Companía lírica

English translation: Musical theatre and opera companies - or nothing

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
Spanish term or phrase:Companía lírica
English translation:Musical theatre and opera companies - or nothing
Entered by: Justin Peterson

11:57 Jul 11, 2017
Spanish to English translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Cinema, Film, TV, Drama / Theater
Spanish term or phrase: Companía lírica
Compañía lírica o compañía del género lírico es el nombre que desde el siglo XIX han recibido en España e Hispanoamérica las agrupaciones profesionales especializadas en la puesta en escena de diversos tipos de espectáculo mixto de teatro y música. Sus precedentes pueden situarse en las compañías de ópera y opereta y el teatro musical ilustrado del siglo XVIII;1 del mismo modo que su continuación puede rastrearse en el musical del siglo XX.

What would we call this in English? Any translation?? Theatre experts???
Justin Peterson
Spain
Local time: 15:05
Musical theatre and opera companies - or nothing
Explanation:
To my knowledge we don't have an exact equivalent umbrella term in English (I have worked in the industry). Interestingly Greek also has the term, as is evidenced by the National Opera House being known as Ethniki Lyriki Skene (Transliterated). However, from memory, unless a colleague can show it is limited to opera and operetta, in Spain it covers Opera, Zarzuela and what we in the UK would call Musical Theatre as a distinct genre, so you might want to just say "Compañía lírica" or "compañía del género lírico" in "quotation marks" and translate the remainder as an explanation with or without a footnote. And then put ´this genre´ or ´this art form´(perhaps better in the plural depending on how you word the rest of your translation. If not I think you will have to list all the various genres that apply in Spain e.g. Musical Theatre and Opera Companies (but then you would be omitting the important Zarzuela etc).

An example of the problem can be found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/z2hr7ty/revision
where it describes as the genres we refer to in English as overlapping
(not intended to be a school level link on purpose: twas the first I found that was so clear).

I have a similar problem when I have to use the word artistes e.g. on my CV or when I needing an umbrella term to describe ballet dancers, orchestra musicians, opera singers and actors our office brought to a national festival. Artistes is the nearest I can get without including a long list, but always feels as if it really reduces the beauty, expertise and individualism of the artists concerned to a rather nondescript common denominator.

Hope this is of some help.

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Note added at 2 hrs (2017-07-11 14:12:30 GMT)
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p.s. I had not seen Patinba's comment when I posted mine so it was not intended to cross over.

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Note added at 24 days (2017-08-05 00:55:49 GMT) Post-grading
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You are so very kind. Support told me it is not possible to divide points but that they can be contacted if someone wants to retract points. Either way thanks so much and hope your week has gone well. Take care.
Selected response from:

Domini Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:05
Grading comment
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
4Opera Company
patinba
4Lyric company
neilmac
3Musical theatre and opera companies - or nothing
Domini Lucas


Discussion entries: 19





  

Answers


1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
Opera Company


Explanation:
This term usually refers to opera companies. If they do not perform any operatic works, then "Musical Theatre Company" might do.

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.

patinba
Argentina
Local time: 11:05
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 68

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  Domini Lucas: I agree Musical Theatre today is taken to mean musicals alone and cannot include opera, operetta etc. Plus the asker's context goes back to before the 20th century. It's infuriating though as I would have agreed with MT being the obvious term otherwise
3 hrs
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6 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
Lyric company


Explanation:
Literally.
There are several famous ones, such as the Boston Lyric opera...
Cf the Lyric Theatre in London.

https://lyrictheatre.co.uk/

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/lyric

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Note added at 6 hrs (2017-07-11 18:17:28 GMT)
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Literary Culture and U.S. Imperialism: From the Revolution to World ...
https://books.google.es/books?isbn=0195131509
John Carlos Rowe - 2000 - ‎History
Perhaps Belém's opera-goers were afflicted by what José Veríssimo referred to in a similar case as musicofilia, a mania for music “that requires a lyric company ...

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Note added at 6 hrs (2017-07-11 18:17:57 GMT)
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"... the impresario was expected to bring to Rio de Janeiro a lyric company made up of twelve soloists and twenty singers, ..."

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Note added at 6 hrs (2017-07-11 18:18:35 GMT)
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South American Cinema/ Cine De America Del Sur: Dictionary of Film ...
https://books.google.es/books?isbn=084772011X
Luis Trelles Plazaola - 1989 - ‎Biography & Autobiography
... of the Argentine cinema, one of its pioneers, bom in Barletta (Italy) in 1978 who arrived in Buenos Aires as a musician as part of a lyric company in 1905.

