Translating a Favela Musical: Vinicius de Moraes Orfeu da Conceição in German
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2021.e84068Abstract
Vinicius de Moraes’ musical Orfeu da Conceição. Tragédia
carioca em três atos (1954) can be considered both a classic of Brazilian
literature and world literature. Vinicius links the Greek myth with Afro-
Brazilian culture, musical pieces that became bossa nova classics, and
stages a black Orpheus on a favela hill in Rio de Janeiro. The play has been
picturized several times but has been hardly translated. This article would
like to outline a few challenges for a translation into German. First and
foremost, strategies need to be developed for conveying Afro-Brazilian
culture. Firstly, the semantic field “favela” and the favela slang will be
examined, secondly, the translation of the musical pieces and the semantic
field “samba”. It turns out to be useful to leave terms in the original
which refer to a specific Brazilian socio-cultural context, for example the
diminutive neguinho/neguinha or samba instruments. Another possibility
is the adaptation of a term (morro) in German (favela hill) in order to
transport the socio-cultural meaning from the source language to the target
language. These strategies help to emphasize a specific Brazilian or Afro-
Brazilian character of the piece in translation as well. In this context, the
paratext has a culture-mediating function.
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