Cover not available

In:Opera in Translation: Unity and diversity
Edited by Adriana Şerban and Kelly Kar Yue Chan
[Benjamins Translation Library 153] 2020
► pp. 135–158

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Translations, adaptations or rewritings?

English versions of Mozart and Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni

 | University of Lorraine, France
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.153.07deg
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.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Natalia Macfarren’s Victorian translation (1871)
  • 3.Edward J. Dent’s translation for London suburban audiences (1921, 1938)
  • 4.Ruth and Thomas Martin’s middle-class translation (1950)
  • 5.W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman’s poetical translation (1961)
  • 6.The ENO pedestrian versions (Norma Platt and Laura Sarti, Amanda and Anthony Holden, Jeremy Sams)
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
References (46)
References
Primary sources
Libretti
Buckstone, John Baldwin. 1828. A New Don Juan! An Operatical, Satirical [&c.] Burletta. London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Da Ponte, Lorenzo. 1833. Songs, duets, recitative, &c. &c. in Don Juan; an Opera, Adapted from the Original, etc., Trans. by S. Beazley. London: John Miller.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1938. Don Giovanni. A Comic Opera in Two Acts. Trans. by Edward J. Dent. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1950. Don Giovanni. A Comic Drama in Two Acts. Words by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. English Version by Ruth and Thomas Martin. New York: Program Publishing Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1983. “Don Giovanni. Dramma giocoso in Two Acts.” Trans. by Norman Platt and Laura Sarti, in Don Giovanni: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 47–109. London: Calder.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moncrieff, William T. 1817. Giovanni in London; Or, the Libertine Reclaimed. An Operatic Extravaganza in Two Acts. London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Müller, Ulrich, and Oswald Panagl (eds). 1991. Don Giovanni in New York: Lorenzo Da Pontes italienisch-englisches Libretto für die US-Erstaufführung von Mozarts Oper (1826). Mit dem Libretto des Oper “Mozart in New York” von Herbert Rosendorfer / Helmut Eder (1991). Anif / Salzburg: Verlag Ursula Müller-Speiser.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sams, Jeremy. 2013. “ Don Giovanni: A Libretto.” Areté 42: 33–113.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vocal scores
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. [1818]. Don Juan, or the Libertine. A grand operatic drama, in two acts … Selected from … Mozart’s Il Don Giovanni, adapted for the English stage, and arranged from the score, by Henry R. Bishop … The poetry by J. Pocock. London: Goulding, D’Almaine, Potter & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. [1830?]. Dear Love, while thee possessing. Aria … arranged & adapted … by T. H. Reynoldson [English version of Don Ottavio’s aria “Il mio Tesoro”]. Edinburgh: Paterson Roy & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. [1850]. Don Juan; or the Libertine punished. (Il Don Giovanni) ossia (Il Dissoluto punito). Founded on the Spanish tale of L. Tirso de Molina by the Abbé da Ponte, and rendered into English from the Italian by J. Wrey Mould. Revised from the orchestral score by W. S. Rockstro. London: Boosey and Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. [1871]. Don Giovanni. An Opera in Two Acts … Translated into English, and Corrected According to the Original Score by Natalia Macfarren. London: Novello, Ewer and Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. 1961. Don Giovanni. Opera in Two Acts […] English Version by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. New York: Schirmer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Audio recordings
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. 2001. Don Giovanni. Conducted by David Parry. English trans. by Amanda Holden. Chandos 3057(3), Opera in English.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Secondary sources
