, though familiar dramatic works tended to be given in the original language.

Several generations later, singer-turned manager Beverly Sills announced her intention to carry on NYCO's commitment to opera in the vernacular: "I hope to do more opera in English...I hope to demonstrate that the public enjoys the opportunity to understand what is being performed on the stage...we hope to make this a major factor in the uniqueness and accessibility of our productions."[1]

Two Operatic Traditions

Translated versions of traditional works had always been an effective way to gain new audiences. But connoisseurs were beginning to demand opera in the vernacular for other reasons. Herbert Graf, who led opera houses in Philadelphia and New York, wrote, "It still seems very strange to me that anyone who believes in the basic function of the theater...can deny in principle its need and its right to be understood."[1] Although he recognized that a work was changed in many ways by translation, he argued that, "Opera is written and performed to be understood by an audience, and no composer ever preferred subtleties of prosody to full comprehension by the audience."[1] The movement for opera in the vernacular became tied to the development of a renewed vision of opera: opera as theater, with intimate venues, imaginative staging, and high dramatic/theatrical values.

Director and translator Boris Goldovsy described two resident opera traditions: "We have an international style and what I call an opera theater style. We want to hear the great singers... And since we want to hear them, we want to hear them in the way that they produce the best kind of sound, usually in the original language which they have learned. And since we have many American singers who sing with them, we teach the Americans to sing [foreign languages]. But we teach them so they can participate in the international style. That makes perfectly good sense, but we have the other style, the opera theater style...Then you have the advantage of audiences that can understand the words, and you can accomplish better theater because the audience becomes acutely aware of bad acting."[1]

Although passionate advocates for each style fiercely debated each one's relative worth, there seemed little danger of linguistic standardization. According to the Central Opera Survey, audiences for original language productions and vernacular productions in 1970-1971were similar in size. During that season, records showed less than a ten percent difference in attendance figures. It seemed that two distinct operatic genres were becoming established in the United States, with separate traditions and separate audiences.[1]

If American opera companies could be said to have any policy on translation versus original language, that policy might be the effective use of language to develop an entertainment for target audiences. Smaller companies, like the earliest operatic pioneers, experimented with ways of bringing in modern audiences, including updated productions and use of the vernacular. Large urban houses, with established audiences, continued to operate in the international "Grand Opera" style.

Since the repertoire at these houses was primarily composed of familiar works in familiar settings, patrons were unlikely to complain about works in a foreign tongues. Besides, the inhabitants of the boxes took pride in their carefully cultivated operatic knowledge. One editor of Opera News relished the necessity of "preparing " for opera by reading the libretto before the performance. "The danger today of trying to make opera as easy and accessible as possible... is that the public, like the mass television public, is becoming too passive. In the best of all possible worlds, the opera (or theater or dance) public knows and cares."[1]

Carlisle Floyd, one of America's foremost opera composers, disagrees. "A manifestation of elitism that I have always personally objected to is the injunction that a person read a libretto as a prerequisite for attending an opera. That may, or may not be, an advantage, but I honestly don't feel and operagoer has any obligation other than buying a ticket and showing up...Anything else is perpetuating the myth that attending opera requires special initiation and really takes place in a temple rather than a theater."[1]

Supertitles Arrive

In fall of 1983, Opera News tersely reported an experiment taking place at New York City Opera. Beverly Sills, NYCO's singer-turned-director, had seen projected translations in a Canadian Opera Company production of Strauss' Elektra in January of the same year and planned to introduce projected titles for NYCO's fall 1983 Cendrillon. For Sills and other "popularizers," titles were the long-awaited answer to the language question. "I think we should eliminate as many barriers as possible to opera. With subtitles, you can have opera in the language the composer wrote and relax, instead of straining to understand."[1]

Reading along with opera was not an entirely new idea. Chinese opera audiences have long looked to printed screens alongside the stage for assistance with unfamiliar dialects. And London audiences in the eighteenth century followed the action of the Handel's operas in word-books: the house lights were kept up during the performances to facilitate this practice. A low-tech version of overhead titles emerged around the same time in France as part of the government's effort to restrict the expression of the commedia troupes. The troupes responded to the ban on speech by presenting "placard opera," in which actors mimed the story while placards bearing their speeches descended from the ceiling.[1]

