Lending an Ear to Mozart’s Operas. Stanisław Barańczak’s Poetic Translation Experiments

Abstract

The paper Lending an Ear to Mozart’s Operas. Stanisław Barańczak’s Poetic Translation Experiments examines the issues of intermediality, in particular the relationships between music and literature in mixed creative genres fusing disparate media of expression. The brief study discusses the connections and inter-dependencies between the music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Italian libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte, their translation by Stanisław Barańczak and his unique quasi-translation (‘fonety’). The article presents interdisciplinary interpretations of selected vocal translations (excerpts from the libretti of ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘The Marriage of Figaro’) and ‘fonety’ – Barańczak’s own genre created at the boundary where linguistic witticisms and vocal translation meet. The Italian text by Da Ponte is often treated as quasi una musica – as a sound material free from the referential ballast of language (semantics). Barańczak offers the music lover a new means of aural reception in the buffo style, illuminating a path to discovering anew the artistic potential of musical masterpieces.