Customer Reviews

La Boheme (Opera Classics Library Series)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I would like to recommend this because the series is beautifully produced and readable, and the musical examples illuminating. I just purchased the libretto of The Girl of the Golden West, in this series, which seemed to me well worth the money.

The librettists of La Boheme, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, were not hacks, but accomplished playwrights. They didn't write colloquial Italian but a hightened poetic Latinate Italian prose that requires a certain attentiveness and learning on the part of the audience. In fact, it is in large part the ineffable poetry of the libretto of La Boheme that makes it so supremely moving. Unfortunately, the translation here is highly inadequate. If one is going to make wild guesses as to what words mean why have a libretto at all?

For example, "Importuna" does not mean "unfortunate" but "importunate" (troublesome). "La luna l'abbiam vicina" does not mean "We have the moon as our neighbor" but "we have the moon close by." "Scialgo da gran signore" does not mean "I climb a ladder" but "I squander like a great lord" (i.e., am as extravagant as a lord.") And so on.

In an opera where words matter, such errors are inexusable. Burton D. Fisher or whoever is responsible should at least use a dictionary for EVERY WORD and also consult other, more accurate translations (of which there must be hundreds) or consign the task of translation to someone who knows the language (and perhaps has a classical background) and have a native speaker double check it.

I gave the book 2 stars instead of one because the production is good. Please, publishers, withdraw this edition right away and do another, better one.

La Boheme in all its glory. Full libretto with history of the story and music excerpts...original Italian text beside English translation. Easy to follow, great translation. For anyone who loves this opera...or RENT for that matter--this is a must have, or at the very least, a must-read. This is a fantastic piece of literature and a landmark theatre piece. This book captures the spendor of the opera well.