In some ways, projected titles represent the best of both worlds. They allow companies to preserve the sacrosanct marriage of music and text while still producing a fully "accessible" performance. The NYCO audience responded enthusiastically to projected titles, and Sills attributed a substantially increased subscription base, in part, to the new technology.[1] In 1996, an independent survey of opera neophytes confirmed audience enthusiasm for titles. Participants expressed relief at being able to follow the plot and understand the jokes. For at least one patron, titles motivated attendance: "As soon as I knew there were surtitles, I went [to the opera] the very next month."[1]

But not everyone welcomed this new addition to the operatic experience. The most famous declaration against titles came from James Levine, artistic director of the Metropolitan Opera, in 1985. "Over my dead body will they show these things at this house. I cannot imagine not wanting the audience riveted on the performers at every moment."[1] Others echoed his sentiments: "Well-intentioned though they are, Supertitles give a false sense that enjoying a live opera performance means simply getting the words straight...Supertitles wrest the audience away from the action toward a disembodied shelf of words floating above the stage."[1]

But this quickly became the voice of the minority. Three years after their introduction, titles were used in 75 American opera companies.[1] In 1995, the Met introduced Met Titles, a unique system in which individual titles screens are mounted on the back of each chair. The system allowed individual patrons to control the screens; those not wishing to be "distracted" simply turned them off. Santa Fe Opera, another company who has shown resistance to the titling trend, will institute a similar system in 1999. They will join at least 85 other American professional companies using titles at that time.

A Fundamental Change

While the widespread use of titles has helped to enlarge both the audience and the repertoire, it has had one ominous effect: the stifling of opera in the vernacular. At this writing, only fourteen American professional opera companies continue to produce opera in English exclusively; of these, only five are recognized as Professional Company Members of OPERA America. For many, opera in translation in the age of titles is seen as provincial.

When titles were still in the experimental stages, vernacular opera companies often used them for "serious" works only, continuing to perform comedies in translation. But records collected by OPERA America show that companies with titles systems now use them for most, if not all, productions. A few companies still use translations for comedies, or for works which alternate singing and spoken text (i.e., The Magic Flute). But vernacular productions all over America are slowly being replaced by performances with titles in the interest of linguistic authenticity. Audiences have come to expect a read-along experience at the opera; many major houses now even title American and English works.

An Artistic Choice?

Other "new" additions to opera, including everything form the use of stage directors to a myriad of technical innovations, have expanded artistic choice. In an oblique way, titles have had a broadening effect by allowing companies to mount unfamiliar foreign works. But the new technology's creative (as opposed to informative) potential has gone largely unexplored. One exception is maverick director Peter Sellars' experiments in the use of titles (often in varied colors) to illustrate both text and subtext of a scene. And director Leon Major recently used titles to create a gag about titles: in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, Figaro sings a rapid-fire aria that is "un-titleable" -- no audience member could possibly read a complete translation in the time the aria is delivered. In Major's production for Washington Opera, Figaro paused halfway through the aria. He then stepped forward, turned around, and looked up at the screen while the titles scrolled forward. When they "caught up," he continued the aria, to the delight of the audience. [1]

Any theatrical innovation that expands the range of choices available to artists has the potential to reinvigorate the art form. Like any other new tool, titles have enhanced some productions and destroyed others. But they are no longer a choice for most companies: they are a mandate. And creative uses of titles are the exception, not the rule. Often titles scripts are rented from another company, with little thought given to how well the translation might fit a given production. In 1989, Patrick J. Smith called projected titles "the most important development since the advent of the long-playing record." [1] But like the long-playing record, titles hold potential dangers.

