News & Events

It’s our dinner time routine to have everyone at the table go “round-robin” with some story about their day. Sometimes the contribution from my teenage daughter is, quite frankly, boring and lacks detail. Just to spice things up, we give our 13 year-old son the signal and he launches into a “translation” of her story in a hip-hop, street-talk lingo…something so foreign to our parental ears.

These family dinner plans get a bit altered this time of year though, as my husband and I head to the Blaisdell Concert Hall for our “date nights” to see the Hawaii Opera Theatre season productions. This made me think of their translations called supertitles, the English text projected above the stage.

The operas are usually in Italian, French, or German, but there’s never a worry about understanding exactly what’s happening onstage. The titles are a clear, concise translation of the language and motivation of the characters. So I then started thinking about other uses for supertitles…imagine all of the places a translation screen would be really useful in everyday life:

At the drive thru, because somehow when they are reading your order back it always sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Above your spouses head, particularly when children, money or in-laws are being discussed. In an election year… well you get the idea. As I write this the feline member of the family wanders through the room. I think, hmmm…and then reconsider–do I really want to know what she’s thinking? Grand Opera Season Opens February 1. - Juliana LaReaux