Today I ran across an example of a category most people don’t know about: extremely close translations for opera singers. I say “close” rather than “literal” because it’s not just about communicating the exact meaning, but also keeping words in mostly the same order so that you could basically nail the target sentence on top… Continue reading When bad translations are good
Category: Opera
Senta spinnt
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra put on an excellent concert performance of Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) last week. Soprano Melody Moore brought the house down with her powerful singing and her spirited characterization of Senta. Speaking as someone with a degree in Complaining About Wagner, I must admit I really like this opera. It’s probably my favorite Wagner opera… Continue reading Senta spinnt
Medieval love poetry: sexier than you might think
Richard Wagner mined most of his opera plots from medieval sources. Here’s an intro to Tannhäuser: Legend has it that back in 1207 or so, Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia invited the most accomplished minstrels in the land to battle it out at the Wartburg castle in Eisenach. In German they call this the Sängerkrieg auf der… Continue reading Medieval love poetry: sexier than you might think
And more Wagner…
If you look at this YouTube upload of the overture to Meistersinger, you can enjoy a sad Internet story: Uploader writes, “Please restrict your comments to Wagner’s music. Nothing hateful will be tolerated. ;)” Scroll down a little and you see, “Comments are disabled for this video.” Sad!
Bonus Wagner content
The St. Austin Review (a Catholic lit mag) recently published my thoughts on Wagner’s Tannhäuser but the article is not available online. So here are two anecdotes for those of you who can’t access the article (or who read it and came here looking for more, unlikely as that may be…) Wagner’s original title for Tannhäuser was Der… Continue reading Bonus Wagner content