Germany also censors Mozart to avoid offending Ankara: the text of Don Giovanni has been modified

There are no limits to human stupidity.

Ridiculous... simply ridiculous...

....and then they will even make the Europeans wear the veil so as not to offend. ...

The thing is starting to get on my nerves...

LucianoP wrote:

I am a bit perplexed.

... it's better if I don't say how I am

It is a hoax, as well explained by a comment on the article from Il Fatto Quotidiano:

The author of the article should know that often some works are sung not with the original libretto (especially if we are talking about opera in the Italian language) but with translations in English, French, and German. This practice has been lost over time but is still common in certain theaters (for example at the English National Opera in London and, for instance, at the Komische Oper in Berlin). It was also done in the past in Italy for operas sung in foreign languages such as Carmen, The Magic Flute, and those by Wagner.

I managed to find a German libretto for Don Giovanni:
http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/bu...

The German translation, probably for metrical reasons, has always been Persia.

Here is the first part of this wonderful aria (in German):

Leporello:

Schöne Donna, dies genaue Register,

Es enthält seine Liebesaffären;
Der Verfasser des Werks steht vor Ihnen,
Wenn's gefällig, so gehn wir es durch.
In Italien sechshundertundvierzig,
Hier in Deutschland zweihundertunddreißig,
Hundert in Frankreich und neunzig in Persia,
Aber in Spanien, ja, in Spanien
Schon tausend und drei.

This time, just giving a Like to Red isn't enough for me; I would like to provide the reasons why, because this is the "classic" textbook example.

Someone writes any old idiocy and, on average, we Italians (I include myself first) "complain"; instead, the main path is the one Red always takes, which is to look at what is read with a critical sense. Before complaining, get informed.

This prevents us from being manipulated, spreading misinformation, and allows us to know a little bit more. Therefore, I hope that everyone, myself first, digs deeper, avoiding being subjugated by the logic of Social Media. Facebook has about a billion members; probably only 0.1% will be musicians, and probably very few will have an inner drive like Red's. Do we really want to blindly believe everything we read?

And let's forget about music for a moment; articles are read on health, politics, etc., but written by whom? And with what pretensions?

So, thanks to Red for the post, but above all for the approach, which I must admit is always consistent over time and which I appreciate more and more.

Too good! Actually, this time I limited myself to reporting the impeccable comment on the article. In any case, the problem is that a hoax like this is quickly set up, and just as rapidly it spreads (it has already been picked up by Il Giornale) ... Debunking it, however, can be very, very laborious!

You are both perfectly right, unfortunately ignorance creates intolerance. the fact is that lately I am no longer surprised by anything if they hear and see all sorts of things

Right, and following that reasoning, they probably "hear and see all sorts of things" ... bullshit written specifically to create confusion.

I too, like Giovanni, ask for forgiveness; the fact is that one doesn't always feel like splitting hairs; in short, the point is that one must be distrustful of what one reads.

Frankly, I don't know if the crux of the matter is that "one must be distrustful of what one reads." Of course, we should all keep our critical thinking skills sharp – but it is no easy task. The fact is that the world is complex. As far as I am concerned, I can attempt to exercise critical thinking regarding musical matters – it is the world I have studied and in which I work. But surely I would not be able to be just as attentive and informed in fields that I do not deal with directly – just for a few examples: economics, chemistry, engineering, medicine... (and yet, even if I do not deal with them directly, these are fields that have a direct impact on my daily life, and I would therefore be right to be more attentive in this regard!). Frankly, I don't know if a solution exists. And yet this critical spirit is necessary – especially today – because, as Giovanni rightly writes, "ignorance breeds intolerance."

You are absolutely right Red, "the world is complex".

Let us always remember that just 40 years ago, which is nothing, personal computers did not exist in the world because there was no need for them. Every new invention, especially in those years, came about out of necessity, not like today... Today, new things are invented only to fuel consumerism. The birth of the computer arose from the need to process large amounts of data because the world was changing, the population was increasing, and supply could no longer keep up with demand. It was necessary to speed up processes. Gradually, technologies became increasingly refined, expanding the horizons of various sciences: medicine, chemistry, engineering, economics. Everything is more complex because we have been able to develop machines capable of solving complexities automatically and quickly. The problem is that things have progressed so much that it has become truly difficult to keep up with everything. There is an enormous amount of data to manage and we have had to adapt to specialization. In the past, it was enough to know a little bit about everything; today we are forced to pursue a specific sector because discoveries, thanks also to technology, are a daily occurrence. Just think of the computer scientists of the past who, once they had learned Fortran and Basic, practically had computing knowledge in their hands. Today there are hundreds of languages, each suited to a purpose with its own syntax and semantics. There is those who develop for the web, those for audio plugins, those for images, those for video, those for management software, and so on. Today more than ever it has become difficult to find a Full Stack developer or, rather, to find a developer who can program any type of application independently; there is always a need to pair them with a person or, more often, with a group of people, given the complexities. Once, the most ambitious project was managed by a team of 10 people. Today, for an ambitious project, one must request the collaboration of multiple companies and thus thousands of people working on the same project. Based on these observations, the web has become an enormous source of information and it is often difficult to choose whom to believe. Sometimes we have to trust because if we had to research the truthfulness of everything we read, we would have to invest too much time. In short, this technology and the complexities deriving from it can be read as both a good and an evil. Thanking heaven, the pros are disproportionately greater than the cons; therefore, perhaps every now and then it is even worth falling for it, since sooner or later the truth always comes to light thanks to those who have specialized in that context and are able to bring the truth to light, just as Red has done in this discussion.

Incredible!!!!!

little to add, in Germany and in England, as once was the case in Italy, rhythmic translations are very widespread. Today it is done mainly with operetta, but the phenomenon deserves more careful study from a historical and aesthetic perspective, as it has been of fundamental importance for the dissemination of opera (foreign in Italy and Italian abroad).

I agree with RedScharlach more than ever. We now have a real cognitive bias, that is, a defect that enters automatically and leads us to chaos whenever news comes out that is even vaguely plausible. Whatever is being discussed nowadays, it has become customary to add an accusatory link toward someone. And the accusation immediately becomes apocalyptic.

Do you realize how many censures there have been to opera librettos over the centuries?! And do you believe that those censures influenced the artistic weight of the opera in question in any way? Let's assume the news had been true. In your opinion, what would have changed in the world? Or in the art world? It would have been secondary news, absolutely insipid, perhaps even created artificially to cause a scandal... there are plenty of censures in the opera world today. Mozart's works are full of double meanings, often ignored. How many times have you been scandalized because in Così Fan Tutte it was not made clear that Despina's arias all have sexual references? Da Ponte and Mozart's poetics are at stake, I would say, much more than if "Turks" were changed to "Persians"...