Showing posts with label Elisabeth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elisabeth. Show all posts

Thursday, 1 May 2014

An Update

Sorry for my absence with regard to the whole subtitling on youtube. Life, as usual, has been pretty hectic. In fact, the last couple of months have been me doing an interview for, and getting into, a university in Amsterdam. The problem with this is that the 'moving process' will see me pretty busy until I start in August... and pretty busy after that too. Oh well, nothing new there!

Anyway, you're not reading this to find out about my chaotic life!

Marie Antoinette

I'm going to sit down and do some work on the next part now. I'm making no promises about  when it will actually be uploaded but I'm working on it! Also worth noting that I have done absolutely no work on this part at all so I am starting from scratch.

Elisabeth

A few things here. As a few people, including Yagami Xeus, have requested I continue with the updated Elisabeth subs, I will be uploading the remainder of the first act over the next period. I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to do this (as youtube hasn't got a feature to replace videos while maintaining comments I don't really want to delete the original versions). Anyway, once I've made up my mind about this, I will upload the updated versions.

Also, please see the fanbook project!


Wednesday, 23 April 2014

Elisabeth Fanbook Project



This post aims to explain the project and  answer some questions. If you want any more information, or have any other questions please feel free to contact Allumerlesoir or myself (Havanah) through tumblr, email, or however :-)

What is it?

A project, coordinated by Allumerlesoir and Havanah, with the aim of thanking the fan-favourite cast members of Elisabeth. Both of us have come across fans of the musical from around the world, united by a love of the brilliant work, and often wanting to say ‘thank you’ in some form. This was what we came up with.

We are planning on collecting various items of fan mail and collecting them in books to send to members of Elisabeth casts past and present. More details below!

Even if you aren't taking part personally, please do feel free to share information with anyone you think might be interested. However, please try to avoid official pages as it would be great (if a little idealistic) if the books were a surprise for the recipients :-)

Who are we making books for?

We asked people to suggest the artists they would most like to create books for and formed this list based on those suggestions. Each artist will have their own, unique, book.

Please make it clear who your submissions are for when sending. If you want to submit to more than one book then that’s fine :-)

The list is as follows:
·         Uwe Kröger
·         Pia Douwes
·         Maya Hakvoort
·         Máté Kamarás
·         Serkan Kaya
·         Annemieke van Dam
·         Mark Seibert
·         Oliver Arno
·         Kurosch Abbasi
·         Dolhai Attila
·         Szabó P. Szilveszter
·         Janza Kata

Joining in

What can be submitted?

Anything that isn’t creepy, can fit in an A4 (210x297mm or 8.2x11.6 inches) book and is flat. Seriously, anything that fits within those boundaries goes. A letter to the recipient of the book, a photo of you meeting them after a show, a piece of fan art, a photo of the Elisabeth themed birthday cake you made… anything! Try to keep the items one sided so that they can be stuck into a book. Also, it may be wise to leave a small border on things so that the main content of the submission is slightly smaller than A4 (to make for neater sticking!) 

The other thing, if you want to write a couple of lines to one person and nothing else then that’s fine. If you want to send several page’s worth to each person then that is also fine. The amount you do is totally up to you and no submission is too big or small (as long as it fits in the book)!

 

What language should I write in?

We’re going on the concept that English is probably most accessible and expect most submissions to be in English. If the person has been a member of the German cast then German would be fine. If they’re a member of the Hungarian cast then Hungarian would be great. If you know that the person speaks another language (because of their own nationality etc.) then please feel free to use that.

 

How to submit?

Submissions will be accepted through email or through snail-mail post.

Guidelines for postal submissions:

Email Havanah (b.chadburn@yahoo.co.uk) for a postal address. Note that this address will be in the U.K. (or if you leave it later to join in, The Netherlands as she is moving) so be aware that it might cost a bit extra if you’re sending from another part of the world. You can send whatever you want to submit here.

Guidelines for email submissions:

Please send all email submissions to Havanah (b.chadburn@yahoo.co.uk). There are, however, some extra limitations for email submissions. If you have scanned a letter or line drawing then please ensure that it is in black and white. Ink intensive pieces or colour cannot be printed because of cost. If you have written a word document letter (etc.) and have used a non-standard font, it might be best to save as a PDF to ensure this transfers properly.

If you want to submit a photo or a piece of art via email then Havanah will pay to have some pieces printed at 6x4 inches, photograph style.

If there are any questions about what can be accepted by email then please do not hesitate to contact either of us :-)

 


When’s the deadline for submissions?

There is no set deadline at the moment.

 

How is it being funded? (a.k.a. do I have to pay to join in?)

If you are posting your submission then you have to pay for your own postage. Other than that, this is being funded by Havanah and therefore it’s free to participate. It’s completely free if you email.

 

Do I have to give any personal information?

Basically, no. You don’t have to give anything you’re not happy giving. While it would be nice to include your name and country/state in your submission this isn’t compulsory. The only information that you need to share is an email address when submitting (as you’ll have to email Havanah) but this will be kept 100% private.



 

After they’re finished

Will I be able to see the finished fan books?

The aim is to photograph the submissions and create a photo gallery online somewhere, probably on the facebook page. If you do not want your submission photographed and uploaded then please state this when submitting – it’s not a problem but obviously we need to know!

Also, please state if you want anything blurred out in the photographs. Addresses and email addresses (if included) will be blurred as a matter of course.  Names and countries/states will be left visible unless you request otherwise.

How are you going to get the books to the people?

In order of preference: Hand delivered at stage door, posted to theatre where they are currently working, posted to a dedicated fan-mail address, posted to an agent. With the postal options we’ll check in advance that the institution is happy to forward to the relevant performer. We’ve managed to locate an address for all performers except for Máté but he’s still actively working so something should come up. Obviously, we can’t guarantee that the person will receive the work as other factors may come into play (like rubbish postal systems) but every effort will be made from our end!

Friday, 28 February 2014

Fanbook Project

Chatting to friends and Elisabeth fans I've come across quite a few people who have wanted to send their thanks to the creators and artists behind the musical. Allumerlesoir and I were discussing this a few days back and came up with the idea of creating fan books for the creative team and 'favourite performers'. 

The idea is to create several books to send to members of global Elisabeth shows, past and present - the people who we as fans particularly appreciate and admire. These books would be artist specific (i.e. a book sent to Uwe Kröger would have letters to/pictures to/etc Uwe and would be unique to him). 

As for what the fanbooks would contain: anything that's not creepy and can fit within a book (dimensions to be confirmed but probably A4 which is approx. 210x297mm or 8.3x11.7inches). It would be great if people wrote/made their own things but if people wanted to email letters or messages which could then be printed off that would be fine - I'll only be able to do black and white text printing through because I can't afford to print full colour or ink dense things en mass. I have a (UK) postal address which I can give out to receive submissions and I will then assemble the project and send it on via agents, theatres, or where possible hand deliver to the stage door. More information on the project itself (etc.) when we get things going properly!

At the moment we've spoken to people and worked out that there's some general interest but would like to ask who people would like to send things to. We will create a fanbook for anyone linked to Elisabeth as long as there is enough demand for that person and it is possible to find some way to get the book to them. So, if you would personally be interested, or have any questions, please do contact myself or Allumerlesoir and tell us who you think we should all write to!


Where to contact me:
Through the contact form below
Through tumblr
Facebook
Twitter 
Youtube
Or leave a comment :-)

Friday, 7 February 2014

New Elisabeth Tour 2014-15

So, this appeared on the internet a couple of days ago:

The musical "Elisabeth" by Sylvester Levay (music) and Michael Kunze (libretto and lyrics) is expected to tour in Germany again in autumn 2014. This emerges after an audition call from the production company La Belle. The auditions take place in February in Berlin and in March in Vienna.  According to the casting call, the tour should last until at least June 2015. The exact dates and tour locations are not yet known.

-translated from thatsMusical


This was posted on the sixth of this month and I have been trying to get onto the website of La Belle since, to see if there's any more information. It refused to load - I assume there's been too many people trying to view the site and that this has caused problems. Anyway, I just managed and this is what they have to say:

A La Belle touring production, directed by Harry Kupfer and choreographed by Dennis Callahan.

By Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay

Audition
on Monday 24.02.2014 in 12161 Berlin
on Monday 10.03.2014 in 1010 Vienna

Elisabeth (Empress of Austria)
Aged 25-40 years, strong personality with exceptional musical and acting skills.
Belt/Soprano with ab'

Der Tod
Aged 25-40 years, charismatic, seductive, must be able to move well.
High Pop-Baritone/Tenor to b'

Luigi Lucheni
Aged 25-40 years, very good actor with excellent singing voice, high Pop-Baritone/Tenor to b'

Emperor Franz Joseph
Elisabeth's husband, very good singer, aged 25-40 years, baritone to g'

Archduchess Sophie
Elisabeth's mother-in-law, good actress with a strong singing voice, authoritarian presentation.
Aged 40-55 years, Alto/Mezzo

Crown Prince Rudolf
Elisabeth's son, fragile character, stage age of 25 years old, must be able to move very well.
Pop-tenor to b'

Duke Max
Elisabeth's father, actor with very good singing skills, age 40-60 years, Bass-Baritone (classical)

Ludovica/Frau Wolf
Elisabeth's mother/madame, accomplished actress with a strong singing voice, age 30-40, Alto/Mezzo

First-class ensemble, fully trained musical singers of all voice types (classical and rock), must be able to dance too!

Accent free German is required.

Please  prepare at least one ballad and one up-tempo number in German (from Elisabeth, if possible). Bring sheet music glued and in the correct order. And please don't forget dance clothes.

Rehearsals begin the beginning of October 2014 (Minimum contract period to June 2015)

Applications with CV and photo (preferably by email) to casting@labellemusical.de or by post to
La Belle Tournee GmbH, Hackhausen 1, 42697 Solingen

We will notify of appointment scheduling.
-translated from La Belle Musical

The above translations are a bit rushed as it's late and I've had a really long difficult day but all the same, isn't this exciting! I don't know what's meant by Elisabeth's vocal range of Ab' and I might not have translated it properly (maybe the 's' signifies sharp or something, I don't know) but my technical musical vocab is limited in English and pretty much non existent in German ;-)

It's great that Elisabeth's not going to be gone for long and it'll be exciting to see who's cast!

Saturday, 13 July 2013

Names: to translate or not to translate?

Every now and then, translation can pose some problems. Do you translate something literally or change the literal meaning to get more of the implication and flavour? What do you do when there is an obvious rhythm, rhyme, plosive structure that matters but can’t be carried across into English? How do you translate it when someone has been playing with their words? What do you do with names?

Usually, when translating into English I choose to keep the original name. I think that most of the people who are reading my subtitles could work out that, Zsuzsanna, for example, is the Hungarian spelling of Susanna. However, even if this is not the case I think that everyone could learn that when I write Zsuzsanna I am referring to a certain character or person.

However, with the musicals that I translate there are sometimes some additional difficulties with characters being well known or having more unusual character names. Der Tod, for example, is often used by English speaking fans of the musical Elisabeth to refer to the character himself. In Japanese the character is actually called "トート", "Toto", which is derived from his German character name. However, I hardly think that Der Tod’s mother named him that when he was born, and somewhere he probably has a perfectly ordinary name (like Brian), so it’s probably good practice to translate this to Death, in the musical. It’s more a descriptive title than a name.