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Note added at 6 hrs (2017-07-11 18:19:06 GMT)
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Memoir of My Youth in Cuba: A Soldier in the Spanish Army During the ...
https://books.google.es/books?isbn=0817358927
Josep Conangla i Fontanilles, ‎Joaquín Roy - 2017 - ‎Biography & Autobiography
To distract themselves by going to the theater, and by preference, to the Albisu, where a lyric company of notable artists was performing the most popular ...

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Note added at 6 hrs (2017-07-11 18:21:12 GMT)
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FWIW, I posted the Google book references to illustrate that the literal translation "lyric company" has frequently been used...

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Note added at 1 day6 hrs (2017-07-12 18:05:03 GMT)
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PS: Just seen the comments in Discussion about "género lírico", which I think can be termed "lyric genre":
Lyric genre - SlideShare
https://www.slideshare.net/fherkastelan/lyric-genre
Mar 9, 2017 - Literature. In this presentation you will find basic information about the lyric genre, such as types of poetry, authors, examples

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Note added at 1 day6 hrs (2017-07-12 18:06:15 GMT)
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As we can see from the definition "lyric" is a specific adjective when used in this sense.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lyric poem

Example sentence(s):
  • Reacting to the large sums paid by the government to an Italian Lyric company, for example, ...

    Reference: http://www.linguee.com/english-spanish/translation/lyric+com...
    https://blo.org/
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 15:05
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 52
Notes to answerer
Asker: Lyric company IS a legitimate translation, but I was concerned that readers might not understand it, or find it strange, so I had to make a judgment call. Thanks, in any case.


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  Domini Lucas: Interesting links. I googled as aware of word in eg London's LyricTheatre but couldn't find it commonly used with Spanish meaning in modern times. Only reason for not agreeing: I wonder if average UK reader would identify meaning Do you think more US Eng?
31 mins
  -> No, it's perfectly good UK English. But whether the majority of people will know it or not is moot.
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2 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
Musical theatre and opera companies - or nothing


Explanation:
To my knowledge we don't have an exact equivalent umbrella term in English (I have worked in the industry). Interestingly Greek also has the term, as is evidenced by the National Opera House being known as Ethniki Lyriki Skene (Transliterated). However, from memory, unless a colleague can show it is limited to opera and operetta, in Spain it covers Opera, Zarzuela and what we in the UK would call Musical Theatre as a distinct genre, so you might want to just say "Compañía lírica" or "compañía del género lírico" in "quotation marks" and translate the remainder as an explanation with or without a footnote. And then put ´this genre´ or ´this art form´(perhaps better in the plural depending on how you word the rest of your translation. If not I think you will have to list all the various genres that apply in Spain e.g. Musical Theatre and Opera Companies (but then you would be omitting the important Zarzuela etc).

An example of the problem can be found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/z2hr7ty/revision
where it describes as the genres we refer to in English as overlapping
(not intended to be a school level link on purpose: twas the first I found that was so clear).

I have a similar problem when I have to use the word artistes e.g. on my CV or when I needing an umbrella term to describe ballet dancers, orchestra musicians, opera singers and actors our office brought to a national festival. Artistes is the nearest I can get without including a long list, but always feels as if it really reduces the beauty, expertise and individualism of the artists concerned to a rather nondescript common denominator.

Hope this is of some help.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2 hrs (2017-07-11 14:12:30 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

p.s. I had not seen Patinba's comment when I posted mine so it was not intended to cross over.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 24 days (2017-08-05 00:55:49 GMT) Post-grading
--------------------------------------------------

You are so very kind. Support told me it is not possible to divide points but that they can be contacted if someone wants to retract points. Either way thanks so much and hope your week has gone well. Take care.

Domini Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:05
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 4
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank YOU. That´s nice of you, but I'm not sure how to retract points, or divide them. Just consider it good karma.


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  Sandro Tomasi: Asker posted: “escena de diversos tipos de espectáculo mixto de teatro y música.” Do you know if there are other acts other than musical theatre and opera that they would set up for?
23 mins
  -> Operetta and or the Spanish zarzuela are to my knowledge slightly distinct and, if the text is in Spanish from Spain,I believe that strictly speaking it is important to allow for them.But that could vary depending on the remaining context. opereta feature

neutral  philgoddard: I agree that it should be left in Spanish, but you also seem to be saying it should be translated. Either way, "opera company" and "musical theatre" are wrong in my opinion.
31 mins
  -> I was trying to give the options if a translation was wanted & explain why I think that the 2 individual terms potentially available are partial & therefore, not totally sufficient in themselves so at least both would be needed. Apologies if not clear.
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