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Part of
Opera in Translation: Unity and diversity
Edited by Adriana Şerban and Kelly Kar Yue Chan
[Benjamins Translation Library 153] 2020
► pp. 315–336

Intertextuality in nineteenth-century Italian librettos: To translate or not to translate?

A case study of Adriana Lecouvreur

| Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

This study looks at whether it is feasible or desirable to translate stylistic intertextuality in opera librettos, particularly wording and utterances from late medieval and Renaissance Italian poetry which are put into the mouths of dramatic characters in 19th- and early 20th-century Italian operas. The paper describes the various techniques available to deal with such situations and notes that they are incompatible with a modernising-naturalising strategy. Rather, they can be used only as part of an archaising modality of translation that audiences and critics only accept in a diluted form. The discussion that follows is essentially based on two scenes from Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur.

Keywords: intertextuality, allusion, ungrammaticality, Italian librettos, Renaissance epics, carpe diem , naturalising translation, archaising translation, Adriana Lecouvreur
Article outline
  • 1.Specific issues about opera intertextuality
  • 2.Intertextuality and naturalising translation
  • 3.The technique of compensation
  • 4.Other techniques: Internal marking and re-creation
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.153.15edo
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