Abstract
The article investigates two translations into English of Jaroslav Kvapil’s Rusalka libretto, set to music by
Antonín Dvořák: the singing translation in verse by Daphne Rusbridge (1954) and Paula Kennedy’s (1998)
prose translation. It mentions the sources in mythologies and folk tales, and outlines notable characteristics of
the language and composition of the Czech libretto. The central purpose of the present study, identifying
translation shifts with a focus on mythological and folkloric dimensions, is to describe the impact of the
respective constraints under which the translators had to work, rather than of criticising the discovered shifts as
avoidable errors. However, a summary of the semantic and stylistic shifts identified in the respective translations
and their implications for the reception in English of Kvapil’s libretto reaches critical as well as favourable
conclusions
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | OPERA AND TRANSLATION: EASTERN AND WESTERN PERSPECTIVES |
| Editors | ŞERBAN Adriana, Kar Yue CHAN Kelly |
| Place of Publication | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| Pages | In press |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |