To go to the translations, click on the links.

You will find here songs and exerpts of plays. The plays, L'homme à la mode (The Man of Mode) and L'éveil du printemps (Frühlings Erwachen) have many characters and are long, but very captivating to read. The Fancy French Lyrics have been written to be sung to melodies that already existed. (I did not know the original English lyrics at the time.)


For any comments and inquiries :

The adaptations of lyrics can be sung to the original melodies, since metrics have more or less been kept. The phrasing may have to be slightly changed according to the requirements of articulation and depending on what syllables are to be stressed. The reader-singer must determine which ending e's have to be pronounced. - example:
"Il coule une musique magique de nos lèvres inspirées
On soupire, on roucoule"
The e's at the end of "musique" and "magique" should be slightly pronounced.

In "Blackbird" the phrasing is less fluid in French. This gives a different mood.

To hear the midi versions of the songs, go to the French version and click on the titles. Some versions are quite difficult to sing to (wait until the introduction is over to start to sing).

Fancy French Lyrics:
All of Me (Simons and Marks)
In a Sentimental Mood (Duke Ellington)


Translated songs:
Lullaby of Birdland (George Shearing)
Sophisticated Lady (Duke Ellington)
Lucy in the Sky (Beatles)
Blackbird (Beatles)


GEORGE ETHEREGE

THE MAN OF MODE

performed and published for the first time in London in 1675. The play seems never to have been translated into French, perhaps because it makes fun of the French as personifying dandinisme, an early form of dandyism. The Man in Fashion has a pseudo French accent and uses pseudo French words. This required some thorough adaptation.

I have translated the whole play.

FRANK WEDEKIND

FRUEHLINGS ERWACHEN

A Children's Tragedy
(written between the autumn of 1890 and Easter 1891)

Unpublished translation by Elsa Wack and Micky Zimmermann.
Existing French translations: François Regnault, Gallimard.
Renée Wentzig, Yves Beaumesne, Actes Sud (adaptation).
Translated in English under the title Spring's Awakening
I have translated the whole play.