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

Authors

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.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

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 MetaThe TranslatorPerspectivesCadernos de TraduçãoTranslation Watch QuarterlyCatalan 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.

References

Cabeza-Cáceres, Cristóbal (2010): «Opera Audio Description at Barcelona's Liceu Theatre», in Díaz-Cintas, Jorge; Matamala, Anna; Neves, Josélia (eds.), New Insights into Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 227-237.

Cabeza-Cáceres, Cristóbal & Matamala, Anna (2008): «La audiodescripción de ópera: una nueva propuesta del Liceo», in Pérez-Ugena, Álvaro; Vizcaíno-Laorga, Ricardo (eds.), Ulises y la comunidad sorda: hacia el desarrollo de tecnologías comunicativas para la igualdad de oportunidades. Observatorio de las Realidades Sociales y de la Comunicación, Madrid, 195- 108.

Catalan Government (2014): “Llei 13/2014, del 30 d’octubre, d’accessibilitat” (Law 13/2014, of the 30th October, on accessibility). <http://normativa.infocentre.es/ca/noticies/llei-132014-del-30-doctubre-daccessibilitatcatalunya>. Accessed 11th September 2017

Corral, Anna & Lladó, Ramon (2011): “Opera Multimodal Translation: Audio Describing Karol Szymanowski’s Król Roger for the Liceu Theatre, Barcelona”. JoSTrans 14, 163-179.

United Nations. Division for Social Policy and Development Disability (n.d.): “The Convention in Brief”. <https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities/the-convention-in-brief.html>. Accessed 11th September 2017

European Commission. “Commission proposes to make products and services more accessible to disabled persons” (Press release). <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6147_en.htm>. Accessed 11th September 2017

Europa Press Catalunya. “El festival de Sitges estrena una ‘app’ para ciegos y sordos”. <http://www.europapress.es/catalunya/noticia-festival-sitges-estrena-app-ciegos-sordos-puedan-ver-peliculas-20141003143713.html>. Accessed 11th September 2017

Fernández-Torné, Anna & Matamala, Anna (2016): "Text to speech vs. human voiced audio descriptions: a reception study in films dubbed into Catalan". The Journal of Specialised Translation, (2008), 1–13.

Gran Teatre del Liceu (n.d.): “Liceu a la fresca”. http://www.liceubarcelona.cat/ca/liceualafresca. Accessed 11th September 2017

Griesel, Yvonne (2007): «Surtitles and Translation. Towards an Integrative View of Theater Translation», in Gerzymisch-Arbogast, Heidrun & Nauert, Sandra (eds.), MuTra: Challenges of Multidimensional Translation (Saarbrücken 2-6 May 2005). Proceedings. Saarland University, Saarbrücken, 62-75

International Organization for Standardization & International Electrotechnical Commission. “ISO/IEC TS 2071-25:2017. Information technology – User Interface component accessibility – Part 25: Guidance on the audio presentation of text in videos, including captions, subtitles and other on-screen text”. <http://www.iso.org/iso/home/store/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=69060>. Accessed 11th September 2017

Matamala, Anna & Orero, Pilar (2007): «Accessible Opera in Catalan: Opera for All», in Díaz Cintas, Jorge; Orero, Pilar; Remael, Aline (eds.), Media for All: Subtitling for the Deaf, Audio Description and Sign Language. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 201-214.

Matamala, Anna (2005): Live Audio Description in Catalonia. Translating Today 4, 9-11.

Matamala, Anna (2007): «La audiodescripción en directo», in Jiménez, Catalina (ed.), Traducción y accesibilidad. Subtitulación para sordos y audiodescripción para ciegos: nuevas modalidades de Traducción Audiovisual. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 121-132.

Mateo, Marta (2007a): Surtitling nowadays: new uses, attitudes and developments. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series (A tool for social integration? Audiovisual translation from different angles) 6, 135-154.

Mateo, Marta (2007b): «Reception, text and context in the study of opera surtitles», in Gambier, Yves; Shlesinger, Miriam; Stolze, Radegundis (eds.), Doubts and Directions in Translation Studies. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 169-182.

Miquel-Iriarte, Marta; Vilaró, Anna; Orero, Pilar; Serrano, Javier; Delgado, Héctor (2012): «Entitling: A Way Forward for Accessibility», in Perego, Elisa (ed.), Eye-Tracking in Audiovisual Translation. Aracne Editrice, Rome, 259-276.

Oncins, Estella (2012): "The tyranny of the tool: surtitling live performances". Perspectives. Studies in Translatology 23/1, 42-61. doi: 10.1080/0907676X.2013.793374.

Oncins, Estella; Lopes, Oscar; Orero, Pilar; Serrano, Javier; Carrabina, Jordi (2012): "All Together Now: A multi-language and multi-system mobile application to make live performing arts accessible". JoSTrans 20 (Special issue on Translating Multimodalities), 147-164.

Orero, Pilar (2007): "Audiosubtitling: A possible Solution for opera accessibility in Catalonia". TradTerm 13, 135-149. doi: 10.11606/issn.2317-9511.tradterm.2007.47470

Orero, Pilar & Matamala, Anna (2007): "Accessible opera: overcoming linguistic and sensorial barriers". Perspectives. Studies in Translatology 15/4, 262-278. doi: 10.1080/13670050802326766

Puigdomènech, Laura; Matamala, Anna; Orero, Pilar (2008): «The making of a protocol for opera audio description», in Pegenaute, Luis; De Cesaris, Janet; Tricàs, Mercè; Bernal, Elisenda (eds.), Actas del III Congreso Internacional de la AIETI. La traducción del futuro: mediación lingüística y cultural en el siglo XXI. Barcelona 22-24 de marzo de 2007. PPU, Barcelona, Vol. 1, 381-392.

Puigdomènech, Laura; Matamala, Anna; Orero, Pilar (2010): «Audio description of films: state of the art and protocol proposal», in Bogucki, ?ukasz, Kredens, Krzysztof (eds.), Perspectives on Audiovisual Translation. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 27-43.

Rai, Sonali (2015): Audio description app user trial: Report. RNIB, London. <https://www.rnib.org.uk/sites/default/files/Audio_Description_App_Trial_Report.docx>. Accessed 11th September 2017

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (News) (n.d.): “La UAB organitza el primer cicle de cinema accessible”. <http://www.uab.cat/web/noticies/detall-d-una-noticia/la-uab-organitza-el-primer-cicle-de-cinema-accessible-1090226434100.html?noticiaid=1311230541439>. Accessed 11th September 2017

Vervecken, Anika (2012): «Surtitles: Types and functions», in Bruti, Silvia & Di Giovanni, Elena (eds.), Audiovisual Translation across Europe. An Ever-changing Landscape. Peter Lang, Bern, 235-256.

Walczak, Agnieszka (2017): "Audio description on smartphones: making cinema accessible for visually impaired audiences". Universal Access in the Information Society (online), 1-8. doi: n10.1007/s10209-017-0568-2

Downloads

Published

2019-11-09

How to Cite

Orero, P., Bestard, J., Edo, M., Iturregui-Gallardo, G., Matamala, A., & Permuy Hércules de Solás, I. C. (2019). Opera accessibility in the 21st century: new services, new possibilities. TRANS – Revista De Traductología, (23), 245–256. https://doi.org/10.24310/TRANS.2019.v0i23.4832

Issue

Section

Articles