Archive for Musicals.Net Musicals.Net |
| Fee |
Stockholm Production reviewWell, finally got the Stockholm production.The cast was all good, excepting Svetlana (who was pretty screechy and wailing) and I don't really care for how the Arbiter was portrayed, although I mind him a little less than Svetlana. Tommy was fantastic, as expected, and Helen Sjöholm, she needs to get more exposure outside Sweden! Why most people have not heard of her, I really can't figure out. Anders Ekborg was good at portraying Freddie as an outright jerk, but I felt he overacted a little in "Vem Ser Ett Barn", or "Pity the Child". Getting that out of the way... I feel the director of this production really made some missteps in Act 2. There was a big chunk of Act 2 in a circus, which I felt didn't really fit into the plot at all, even if it was streamlined back into the love story. I felt they should have broken it up into different scenes in different places, and maybe not have Freddie humiliate Florence in "Vem Kunde Ana" ("The Deal/No Deal") in front of the circus people. Another part I feel didn't go well was "Endgame". Or rather, the last half of that song. It really makes the situation awkward to have the hotel staff yelling at Anatoly and Anatoly standing on the bed at the end of the song. It was supposed to be a climactic song, and they just totally... blew it. And then there was no climax to go towards, so that was really what slowed the second act down. A perfectly simple way to solve that problem would be to either move "Endgame" to the front of Act 2 and have another climactic song to replace it, or leave "Endgame" at the end and then go towards that conclusion. (Or something along those lines.) Regarding the streamlining and re-organizing of songs, I think that the story had almost literally no plot towards the second half. The first act was good, and the pace moved very quickly, but the second act just dragged. They could have put in some of the other filler blackmail songs in it to give the second act more substance. Another option would be to turn it into a split match and follow more along the lines of the Concept Album so there was more reason for Molokov hounding Anatoly. There was nothing else other than the KGB agents taking in Svetlana and his son to blackmail Anatoly to return to Russia. There was no other blackmail, no other tactics to get Anatoly to lose (so far as I see). I didn't even understand why they wanted him to lose in the first place. The concept album of Chess had a great metaphor that everyone was just playing games with each other in the end with no attention to the consequences, but that was lost in the Stockholm production and was one of the things sorely missed, among others, including a climax. The fact that it all didn't work out so well in the second act is really a pity, because the cast was consistently great, and the staging was certainly quite lavish. I'm afraid that I might end up watching the first act more frequently than the second one. |
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| maryjolly88 |
Just a little thing about Helen Sjöholm, she's playing the title character in 'Kristina' by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus at Carnegie Hall next week, so hopefully she'll gain some recognition among American audiences as well. She really deserves it! | ||||||
| Mademoiselle Lanoire |
You beat me to it. I was hoping to go, but I couldn't schedule a trip that week. |
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| Fee |
Ah, yes, I heard about her playing Kristina in Carnegie Hall. I thought it was a rumour, though--is it really true? If so, then that's great! She really deserves more recognition. | ||||||
| operafantomet |
They've sold tickets for the event, at least.... 
I couldn't stand the Swedish productions's Svetlana either. OMG bad acting and ruined voice! |
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| maryjolly88 |
Hello  Yes, it's true, here's a little article and video: http://www.broadway.com/buzz/kristina-is-no-dancing-queen/ I've heard that both nights are sold out or nearly sold out, hope that's true.
Sorry for going OT. 
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| Fee |
Muchas gracias for all the news! And thanks so much for the link! I sure hope PBS is taping this... Or else that'd be quite a pity. |
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| Hans |
Does anyone have anything to say about the Swedish translations?
I hate them. They hardly resemble the TR texts at all. Granted, the original lyrics are at times very awkward, but they do have a style. Translations should reflect that, imo. |
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| Cadriel |
Although my Swedish isn't that great, I can't comment much on the actual quality of translation, but I do appreciate some of the turns of phrase. "Lämna" is one of the more memorable - the second verse particularly (starting with "En öbeskrivlig längtan...") I find quite lovely. There are some songs that really capture the spirit to me of the originals - "Historien om schack," "Vem ser ett barn," "Dar jag ville vara" (particularly "lyckohjul" for "crazy wheel")... It strikes me I guess as having more pathos than Rice's lyrics, which sometimes verge on being too clever for their own good.
Would you care to comment on what you feel are the weaknesses and differences for the English-speakers on the board? |
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| Fee |
I don't think you were addressing me, but I'd like to put in my two cents anyhow...
I don't know Swedish, and I've only got a rough translation from online, but it seems to me the Swedish lyrics are more poetic than the original. Tim Rice's lyrics are certainly very clever, but the Swedish ones seem to get the emotions across better. |
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| High-baritonne |
I feel the opposite, there are at times where Tim Rice's lyrics get so smart that people who see the show for the first time has a hard time understanding everything. I felt that the Swedish lyrics for Merano, Where I Want to Be, You Want to Lose Your only Friend, Nobody's Side, and Mountain Duet were far better than the original Tim Rice lyrics, which are to clever to be translated. |
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| Hans |
I know that the original lyrics tend to be too clever for their own good. That's Tim Rice' style in general. So they should have kept that when translating. Losing the style and tone of the original is unforgivable in translating. No matter how flawed the original is, this is about the integrity of the piece. The Swedish version makes me feel they just as well could have chosen some random pieces of music and set new lyrics to them to create a show, as if the TR texts and their style aren't as much a part of Chess as the music and the plot. Imo, the awkwardness of the TR lyrics also contributes to the overall artificial feeling of the show. I appreaciate that, but that's just my personal taste. In addition is this artificial feeling coherent with the concept that chess=war=love, and that everyone's playing a game. The Swedish Chess lyrics are in the league of the Kristina lyrics. They aren't awful, but pseudopoetic and terribly, terribly boring. (I'm currently readind a Swedish PhD thesis on translations of My Fair Lady to Scandinavian languages. It's brilliant, and states explicitly what is demanded of a translation of texts in musical theatre. I have also heard a brilliant Norwegian translation of Joseph. There even the flubs, like pyjamas/farmers and biscuit/district were transposed to the new laguage. That's how it should be done.) |
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| Cadriel |
Well, to be fair Rice has a tendency to rewrite perfectly good lyrics at the drop of a hat - the worst example are the five or so variants on "Budapest is Rising"'s final verse. There's obviously got to be some license given to what scans, since Swedish has a totally different rhythm and postpositional definite articles and a different sensibility. It is kind of odd, in that the lyrics seem to swing, from song to song, between being fairly literal adaptations and being total rewrites. Some songs exemplify this internally; the rock section of "Merano" has literal moments and totally non-literal moments. "Ungern '56" is fairly literal in Freddie's parts but has a new verse and interlude added to it. As for Rice's tone, I'm not sure philosophically if this is even something you could go for. So much of Rice's best work is wordplay; you couldn't possibly translate "Take my blues as read" and have it take on the double or triple meaning it actually has in English. A "real" translation would mean creating a similar yet parallel structure in Swedish, and I'm honestly a bit skeptical about that.
You mean "alla bara spelar sitt spel"?  Or maybe "De ser schack som ett spel." I do think some of the key songs - "Lämna," "Mitt hjärtas land," "Vem ser ett barn" - were done some justice, if not quite in the word play, at least in the characterizations.
I do understand what you're saying. But for me, the Swedish libretti of a couple of musicals are pretty much the only Swedish text I've come into extensive contact with. Well, I've seen several Bergman films but there I'm usually wrapped up in the cinematography, not the language.
De gustibus non est disputandum. (There's no accounting for taste. Although it would be fun to see a song or two done up in Latin or macaronic Latin. "Ludus Latrunculorum"...) |
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| Hans |
I don't know how familiar you are with translations of English texts, wordplay and puns to Scandinavian languages? I'm not saying it's easy, but it's possible, and some of them are very good. Alex, I assume you're familiar with the Bømlo production? Can you tell what the translations were like there? |
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| High-baritonne |
I could provide the libretto if you want, but the translations are pretty bad, they are very odd.
Kvart sjakk parti er strategi Snart strir Sovjet mot USA Aust møter vest men kven er best Det ser med i Italia! or Alt det som skjer omkring meg Har ingen klar logikk Eg aner ikkje kor eg står! Eg ser min venn og elsker Sloss for sitt siste stikk Før han forlater meg å går! Her høster ingen det de sår Alle bare spiller et spill Bøyer regler nett som dei vill Alle tenker kun på seg sjølv! or Eg spelar spelet slik eg vil det Tok minste motstands veg Eg hadde kunnskap, mot og vilje Enkelt og trekka seg Vern om det barn som står aleina Forsvarsløst, alt for seint til å ta seg bort Allting går litt for fort Eg ringte aldri, tok'kje telfeon Eg var kun hennar son! But one of my favorite translations must be: Ensomheten er min største fiende Smerte gir meg bare tomme ord Ein gong då slapp eg alt og kom til han Nå er muren mellom oss for stor Eg sku gjerne gjort det hele om igjen Kjærligheten er eit farleg spel For tenk at eg var mye yngre da Kjenner no at eg veit kva han vil! You get my drift, pretty bad, except for the first part of Svetlana's verse in I Know Him So Well, which I find much better than Tim Rice's. |
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| Hans |
I don't know how familiar you are with translations of theatre texts in general. But what you are describing is more or less a definition of translating. I don't quite get how you can be sceptical about that. When for example Shakespeare is translated to Norwegian, both the metre, the rhymes and the puns have to be recreated to as high degree as possible. Otherwise it's not Shakespeare anymore. The same goes for Tim Rice. A good translations takes into consideration the form as well as the content. If it sacrifices the one for the benefit of the other, it's not a good translation. And Alex, those examples are perhaps not sensational, but I don't think they are very bad either. Can you tell why exactly you object to them? (I would naturally love to have the translations Solid translations is one of my favourite hobby horses)
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| High-baritonne |
I'll try to provide it for you, but I'm leaving for Oslo tomorrow, so it might take some time. | ||||||
| Hans |
There's no hurry 
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| Thom_Boyer |
So...to put this in musical theatre terms, that's what Herbert Kretzmer did with Les Mis, right? Oh, wait... I really think it's high time that the Stockholm production stop being treated as a translation and more of a loose adaptation. It's a completely different show and all the better for it. |
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| dallasanta |
Dvarg - I would love to have the full Norwegian libretto to Chess. Det vore kjempeflott! | ||||||
| High-baritonne |
It is I who have the complete libretto, not Dvarg. I'll see what I can do, but I have to find my script somewhere, it's a mess in my papers right now, and as I said I'm off to Oslo in two hours time, so it won't be found in a while. | ||||||
| Fee |
I've been interested in the debate about what makes a "true" translation. It's interesting to hear the different opinions. | ||||||
| Hans |
Who claimed that those Les Mis translations are the model of how translations should be?
I agree with this. The show Swedish version may be better dramaturgically, but it has boring, uninspired texts out of style with the rest of the show. And it's unfaithful to the main creative force behind the show. I think that's a too great price to pay.
A good translation keeps as much as possible of the content and stylistic elemtents of the source text and transposes it into a target text. If it doesn't, it's a bad translation. It's not a debate, really. |
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| Monsieur D'Arque |
This whole debate reminds moe of the Threepenny Opera, which has no "definitive" translation. There are four major ones. The Blitzstein, which Kurt Weill and Brecht personally liked, though it's often considered softened, is a popular one, as is the less sugar-coated Manheim/Willet. Both of these are considered translations. The other two, Jeremy Sams' Donmar Warehouse translation and the recent Wallace Shawn, though translations as well, had to bill themselves as "adaptations" due to the liberties they had taken. | ||||||
| Thom_Boyer |
ONE of the main creative forces behind the show. |
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| Brother Marvin Hinten, S. |
And a creative force who has consistently failed to nail a specific vision to the wall at that. | ||||||
| Fee |
I have a question regarding this show: Didn't Benny and Björn approve the show? It seems a little unlikely that they would go with another major production of Chess without approving it (especially if the show was in Sweden, their homeland). So whatever the translator did, they must have approved it... | ||||||
| Thom_Boyer |
My understanding is that Benny and Björn were the main driving forces behind this incarnation of the show, reassembling a number of the creative forces behind Kristina to make the Swedish incarnation. Tim Rice was in on the summits as well and gave the production his blessing, but my understanding is that he left the Stockholm team to do their own thing with the show; hence why I believe it should be treated more as an adaptation or another version than a translation. (Heck, for all we know, I'm wrong about Tim Rice having been hands-off, and the translations were based off a set of unpublished/unperformed rewrites Tim Rice made himself.) | ||||||
| Fee |
The way it sounds, it seems like this show should be treated more as an adaptation and not as a translation. The lyrics in a few songs are totally different from the original (ex. Inte Jag), and the story line is pretty far from the Concept Album or London Concert version. | ||||||
| Hans |
It was Tim Rice who had the idea, initiated it and came up with concept, wasn't it? I fully recognise the flaws in Chess, and that many (if not most) of them must be attributed to Rice. The Swedish texts still don't do what a good translation should do. Even if you prefer to call it an adaptation (which is fine with me, I'm concerned abut the texts as translations here), I think one solution could be to at least write Tim Rice pastiche in Swedish. I think that might have preserved the integrity of the show to a greater degree. If, for example, the Swedish version should be brought to an English speaking stage, what sort of texts should be used? Ought Tim Rice to suffer the embarassment of translating someone else's text into English? |
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| Cadriel |
Ugh. Sorry, Tim Rice is a clever and witty lyricist, sometimes to the point where he gets the better of himself. A Tim Rice pastiche is something I most decidedly would not want to see in a full-length musical translation. I don't think he's the kind of lyricist who you can make a sort of "version" of in other languages; better to preserve as much of the meaning as possible and make it flow in the target language. |
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| Fee |
Ugh... A pastiche doesn't sound like it would translate very well into Swedish. It would be really difficult to include all the wordplay, all the double meanings, and whatever else Tim Rice has thrown into Chess in Swedish. It is better to just get the overall meaning and make it flow in the target language rather than make it very clunky and difficult. | ||||||
| Hans |
Have you not read what I have written at all? This has already been done successfully. It IS difficult to translate Tim Rice' style to Scandinavian languages. But it is possible. And even if there hadn't already been good TR translations to Scandinavian languages, that wouldn't mean it was impossible to discuss the possibility of good TR translations. The point is the principle. Why do you think it's more difficult to translate or pastiche Tim Rice' texts than texts by lyricists like Porter, Sondheim and Lerner, btw? |
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| Heavylove |
I love her for that part! Kristina was my favorite musical all categories untill I stumbeld into Cats recently (By a chance on the same theatre I saw Kristina!) Helen Sjöholm is one of the best singers ever! I wounder what she could do with a song like "Memory"? |
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| Heavylove |
If they can translate Cats into swedish they certanly can translate Chess! And remember the creater of Chess is swedish (Björn and Benny) 
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