Spelling It Out : Opera audiences may love following the plot on Supertitles but purists have other views

The hottest addition to opera in the ‘80s is the use of translations projected above the stage to help audiences better understand productions sung in French, Italian, German, Russian and--yes--even English.

As opera’s answer to subtitles in foreign-language films, these cue cards for audiences have several monikers: They’re called Supertitles at New York City Opera and San Francisco Opera. Houston Grand Opera and Canadian Opera Company of Toronto have dubbed them Surtitles. At Pittsburgh Opera, they’re known as OpTrans.

There are other, unofficial terms for capsulized translations of texts, which will first appear at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in January with New York City Opera’s productions of Bizet’s “Carmen” and Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.”

“Terrific” is a typical term opera presenters have used to describe Supertitles, which, they say, are bolstering public interest in opera and, therefore, boosting ticket sales.

To others, a minority composed chiefly of performers, music critics and opera purists, Supertitles represent, as one noted opera conductor growled, an “abominable” compromise of the art form.

Supertitles, which are projected on a screen mounted above the theater stage, have proven to be exceptionally popular with the opera-going public. New York City Opera conducted an audience survey recently and found a 96% approval rate for Supertitles; officials at the San Francisco Opera say that mail is running nearly 200-to-1 in favor of the translations.

Since the Canadian Opera Company of Toronto began using its Surtitles in 1983, as an experiment inspired by the successful use of subtitles in public television broadcasts of foreign-language operas, the practice has been adopted by most opera houses in the United States.

The major exception is the venerable Metropolitan Opera in New York. “The Met does not have any plans to use Supertitles in the foreseeable future,” says Met spokesman Gregory Hanlon.

But at New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Cincinnati Opera and numerous others around the country, the use of Supertitles is becoming the rule rather than the exception.

“I can think of no instance in which we wouldn’t use Supertitles in the future,” says Susan Woelzl, director of publicity for New York City Opera, which first brought Supertitles to the United States.

And at San Francisco Opera, which is now using Supertitles for every performance, communications associate Scott Horton says, “The party line at present is that we’ll use Supertitles on every opera possible.”

So what’s to debate? The public loves them, the opposition is vastly outnumbered, and even prestigious European theaters such as the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden are opening their doors to Supertitles.

Advocates claim that Supertitles simply make opera more accessible to more people. They are quick to point out that language was never meant to be a barrier--that most operas were written for audiences that understood the language.

Further, Supertitles circumvent the problem of English-language productions that can suffer when rhyme and meter are literally lost in the translation. And finally, opera company officials maintain that those who don’t wish to read Supertitles don’t have to look at them.

“In North America, opera tradition is quite young,” says Gunta Dreifelds, associate director of operations for the Canadian Opera Company. “Opera companies are always concerned with developing audiences. And in helping companies move away from the elitist approach to accessibility, Supertitles have been a great success.”

Critics counter that opera presenters are subjugating the art form to ticket sales and that such boiled-down translations are tantamount to a Reader’s Digest condensation of Shakespeare’s works.

“As far as the aesthetics are concerned, it’s abominable,” says conductor Julius Rudel, who has conducted several opera productions with Supertitles in recent years. “In terms of practicality, they may be of some limited value.

“When performers are knocking themselves out to give a fully realized dramatic performance, trying to project subtleties such as a raised eyebrow, something inevitably gets lost if people keep looking up to read the Supertitles.”

“Of course, the singers won’t like it,” says one arts administrator. “They have such fantastic egos that they can’t stand the thought that somebody’s eyes might be directed away from them for one second.”

Stage director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle is one of the staunchest opponents of Supertitles and refuses to allow them in his productions.

“Ponnelle is very much a visual purist and feels that the distraction of losing visual continuity and subtlety is disruptive,” says David Gockley, general director of Houston Grand Opera, which has mounted several of Ponnelle’s stagings--all with Supertitles. “But he speaks five languages and the audience doesn’t.”

What worries some opponents more than the disruption in attention is the feeling that Supertitles inherently change opera’s structure.

“I don’t think Supertitles should be banished, but they are very difficult to do well,” says The Times’ music critic Martin Bernheimer, who rejects the notion that opera Supertitles are no different from subtitles on foreign films.

“With a foreign film, the only thing the audience is left out on is words. Opera has an additional mode of expression in the music, and music can convey emotions and drama in a way that words alone can never do. So the audience already has a crutch in the music,” Bernheimer says.

“That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t understand the words. Sometimes I find them helpful, if it’s a Russian opera I’ve never seen before. But I find myself so busy reading that I’m not busy listening or watching, and the words become the most important element,” Bernheimer says. “That throws the balance of opera off.”

Houston Opera’s Gockley agrees, but only to a point. “Some purists say that the eye is constantly moving and therefore is not concentrating on facial expressions or the intricacy of the staging,” he says. “In truth, the eye can flash up and flash back quite quickly, so you don’t miss much of the continuity of what’s happening on stage. But what it adds in terms of understanding is really immeasurable.”