So what about historical characters? Franz Joseph, for example, seems to appear in most English history books, that I have seen, as Francis Joseph. How should this be written? Quite frankly, it really annoys me to see him referred to as Francis so my choice here was selfish rather than based purely on logic. That said, it’s probably right to keep it in the original German, which is sometimes used in English anyway, especially when Franz Joseph is the name that was used by the Emperor and in the musical. He’s also not the most famous ruler in history – I was a history student and most of my classes hadn’t heard of him - so people are less likely to need to know who he is to enjoy the musical anyway.

However, it’s not always that simple. If I were to ask you to tell me about King Ludwig XVI you are unlikely to be able to tell me much about the gentleman I’m referring to. If I were to ask you about King Louis XVI you will probably be able to tell me a bit more, especially if I also said he was the husband of Marie Antoinette. It seems sensible, therefore, for me to choose to translate Ludwig back to its original French and away from the German version used in the musical of Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette herself is known by her French name (which is bizarre considering that, as an Austrian by birth, Maria Antonia’s original name was German anyway) so I also feel there should be some continuity. All the same, I feel really bad deviating from my usual ‘use the name used in the play/musical/text’ resolution.

So here’s the question: Does the translation, or lack of translation, of names into English matter to you? Which do you prefer?

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Subbing, Translating, Reviewing and... stuff!

Ah, free time…
Yep, I’m still not used to not having to study every five minutes. It’s leaving me feeling quite lost to be quite honest!

As promised, I’m here with an update about my subtitling. I’ve roughly timed most of the next part of Marie Antoinette. This is the most tedious part… well, maybe second most tedious so I’m pleased to get it out of the way as it’s usually the bit I’ll procrastinate over.

The really good news is that I had just written a huge apologetic blog post saying how I’ve lost my libretto etc and therefore I didn’t know when I’d be able to finish subbing the part. Went out without posting it and, while out, found the libretto.

So, I’m going to sit down tomorrow and I will attempt to finish this part of Marie Antoinette. I say attempt because you have no idea how much trouble I have with the technical aspects that come after translation and timing. Fingers crossed.

As for Tanz, I think I wrote about how I was going to translate this, I plan to have the libretto done before I go away in late September. I’m actually really looking forward to doing this properly. If you want a copy of the English libretto then please contact me here or elsewhere (see below) with an email address. As always, I will not send things I do not own but if you want English librettos or subtitle files (depending on what I have) I am willing to email those.

Oh, and before I go, I finally got round to reviewing  The Reluctant Empress by Brigitte Hamann, having read it for the third time. If you’re interested then I’ve posted this on my other blog here.

So, until tomorrow... probably. See ya!

Saturday, 29 September 2012

Elisabeth returns to Hungary

The full cast has been announced and it was not 100% what I was expecting but I think it promises to be good.

Elisabeth Janza Kata, Vágó Bernadett, Füredi Nikolett

Luigi Lucheni Mészáros Árpad Zsolt, Kerényi Miklós Máté, Földes Tamás

A Halál Szabó P. Szilveszter, Dolhai Attila, Homonnay Zsolt

Ferencz József Szomor György, Bálint Ádám

Zsófia Molnár Piroska, Nádasi Veronika

Rudolf Szabó Dávid, Kocsis Dénes, Kádár Szabolcs

Max Dézsy Szabó Gábor

Ludovika/Frau Wolf Felfödi Anikó, Csengeri Ottília, Kapócs Zsóka

Eszterházy Sz. Nagy Ildikó, Ullmann Zsuzsa

Helene Fábián Nikolett

Sztáray Nagy Bea

Grünne Csuha Lajos

Rauscher Jantyik Csaba

Hübner Petridisx Hrisztosz

Kempen Oláh Tibor, Vizi Dávid

Schwarzenberg Péter Richárd

Andrássy Gyula György-Rózsa Sándor

Batthyány Elemér Kádár Szabolcs

Windisch Czigány Judit

Magyar anya Mirtse Réka

All the info is from the Operettszínház website. Any typos on names are my own, however!


Edit 21/05/2014 
Some changes were made between my original posting of this on livejournal and the cast announcement. Not the end of the world :-)