From Novel to Opera and Musical. Henry Murger novel “The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter”, “La Bohème” by Puccini and Jonathan Larson’s musical “Rent”

From Novel to Opera and Musical. Henry Murger novel “The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter”, “La Bohème” by Puccini and Jonathan Larson’s musical “Rent”

Translation and interpretation studies university course in Italy and I am in need of help to complete my final dissertation.

My dissertation is about Henry Murgers novel Scnes de la vie de bohme (The bohemians of the Latin quarter, in english) and its two adaptations for the musical theatre: Puccinis La bohme for the Italian opera, and Jonathan Larsons musical Rent.

The languages we study are English and French. Thats why I thought it was a good idea for my dissertation to compare the 2 adaptations: in this way I could put together 3 cultures and 3 languages ( French for the novel, Italian for the opera and English for the American musical).

Why do I need your help?

I am drawing a draft of the first and the second chapter of my dissertation. Although I have not finished yet I feel like I can do it on my own. At the moment the first 2 chapters will deal with the 3 texts in the same way: a presentation of the author (Henry Murger, Giacomo Puccini and Jonathan Larson), a presentation of the work (an episodic novel, an opera and a musical), biographies of the authors, cultural contexts ecc (all information any student could easily find). So it means that you can skip this part.
The third chapter is ideally a chapter where I talk about the 3 adaptations and where I draw my conclusion about them. That is where I have some problems and I need your help: after presenting the first 2 general chapters that I am writing, the third one should be the core of the dissertation, the part that my teachers will be eager to listen to and hopefully learn something new from. My university is oriented on technical translation and interpretation and more broadly on Translation studies.

How can you help me?

I hope you can help me putting down in words the final part of my dissertation and my intentions, which I can summarize as follows:

make the third chapter of my dissertation with afirst paragraphdealing with the notion of adaptation in the context of Translation studies and exposing the main theories as a general presentation of the field, starting by the definition given by Jackobson as intersemiotic translationfor example. Translation studies are pretty recent and there is not such a Theory of adaptation. You could also write a few lines about other opera and musical being adaptation of a novel to prove that many times the inspiration comes from a book or that adaptation has always existed in history (Shakespeares work were adaptations for example?) despite the theory concerning it is very recent. Try to find an orientation inside this general theory and use it to analyse the two adaptations. I foundLinda HutcheonsA theory of adaptation a good book. I send it to you in attached file. I think you could use her way of approaching adaptation as I find her opinions interesting and simple to use for an analysis of adaptations (it must be simple as I will need to defend my theory in front of my teacher). Linda Hutcheon, in her book, talks aboutfidelityand about the importance of social and cultural context for any adaptation. She also focuses on the notion ofadaptation as a process and a product this could give us the structure of the analysis of the 2 adaptations: the analysis of process and the analysis of the product, in other words the problems and reasons that Puccini (together with Illica and Giacosa) and Jonathan Larson had in adapting the novel and an analysis of the final product. What I want to say is that, as in every dissertation, we must find an hypothesis and try to confirm it in the conclusion. At the moment I do not have it and need your help.

In the second and third paragraph you could apply Hutcheons theory to the 2 adaptations (or any other theory that you may find more important/clear): how Puccini and his librettists Giacosa and Illica adapted Murgers novel (second chapter) and the same should for Jonathan Larson Musical Rent (in the third paragraph). Of course a presentation of the critic in this filed could be done. In addition, concerning the third paragraph about Rent, we could try to answer to one question: if Jonathan Larson adapted Puccinis opera (if yes then Rent is an adaptation of an adaptation), or if he adapted both the novel and the opera making a complete new work. I am in favour of this second hypothesis in fact, Larsons famous statement in an interview with the New York Times after the final dress rehearsal of Rent on the eve of his death has beenThe more involved I got, the less I cared about being true to Puccini, . Also, in other articles and dissertations you can read that Larson went back to Murgers text when he was writing Rent, which means the ideals as described in the preface can be found in Rent). Despite this assertions Rent is always quoted as a loosely adaptation of Puccinis opera. An interesting point of view in this matter is Scott Millers article Inside Rent which I attach to this email

the fourth paragraph, as a conclusion of the chapter, should draw the conclusion and hopefully confirm the hypothesis made in the first paragraph

I will need to translate your chapter into Italian and put it together with my first 2 chapters.

although I am asking you only a part of my dissertation, an important part, I would need it to be done with accuracy (notes at the bottom of the page and accurate bibliography) like if it was a short dissertation of around 20 pages.

The essential bibliography is made up by the 3 texts:

The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter by Henry Murger, the novel.

Labohme,opera in four actscomposed byGiacomo Puccinito an ItalianlibrettobyLuigi IllicaandGiuseppe Giacosa

Renttherock musicalwith music and lyrics byJonathan Larson

Of course I have already found bibliography that I will send yo