Most importantly, while at the Canadian Opera Company, Mansouri invented
surtitles, the practice of projecting lyrics in the audience's native language onto screens flanking the stage so that viewers could understand performances often sung in German or Italian.
"They will artfully do a kind of '
surtitle translation' as you wouldn't want to translate everything, especially something wordy like La boheme or Cosi fan tutte.
With
surtitles introducing the musical set pieces, this has more of a feel of an impressive collection of pieces of music than a unified work.
I found nevertheless that all six singers managed to put across the majority of their words, though in such cases, the safety net of
surtitles doesn't come amiss.
Wednesday July 17 and Thursday July 18 (with English
surtitles), Ancient Theatre of Curium, Limassol.
This production is sung in Italian with English
surtitles.
The production will be sung in Italian with
surtitles.
The story follows the struggle and heartache between Nubian princess, Aida, and the Egyptian warrior Radames, told in Italian with English
surtitles.
One screen of
surtitles was obscured by the staging, so you had to choose whether to watch the performers, listen and read or be forever twisting back and forth.
Directed by Mared Swain, and with animated
surtitles in both English and Welsh, A Good Clean Heart asks whether the love between two siblings raised in different cultures can overcome the barriers between them.
The performance is sung in Italian with English
surtitles and stars international sopranos Maria Tonina and Alyona Kistenyova.
THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST INDIES .SUNG IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH
SURTITLES.: Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry.
The projected
surtitles were too dim and the font too small to be read comfortably.
One thing that bothered me was that without the
surtitles (provided in both English and Arabic), the opera would have been difficult to understand as the acting wasn't clear enough.
