Opera accessibility in the 21st century: new services, new possibilities

Pilar Orero; Joan Bestard; Miquel Edo; Gonzalo Iturregui-Gallardo; Anna Matamala; Iris Cristina Permuy Hércules de Solás

doi:10.24310/TRANS.2019.v0i23.4832

Authors

Pilar Orero Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona Spain http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0269-1936
Joan Bestard Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona Spain http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1028-5428
Miquel Edo Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona Spain http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0218-1717
Gonzalo Iturregui-Gallardo Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona Spain http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3664-0045
Anna Matamala Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona Spain http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0855-1774
Iris Cristina Permuy Hércules de Solás Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona Spain http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0855-1774

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24310/TRANS.2019.v0i23.4832

Keywords:

media accessibility, audiovisual translation, audio description, audio subtitling, opera

Agencies: Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca (Generalitat de Catalunya)

Abstract

This article describes the challenges faced by a team of audio describers to take existing access services at Liceu Opera House in Barcelona to a new level by offering more access services, more features to personalise, and in various languages. The first part of the article will describe Liceu existing access services. The second part will analyse, on the basis of tests with end users performed in 2014 and 2015 by UAB and RNIB, the possibilities offered by wireless connections and the many challenges of the new mobile opportunities.

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Author Biographies

Pilar Orero, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

PhD (UMIST) is the head of research at CAIAC Research Centre (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain). Director of the European MA in Audiovisual Translation at UAB. Recent publications: Topics in Audiovisual Translation(2004) John Benjamins. Co-editor with Jorge Díaz-Cintas and Aline Remael of Media for All: Subtitling for the Deaf, Audio Description and Sign Language (2007) Rodopi. Co-editor with Anna Matamala Listening to Subtitles: SDHoH(2010) in Peter Lang. Co-writer with Anna Matamala and Eliana Franco of the Voice-over: An Overview (2010) in Peter Lang. Co-guest editor with J.L. Kruger Perspectives on Audio Description (2010). Leader of numerous research projects funded by the Spanish and Catalan Gov. Leads TransMedia Catalonia. She lead the Audio Description and Audio Subtitling group at UN agency ITU 2011-2013 focus group on Media Accessibility and she is now working for WSIS+10. Co editor of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 35 N on Audio Description. She holds the INDRA accessibility chair 2013 and leads the EU project HBB4ALL.

Joan Bestard, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

Joan Josep Bestard Bou is a Ph.D student in Translation and Intercultural Studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He holds a B.A. in Literary Studies from the Universitat de Barcelona (2014) and also an M.A. in Media, Communication and Culture from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2015). The Catalan government has awarded him with the scholarship FI-DGR in 2016. He is involved in ACT, a European project that aims to improve accessibility to scenic arts. His research interests are disability studies and cultural policies and accessibility, mainly to scenic arts. On the other hand, he participates in various associations and since 2015 he is part of the board team of the Youth Council of Barcelona.

Miquel Edo, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

Miquel Edo (Barcelona, 1966) has been lecturing at the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, since 1992. His research interests are mainly focused on the reception of 19th and 20th century Italian literature in Spanish speaking countries, about which he has published numerous essays and articles, the majority concerning the genre of poetry, several of which focus on the translation of opera librettos. In addition, he has published translations of Italian and French poetry into Spanish and Catalan.

Gonzalo Iturregui-Gallardo, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

Gonzalo Iturregui Gallardo holds a B.A. in English and French Studies with minor in German from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and he was awarded a Santander Scholarship to study an M.A. in Translation Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. During his Bachelor and Master degrees he focused on the study of dubbing and its phonetic and linguistic aspects. He has shortly worked in theatre subtitling as well as legal and jurisdictional translation and is currently a member of the TransMedia Catalonia research group, where he collaborates in the project New Approaches to Accessibility (NEA). The Catalan Government has awarded him a Ph.D. grant and he is doing a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies at the UAB, focusing on the delivery and implementation of audio subtitles for the blind and visually impaired. His areas of interest are dubbing, subtitling, phonetics and media accessibility.

Anna Matamala, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

Dr. Anna Matamala is a full-time lecturer at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where she teaches audiovisual translation. She worked as an audiovisual translator for more than ten years for the Catalan television TVC and holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Her main interests are audiovisual translation, media accessibility and applied linguistics. She has published in international journals such as Meta, The Translator, Perspectives, Cadernos de Tradução, Translation Watch Quarterly, Catalan Journal of Linguistics, and is the co-author (with Pilar Orero and Eliana Franco) of Voice-over Translation: An Overview (Peter Lang, 2010), and co-editor of Listening to Subtitles (Peter Lang, 2010, with Pilar Orero), New Insights into Audiovisual Translation(Rodopi, 2010, with Jorge Díaz-Cintas and Josélia Neves), and Audiovisual Translation in Close-Up: Practical and Theoretical Approaches (Peter Lang, 2011, with A. Serban and J.-M. Lavaur).

Iris Cristina Permuy Hércules de Solás, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

Iris C. Permuy holds a B.A. in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Murcia and a M.A. in Audiovisual Translation from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). In 2010/2011 she collaborated with the Cervantes Institute, the University of Murcia and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in the project "Refranero Multilingüe." Afterwards, she was granted a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Arkansas in 2013/2014, where she taught Spanish Literature, Language and Culture. At all times, she combined her academic activities with her freelancing career as a literary translator and subtitler in TraducArte. She is currently doing her PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies at UAB, focusing on Clean Audio and Sound Objects within the framework of the European Project Hybrid Broadcast Broadband for All. She was awarded an FI scholarship from the Catalan government in 2015 and is also a member of the Transmedia Catalonia research group.

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