Apter, Ronnie, and Mark Herman. 2016. Translating for Singing: The Theory, Art and Craft of Translating Lyrics. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Auden, Wystan H. [and Chester Kallman]. 1962. “Translating Opera Libretti.” In The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays, by Wystan H. Auden, 483–99. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beethoven, Ludwig van. [1851]. Fidelio, a Lyric Drama Taken from the French by Joseph Sonnleithner and Friedrich Treitschke and Rendered into English from the German by J. Wrey Mould … Revised from the Orchestral Score by W. S. Rockstro. London: Boosey and Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carey, Hugh. 1979. Duet for Two Voices: An Informal Biography of Edward Dent. Compiled from His Letters to Clive Carey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cowgill, Rachel. 1998. “Re-gendering The Libertine; or, the Taming of the Rake: Lucy Vestris as Don Giovanni on the early nineteenth-century London stage.” Cambridge Opera Journal 10 (1): 45–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Degott, Pierre. 2014. “Les enjeux de la traduction dans la réception de Haendel en Grande Bretagne entre 1945 et 1970” [The Issue of Translation in the Reception of Handel’s Works in Great Britain, 1945–1970]. La Revue Lisa 12 (6), [URL], last accessed 23 March 2020.
Dent, Edward J. 1945. A Theatre for Everybody: the Story of the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells. London: Boardman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1947. Mozart’s Operas: A Critical Study. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1979. “The Translation of Operas”. In Selected Essays, ed. by Hugh Taylor, 1–23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Originally published in Proceedings of the Musical Association 61 (1934/1935): 81–104]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Desblache, Lucile. 2013. “Tales of the Unexpected: Opera as a New Arts of Glocalisation.” In Music, Text and Translation, ed. by Helen Julia Minors, 9–20. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forbes, Elizabeth. 1975. “Student Performances.” Opera 25 (4): 80.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forster, Edward M. [1905] 2001. Where Angels Fear to Tread. Ed. by Oliver Stallybrass. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Golomb, Harai. 2005. “Music-Linked Translation (MLT) and Mozart’s Operas: Theoretical, Textual and Practical Perspectives.” In Song and Significance: Virtues and Vices of Vocal Translation, ed. by Dinda L. Gorlée, 121–162. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hocquard, Jean-Victor. 1978. Le Don Giovanni de Mozart. Paris: Aubier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1979. “Commentaire musical et littéraire.” L’Avant-Scène Opéra 24: 35–125.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacobs, Arthur. 1983. “ Don Giovanni. Kent Opera at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, April 23.” Opera 34 (6): 106.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jouve, Pierre-Jean. 1942. Le Don Juan de Mozart. Paris: Plon.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kerman, Joseph. 1954. “Opera à la mode.” The Hudson Review 6 (4): 560–577. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kozinn, Allan. 2000. “Ruth Martin, 86, Translator of Rare and Popular Operas.” The New York Times, 16 December, [URL], last accessed 23 March 2020.
Loewenberg, Alfred. 1943. Annals of Opera, 1597–1940. Cambridge: Heffer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marschall, Gottfried R. 2004. “Traduire l’opéra : quel défi !” [The Challenge of Opera Translation]. In La Traduction des livrets: Aspects théoriques, historiques et pragmatiques, ed. by Gottfried R. Marschall, 11–26. Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milnes, Rodney (ed.). 1975. “The Translator at Work Part 3.” Opera 26: 242–250.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Minter, Drew. 2001. “Mozart: Don Giovanni (in English).” Opera News 66 (5): 57–58.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noiray, Michel. 1996. “Commentaire musical et littéraire [de Don Giovanni ].” L’Avant-Scène Opéra 172: 12–124.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Northcott, Richard. 1920. The Life of Sir Henry R. Bishop. London: Press Printers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosenthal, Harold. 1958. Two Centuries of Opera at Covent Garden. London: Putnam.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1986. “British Opera Diary [Don Giovanni].” Opera 37 (2): 211–214.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tråvén, Marianne. 2005. “Musical Rhetoric – the Translator’s Dilemma: A Case for Don Giovanni .” In Song and Significance: Virtues and Vices of Vocal Translation, ed. by Dinda L. Gorlée, 103–120. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santley, Charles. 1893. Student and Singer: The Reminiscences of Charles Santley. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spiegelmann, Willard. 1982. “The Rake, the Don, the Flute: W. H. Auden as Librettist.” Parnassus: Poetry in Review 10 (2): 171–187.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weisstein, Ulrich. 1970. “Reflections on a Golden Style: W. H. Auden’s Theory of Opera.” Comparative Literature 22 (2): 108–124. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Westrup, Jack. 1946. “Dent as Translator.” Music Review 7: 198–204.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue