Marie Antoinette Part Seven

This part features:

• Marie Antoinette and Axel's secret meeting in one of the gardens of Versailles
• Axel attempting to bring their relationship to an end
• A harsh warning for Marie

I really like this scene. It wasn't too tricky to translate (for once!) and, like the last scene, really allows us to get to know one of the key women. It's probably the first time that we really see Marie's vulnerability and lack of comprehension of anything outside of her own happiness. It also really gives us an insight into the relationship between Axel and Marie. He obviously really loves her but does she actually love him?

During the farewell song, Gefül und Verstand, which starts at around 3:30, I been overly flexible with one word in particular. "Gefül" translates as "feelings" or "emotions" but, in this context, it translates much more naturally as  "heart" and this is what I chose to use. Obviously, the meaning isn't actually changed (in this context) but the translation is not literal as the literal translation felt a bit clunky.

There's also some icky layout with the overlapping singing. Although I've found a way to get around the layout problems I was having this work around doesn't allow me to fine tune quite as much so we have a bit of ickiness. Technical terms here!

Anyway, the next part, part eight, will be the last part of Act One. I can also reveal that, although I haven't split the Act Two video I have worked out where each split will happen and there will be 16 parts in total.

Marie Antoinette Part Six

This part features:

• Blatant foreshadowing that makes Marie unhappy
• The people expressing their distaste for the Queen
• Madame Lapin discovery of the perils of her job
• The people really expressing their distaste for the Queen
• More bad late night translation and subbing, of course

The part between 5 minutes and 7 minutes features some violence which, while crucial to the plot, might be a bit upsetting for some people.

This one was obviously delayed again, firstly due to me struggling with the mummer's song and secondly because I lost my libretto again. I'm not the most organised person ever!

The main difficulty, translation wise was the song performed by the citizens and mummers. It's bawdy and that always makes life hard, I think! I've no doubt that I've made mistakes in this but it's not crucial to the plot so, if I'm honest, I'm not too worried. I'm more worried that my brain went fuzzy because of this and I made error later in the thing but blegh!

There are also some really annoying moments where they're using words that just don't feel right when translated into English. One example is when Margrid calls Madame Lapin her "protectress". Genuine translation. Something like "patron" would feel more natural but change the meaning too much, I guess.

The main song in this part is "Ich weine nicht mehr" and it is really powerful and lovely in a desperate, dark way so :-) 

Of course, technical problems happened along the way... it just wouldn't be me without technical problems! That said, I think I've managed to work out how to solve a lot of the new formatting issues I'd been having. It's involved me having to actually learn some of the subtitle coding but oh well. As long as nothing changes with the programs I use (it was an update that triggered the problems) I should hopefully not have as many problems in future. Yay!

I'll start on part seven a.s.a.p. and it will focus on Marie and Axel... remember them?


Are you a fan of Elisabeth too? If so, please click here for information on a current fan project :-)

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 :-)

How's the subbing going then?

Oh yes, that.

Well, life is taking over once again, in oh so many ways. I have a personal blog to talk about all that though so I wont harp on too much. Things aren't likely to get any easier though as I'm still refurbishing a house and, to top it all off, will be traveling out to the Netherlands for a university interview. Okay, I'm not complaining about the latter ;-)

I am, however, going to be making an active effort to sit down and subtitle. This probably means more late night subbing full of typos but it's better than nothing, I suppose. I'm sure that people will quickly point out any mistakes!

I desperately want to get Marie Antoinette finished before the end of June because, come the summer, I will definitely have other things to focus on!

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!