Opera Cat's Opera Translations

Greetings, readers. I'm sorry for the recent hiatus; I was busy helping out with a friend's concert, and that took a lot of my time. But part of the help included doing some translations for the program, so I have a new batch of translations for you. Expect one post a day (or more) for the immediate future.

As always, if you have questions, comments, or requests, let me know.

A quick note: This journal has started to get comments from spam accounts. I intend to deal with any of those promptly and mercilessly, but if it seems like I've missed one, let me know.

Of course, comments from real people, rather than spambots, are always welcome! I don't expect this to happen, but if I have banned a legitimate account as a spammer, please e-mail me at opera (dot) translation (at) gmail (dot) com, and I will get things sorted out as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your patience while I deal with this issue.

Greetings, my faithful readers! I have a quick update and a few questions for you. I have two aria translations in progress right now -- Mefistofele's other aria from Boito and "Ach, so fromm" from Martha. Both of those arias use some archaic vocabulary that isn't in the dictionaries I have access to at home or on the internet, so posting those will be slightly delayed until I have a chance to go to the library and use the Big Dictionaries. Someday I will own big dictionaries of every language, and that will be awesome. They will be mine, all mine!

First question: I had the plan a while back of translating Verdi's obscure early operas. I got as far as a draft translation of Oberto and then got completely distracted. After I finish these two arias, should I go back to the idea of tackling whole operas, or should I keep posting random scenes and arias from a variety of sources? In either case, I can pause what I'm doing to take requests.

Second question: I've been toying with the idea of cross-posting to Dreamwidth. Do you have any opinions on that? (Like the idea, don't like it, don't care.)

I have an ad-blocker on my personal computer, so it's easy for me to ignore the ads that come with a free Livejournal account. This is the first time I've looked at this journal from another computer, and the ads are hideous. This is especially irritating to me because I've been playing around with the journal style again (check out the new header!) and trying to make it look nicer.

What do you think, my few faithful readers? Are the ads ignorable? Should I just go on as I have been? Make this a paid account? Switch to Dreamwidth, or cross-post on Livejournal and Dreamwidth? Get a real website to post translations on? (Sadly, any solution that involves money is going to have to be delayed, since I have only a temporary job at present and it doesn't pay well.) In the meantime, I've tried to find a less obnoxious placement for the ads and make them more relevant, though LJ seems to be ignoring me on the latter. Thoughts?

I've been neglecting this translation journal for a while, but now I'd like to go back to it. I've been fiddling around with the journal style and stuff, so if anyone likes or dislikes anything, please feel free to comment.

My current project is translating Verdi's very first opera, Oberto conte di S. Bonifacio, but I can be temporarily diverted from that if anyone has requests.

Since I actually have a reader now, I should update occasionally! I have a large backlog of translations on my computer that I will gradually upload here. Let me know if some formats work better than others, or if there's anything in particular you want to see. ( Read more... )

This journal is a place for me to post my translations of opera arias, ensembles, and scenes. I translate for fun, without pay, and on no set schedule. The translations you will find here are mostly literal, line-by-line translations from the original language to English.