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Phantom of the Opera babblings
Sep. 20th, 2022 11:22 pm
So POTO on Broadway is closing, and I have ~feelings~, because Phantom was ... not my first obsession (that would probably be My Little Pony), not even really my first fandom (Star Trek), but it was something I listened to on repeat* and fundamental to my adolescence and college and entire fandom experience.
(* to the point that I literally wore out a cassette tape version, while I was away from home at a summer camp (for number theory). The minor meltdown I had makes more sense through the lens of probably-autistic. Luckily I was able to acquire a copy fairly quickly.)
I spent most of teenagerhood convinced for some reason that I was the only weirdo who liked Phantom, so when I showed up to my college dorm and there was another person down the hall a) in a wheelchair b) with a service dog c) whose dorm room was already plastered with POTO decorations ... well, she and I kind of became bffs. And we may have seen the show a lot.
(I mean, c'mon: we were like half an hour away from San Francisco, which had a standing (not touring) production, and the theater had no elevator (and thus no accessibility for the cheap seats) so wheelchair users got bac-of-orchestra seats for nosebleed-terrace prices. How could we NOT go a bunch?)
She/we also organized online fandom things, including a mailing list; o the people I met through POTO, several got me into Buffy (both show and fandom) and Stars War (ditto, especially prequel), and those two led to way more fandom shows and communities. (I may have found myself there anyway, through different paths, but it wouldn't be the same.)
POTO fandom also introduced me to the concept of recordings in other languages. For years now my favorite recording is German (my language skills are rusty but I follow along well enough and know the story anyway) and second favorite is Japanese (language skills abysmal but the voice qualities are excellent.)
At one point I was working on a project to compare translations of Music of the Night. For each language, have a line by line analysis of the text, the literal translation, and the English counterpart. (It was inherently English-centric, though I considered trying to find someone for each language who could do a literal translation the other way.) I never even got finished with the German version, which at the time I was fluent enough to do myself. (I wish I'd considered translation as a major, or at least focus, because I was interested but didn't realize it was studyable.)
I've been listening to (the German) POTO for the last few days, and one thing I keep coming back to is translation. Sometimes it's just minor word choice, sometimes it's appreciating that the rhyming banter in Notes had the same tight pattern (and equal frustration that the equivalent care wasn't taken with the wrote/written error*), and sometimes just fascination with how the meaning changes.
* English version: "Isn't this the letter you wrote?" / "And what is it, that we're meant to have wrote? (Pause) ...written." Which works because "wrote" is the direct rhyme but "written" is grammatically correct. But the German recording has "Schrieben Sie an mich diesen Brief?" / "Nun verraten Sie was steht in dem (Bruf) -- Brief" which doesn't work because... I'm not sure if it's even a word, and it isn't required by the rhyme and aaaahhhh why.
...anyway. The biggest thing is the Phantom's last linse, which
[Shit, I have a cat on my lap, lol. Maybe I'll finish this tomorrow instead. ]
...which in English is "you alone could make my song take flight / it's over now, the music of the night", which calls textually back to the end of Music of the Night (you alone can &c, help me make the music of the night) but is also very ... it never quite made complete sense why Christine was the only person in the world with a good enough voice. (I know, I know, love/obsession on his part plus gullibility on hers plus he's now got murderous mobs after him, so it's harder to start over, but anyway that's not the point.) German version it's "Du allein hat mich von mir befreit, nun endet die Musik der Dunkelheit" -- that is, "you alone have freed me from myself" (same last line). Doesn't call back, does rhyme, and also just feels ... better somehow? More poetic? I just *like* it better.
Anyway I've been working on this entry for three days so I'm gonna shut up now...
So POTO on Broadway is closing, and I have ~feelings~, because Phantom was ... not my first obsession (that would probably be My Little Pony), not even really my first fandom (Star Trek), but it was something I listened to on repeat* and fundamental to my adolescence and college and entire fandom experience.
(* to the point that I literally wore out a cassette tape version, while I was away from home at a summer camp (for number theory). The minor meltdown I had makes more sense through the lens of probably-autistic. Luckily I was able to acquire a copy fairly quickly.)
I spent most of teenagerhood convinced for some reason that I was the only weirdo who liked Phantom, so when I showed up to my college dorm and there was another person down the hall a) in a wheelchair b) with a service dog c) whose dorm room was already plastered with POTO decorations ... well, she and I kind of became bffs. And we may have seen the show a lot.
(I mean, c'mon: we were like half an hour away from San Francisco, which had a standing (not touring) production, and the theater had no elevator (and thus no accessibility for the cheap seats) so wheelchair users got bac-of-orchestra seats for nosebleed-terrace prices. How could we NOT go a bunch?)
She/we also organized online fandom things, including a mailing list; o the people I met through POTO, several got me into Buffy (both show and fandom) and Stars War (ditto, especially prequel), and those two led to way more fandom shows and communities. (I may have found myself there anyway, through different paths, but it wouldn't be the same.)
POTO fandom also introduced me to the concept of recordings in other languages. For years now my favorite recording is German (my language skills are rusty but I follow along well enough and know the story anyway) and second favorite is Japanese (language skills abysmal but the voice qualities are excellent.)
At one point I was working on a project to compare translations of Music of the Night. For each language, have a line by line analysis of the text, the literal translation, and the English counterpart. (It was inherently English-centric, though I considered trying to find someone for each language who could do a literal translation the other way.) I never even got finished with the German version, which at the time I was fluent enough to do myself. (I wish I'd considered translation as a major, or at least focus, because I was interested but didn't realize it was studyable.)
I've been listening to (the German) POTO for the last few days, and one thing I keep coming back to is translation. Sometimes it's just minor word choice, sometimes it's appreciating that the rhyming banter in Notes had the same tight pattern (and equal frustration that the equivalent care wasn't taken with the wrote/written error*), and sometimes just fascination with how the meaning changes.
* English version: "Isn't this the letter you wrote?" / "And what is it, that we're meant to have wrote? (Pause) ...written." Which works because "wrote" is the direct rhyme but "written" is grammatically correct. But the German recording has "Schrieben Sie an mich diesen Brief?" / "Nun verraten Sie was steht in dem (Bruf) -- Brief" which doesn't work because... I'm not sure if it's even a word, and it isn't required by the rhyme and aaaahhhh why.
...anyway. The biggest thing is the Phantom's last linse, which
[Shit, I have a cat on my lap, lol. Maybe I'll finish this tomorrow instead. ]
...which in English is "you alone could make my song take flight / it's over now, the music of the night", which calls textually back to the end of Music of the Night (you alone can &c, help me make the music of the night) but is also very ... it never quite made complete sense why Christine was the only person in the world with a good enough voice. (I know, I know, love/obsession on his part plus gullibility on hers plus he's now got murderous mobs after him, so it's harder to start over, but anyway that's not the point.) German version it's "Du allein hat mich von mir befreit, nun endet die Musik der Dunkelheit" -- that is, "you alone have freed me from myself" (same last line). Doesn't call back, does rhyme, and also just feels ... better somehow? More poetic? I just *like* it better.
Anyway I've been working on this entry for three days so I'm gonna shut up now...
