I am currently listening to the opera “Samson and Delilah” on the paid Royal Ballet And Opera platform. The opera is in French with English subtitles. My first question — where are the French subtitles? So, if I’m a Francophone, I’m left with no options but to catch the meaning by listening alone? And there’s “Boris Godunov” which I haven’t listened to yet. I think I wouldn’t mind having subtitles there either.
Once again, I catch myself thinking that apparently, no one who translates librettos into English ever considers those who have to read them with one eye (the other must watch the stage).
By God, how can one immediately understand what “auspices” in “Let us consult the auspices // and pour the sacrificial wine for Dagon” mean if an ordinary person doesn’t normally come across the word “auspices” in English and won’t grasp its meaning on the fly? The original goes, “Du grand Dagon consultons les auspices // Versons pour lui le vin des sacrifices!”, but the original can be forgiven (although I am sure that modern young French speakers could also use subtitles).
Or take “Grant that my wiles may lead to Samson’s capture tomorrow.” Wiles? The word “wiles” in English is literary, archaic, or high style. It denotes tricks, cunning, deceitful strategies, especially in the context of enticement or manipulation. In the original French it’s “Fais que, vaincu par mon adresse, Samson soit enchaîné demain!” — well, couldn’t it have been translated as “Make it so that, defeated by my cunning, Samson shall be chained tomorrow!”
I found a translation by Frederic Lister from 1893. Those two lines are poetically and not super accurately translated there, but, damn, they are a million times clearer: “And reign supreme within his heart, // Binding him fast in my control.”
And there’s a lot of that good stuff. Okay, archaic words, but the sentences are also composed in a poetic style, which, to some extent, is fine because the spirit of the original must be conveyed. However, this does not make it any more accessible for the audience because again.. how can you understand what this “prostrate” is, while “Lying prostrate in the dust // we lifted up our voices to him” in half a second? Yes, lying prostrate means lying face down, but who generally knows that?
Damn, it would have been better to have French subtitles, that would have been more understandable.
Plus-tard, le front dans la poussiere,
Vers lui nous élevions la voix.
(meaning, “Later, with our foreheads in the dust, We lifted our voices to him.”)
Again, in Lister’s translation, although not close to the text, it is at least clearer – but then again, this translation is at least 130 years old.
I’m not pleased with the Royal Ballet And Opera. To read their subtitles, you need to specifically prepare.
And then, another interesting thing arises. It’s quite difficult to find the libretto of this opera. I will leave a link to the scans in the comments — try to find a good version of the text somewhere in the libretto. That is, the subtitles are skewed, and you can’t even find the original. One might ask, what prevented them from making a video player that would have French subtitles, poetic English translations, and modern English translations? They are charging money for it, and the work on preparing the subtitles is essentially a week of work for an Internet-connected specialist. I don’t know about the rights, but if they are showing the opera, they could definitely have put the original subtitles, and translations.. Well, I am sure that getting a proper translation commissioned or licensing an existing one wouldn’t be a problem.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 