Their convenience and relative inoffensiveness make them attractive to artists, audiences, and producers. But these are not generally the standards by which we judge the arts. A certain margin of safety, convenience, feasibility, and comfort must be maintained for survival's sake, but artists and audiences thrive on challenges. American opera has thrived on its linguistic debates: the language chosen for performance make a tremendous statement about the priorities and prejudices of a company and audience. Opera, in all its guises, has appealed to many types of Americans; a homogenized, "acceptable" version runs the risk of appealing to no one.

Two years after the American inauguration of projected titles, Ardis Krainik, General director of Chicago Lyric Opera, put the language question in perspective. "The question is not so much, 'Should we use surtitles? Should we do opera in English? Should we do contemporary opera? How should we treat traditional works? Shall we hire avant-garde stage directors?', but rather 'What kind of a company are we?' When you speak about some of the great opera companies of America...when you look at Santa Fe and St. Louis and Minnesota, Kansas City, the New York City Opera...each is unique and individual to its nature." [1]

WORKS CITED

[1]

Katherine K. Preston, Opera on the Road: Traveling Opera Troupes in the United States, 1825-60 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 7-19.

[1]

ibid.

[1]

ibid.

[1]

John Dizikes, Opera in America, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 195.

[1]

ibid, 109-110.

[1]

John Dizikes, Opera in America, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 114-115.

[1]

New York Herald, Nov 28, 1844, quoted in Opera in America, 161.

[1]

Frank Merkling, John W, Freeman, and Gerald Fitzgerald with Arthur Solin, The Golden Horseshoe: The Life and Times of the Metropolitan Opera House (New York: The Viking Press, 1965) 13, 23.

[1]

ibid., 37.

[1]

Joseph Horowitz, "An Exotic Entertainment": The Failure of American Opera?, Opera News, (November 1993).

[1]

Frank Merkling, John W, Freeman, and Gerald Fitzgerald with Arthur Solin, The Golden Horseshoe: The Life and Times of the Metropolitan Opera House (New York: The Viking Press, 1965) , 309-311.

[1]

Patrick J. Smith, A Year at the Met (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1983), 3.

[1]

Martin L. Sokol, The New York City Opera (New York: Macmillan, 1981)

[1]

Sheila Sabrey-Saperstein, "Opera-in-English: The Popularization of Foreign Opera in America" (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University,1988), 112.

[1]

Herbert Graf, The Opera and Its Future in America, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941) 278.

[1]

ibid., 279.

[1]

Bruce Duffie, "Conversation Piece: Boris Goldovsky", The Opera Journal 21 (1988), 35.

[1]

Clayne Wilcox Robinson, "The Departure: A Theatre-Oriented Theory of Opera Translation", (DMA diss., University of Washington, 1973), 1-2.

[1]

Robert Jacobsen, "Viewpoint", Opera News, (April 14, 1994), 6.

[1]

Carlisle Floyd, A Summing-Up at Seventy in OPERA America Newsline (July/August 1997), 22.

[1]

Patricia Blake, "Cendrillon Becomes Cinderella", Time 17 (October 1983), 98-99.

[1]

Patrick J. Smith, The Tenth Muse: A Historical Study of the Opera Libretto (New York: Schirmer Books, 1970)

[1]

Metropolitan Opera National Council, An International Symposium Conference Bulletin, (New York: Central Opera Service, 1985), 27.

[1]

Stevens, Louise K. Motivating Opera Attendance: Comparative Qualitative Research in 10 North American Cities. (District of Columbia: OPERA America, 1996)

[1]

Will Crutchfield, "James Levine: New Era at the Met," New York Times Magazine 22 (September 1985), 38.

[1]

Charles Jarden, "Letter to the Editor", Opera News, (June 1990), 8.

[1]

Jane Poole, "Viewpoint" Opera News 51 (February 14, 1987), 4.

[1]

Leon Major, interview by author, 3 November 1997, College Park, tape recording.

[1]

Patrick J. Smith, "Viewpoint", Opera News (April 15, 1989), 4.

[1]

Metropolitan Opera National Council, An International Symposium Conference Bulletin, (New York: Central Opera Service, 1985), 13.