Literary translation of songs for musical theatre

The translator in charge of this type of literary translation must be endowed with a poetic and musical sensibility. To enhance the listening of their works, the authors accompany their theatre texts with illustrative songs. The translator has the corresponding dialogues and audio files, which will be used as a support for the literary translation of the songs.
Through this procedure, the translator can check whether his translation respectsthe musical pulsation and the metric of the lyrics. As far as songs are concerned, the success of this type of literary translation depends on the adequacy of the metric with the melodies. It is therefore important that the number of syllables and tonic accents are identical.

For your literary translationwork, please contact our team! 

The literary translation of songs: how to keep the length of the verses or the number of syllables

Our literary translators are careful to check that verses, for example translated into English, naturally adapt to melodies. The translator may eventually allow himself some freedoms from the original text. He can move away from Italian and focus on the quality of the final result in English. But he adopts this solution only in consultation with the client, who often happens to be the author of thetheatrical work.

Our clients appreciate the quality of our literary activities,from translations of theatrical short stories to nursery rhyme books. For our translation agency, it is always rewarding to receive congratulatory messages:

I would like to thank you and salute the skills of your literary translators. I compliment them once again for their ability to efficiently render verse texts and musical cadences!