Historically speaking, Supertitles come not as the first but merely the latest focal point of the centuries-old debate over words versus music. Wagner, for instance, believed that music should be secondary to drama, while Mozart said that “the poetry should always be the obedient daughter of the music.”

Some early technical problems with Supertitles, such as unintentionally funny translations and missing or jammed slides, just added fuel to the fire over their use.

One San Francisco Opera production of Wagner’s “Siegfried” drew unprogrammed laughs when the hero removed Brunnhilde’s chest armor and proclaimed, “ Das ist kein Mann! (This is not a man!)” That translation, even though literally accurate, was quickly eliminated.

Soprano Eva Marton became incensed at the guffaws a mistranslated line elicited in Houston during Puccini’s “Tosca.” When Tosca recognizes another woman in a portrait her lover has painted of Mary Magdalene, she flies into a jealous rage and sings, “ Ma falle gli occhi neri! (But make the eyes black!)” The translation, however, read: “Give her black eyes.”

Such errors show the danger of condensed translations, although opera officials insist that mistranslations and technical glitches are becoming fewer and farther between as Supertitles staffs become more experienced.

“A director may want a line translated a specific way because that’s the way it was written,” says San Francisco’s Supertitles administrator Chris Bergen. “But in the very young art of subtitling, you cannot do a literal translation of every line. There is no time or space. We just want to give people the essence of what’s happening, not a lot of complicated wording and strange place names. That way they can look at it quickly, digest it and go back to the stage action with minimum distraction.”

But there remain other potential problems that will never be completely eliminated. Those include the question of how--or whether--to translate multiple lines in simultaneous vocal parts as well as the delicate balance of timing, particularly in comedies.

“Comedy is the most difficult thing to title,” Bergen says. “You can’t bring up lines too late because people learn to expect them when the actor starts singing his lines. If they don’t see it soon, they think something is wrong with the projector. But you also don’t want to spoil a punch line. It’s a fine line.”

Because that timing can change from performance to performance, it’s highly unlikely that Supertitles can ever be totally automated.

Supertitles have antecedents in Japan and China, where there is a long history of presenting plays and opera in foreign languages or dialects with handwritten translations on vertical scrolls at the side of the stage.

In modern applications in the West, most opera houses use two or more modified slide projectors with high-intensity lamps. Translations are photographed on slides, placed in order in carrousel trays and projected onto a screen above the stage. Most also use fading devices that make titles appear and disappear gradually because virtually all opera officials say their goal is to make Supertitles as unobtrusive as possible.

A few, such as Houston Grand Opera, use video technology that employs a character generator and a special video screen. The advantages of video systems are easier editing and fewer potential mechanical problems. But those who use the slide-projector systems argue that the letters are sharper and that the operators have greater flexibility in fading words in and out.

Opera officials even have differing philosophies regarding which color type and backgrounds to use to make their Supertitles both aesthetically pleasing and legible.

The cost of Supertitles averages $10,000-$12,000 per production, including the translation, the production costs of transferring them to slides or video and the staff to operate them.

The trend among opera presenters is to find underwriting specifically for Supertitles rather than paying the expense out of the general budget. Once each production is completed, most companies that do their own translations subsequently lend or rent their Supertitles to smaller companies.

Predictably, the most extreme reactions against Supertitles occur when they are used for English-language productions.

New York City Opera first used Supertitles in an English-language opera in a 1985 production of Domenick Argento’s “Casanova,” Susan Woelzl says, because “it has a very complicated, intricate plot, and Supertitles helped audiences follow it better.”

Responds Martin Bernheimer: “Certainly it makes it easier, but any time you have to use a crutch it indicates there is something wrong with the machine. When someone walks with crutches, it means something is wrong with their legs. But if everybody starts using crutches to move faster, eventually you change the anatomy of the human being.”

Canadian Opera Company is one of the few presenters that remains opposed to Supertitles for opera in English. “We feel it is an insult to the singers,” Gunta Dreifelds says.

Some have even suggested that the use of Supertitles will cause singers to lower their performance standards once audiences no longer have to depend upon their clear vocal delivery.

While bass-baritone Samuel Ramey says that the addition of Supertitles to foreign-language opera “is terrific,” he believes that the increasing use of them for English-language productions is a dangerous trend.

“It’s really a knock on singers,” Ramey says. “I’ve always prided myself when I’ve sung in English that every word is understandable. English is not the easiest language to sing in. I think Surtitles can make singers lazy when they are not worried about trying to get the text across clearly.”

But although productions staged in English may give a better representation of the full text than Supertitles can offer, Houston Opera’s Gockley says that translations come with their own set of problems.

“In our country there has been a notable lack of success of translated opera,” Gockley says. “Theaters are big, acoustics are perfect, and when you sing translated opera, you limit yourself to those artists who will learn translated opera. But those artists are not always the biggest, most expressive voices.”

So, as far as most opera presenters are concerned, Supertitles are here to stay.

But conductor Julius Rudel sees the Supertitles issue in a larger historical context. “It seems to be the trend these days. But opera has had all sorts of gimmicks at one time or another. I think after a while people will get tired of it. At least I hope so.”