Jon Johanning wrote:

>Thanks to Walter Meyer for supplying an English version of the prologue
>to Bluebeard's Castle.  But I was somewhat puzzled by the evidently inept
>English produced by someone with a name indicating that he is very likely
>a native English speaker.  It looks more like a version by a non-native
>speaker.
>
>Another list member sent me the English and German translations from
>the Norman/Polgar/Boulez DG recording; the English version there, also
>attributed to Christopher Hassall, is very different, and much better
>English.  Could there have been a mistake in the booklet of the EMI
>recording?

I don't know.  I'd be curious to see the English version supplied w/ the
Boulez recording.  I assumed the prologue was translated by Hassall because
he's listed as the translator at the end of the libretto, which included
the prologue.

I didn't think the prologue was in inept English (which is why I'd like
to see the other translation for comparison).  I just attributed my failure
to think much of it to my insensitivity to ventures into profoundness and
cryptic mysticism, etc.  I'm not even impressed by the text of the prologue
to *Pagliacci*.  While I put in my two cents when the work was a subject
for discussion on this list a few years ago, I find the story and the
libretto (at least in translation) underwhelming.  I don't know Hungarian
at all, but I did follow the libretto in German as well as English.
Neither did much for me.

Walter Meyer