10 Questions with Sabine Ruflair: Song Translation

Sabine Ruflair is a professional song translator for musical theatre in Germany. Her translations include Come from Away, The Who’s Tommy, Jane Eyre, The King and I...

1. Could you tell us about your background in translation and how you became interested in song adaptation for musical theatre? 

After high school, I initially studied translating and interpreting because I had always loved travelling and other languages. However, what I had also always loved was theater, so after a couple of years at university, I decided to audition for musical theater school. I got in and made the switch. But now I had all that translation experience, so one thing let to another and soon I was happily translating songs for myself and my colleagues. And it grew from there.

2. How would you describe song adaptation?

Song adaptation to me is like an extremely complex puzzle. You have a limited amount of structured space – your syllables with their fixed rhythm, word emphasis, rhyme. And then you need to fit your translated content into this space, BUT, when choosing the words you also keep in mind things like dramaturgical function, character vocabulary or singability. It´s a lot of what goes where. And a fun challenge.

3. What skills are necessary to carry out this work?

You need to be “musical”, if that makes sense. You don´t necessarily need a background in singing or a trained voice, although that would certainly be a plus, but you should be able to sing your lines to yourself in order to see how things sit in the music. Singability is inherently a make-or-break-thing in song translation. The other thing you need is creative courage. Because of the tight form which you need to respect in a song, you will not be able to retain all of your original content exactly, so you will need to interpret and rewrite a lot - while also channelling the original lyricist. 

4. How have you developed these skills?

I have always sung and was a very musically inclined person, so that sort of developed itself. As for creative courage – I learned that through practice and through studying other translator´s works. I´m still learning with every new translation.  

5. Tell us about the first musical you adapted. How did you become involved in this project?

The first full show I translated was the musical “High Fidelity”, based on the book by Nick Hornby. My professor at musical theater school had heard and liked some of my translations during classes. When the school wanted to do the show as a graduation project and a German translation was needed, he suggested me. 

6. What are your feelings on the matter of respecting both form and shape when translating a song?

I view them as constraints but also as frameworks. They set your boundaries but at the same time they guide you to the right words. I´d also say that sometimes the form of a song is one of the most obvious manifestations of an author’s genius – Stephen Sondheim or Lin-Manuel Miranda are good examples. Form can also transport meaning. Therefore, in some works, keeping the form is more important than in others.

7. You have also worked as a translation supervisor for Stage Entertainment, who is responsible for some of the main musical German productions over the last year. What did your position there involve?

As a translation supervisor at Stage Entertainment, I accompanied the whole translation process for selected shows when they first came to Germany, like TINA – The Tina Turner Musical, Cirque du Soleil PARAMOUR or BAT OUT OF HELL. In this role, I was part of a brilliant production team and considered myself the link between the company, the translators and sometimes the original authors. Each production was different, but tasks included advising on the selection of translators, writing translation concepts, content discussions with the translators, helping with the backtranslation and approval process – and of course the editing. 

8. You have also been involved in the supervision of the German version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. What were the main challenges?

It was a challenge to find the right translators, but I´m proud to say we managed to do just that. And then of course there were inherent translation challenges in the show – the sheer amount of text, and incredibly skillfully written text at that. Endless strings of rhymes, but never obvious ones. A lot of text in rap form which no one from our world had extensive experience with. Many references to (rap) culture in the original which could not be translated but had to be recreated for the target culture. On a personal note, I found it challenging to work on a masterpiece of that scale because I had so much respect for the show and the people who made it. I tried not to be too intimidated. 

9. Do you think musical productions are enjoying a period of success in Germany due to audience demand?

They are enjoying a period of success because they are a wonderful and very modern form to tell stories and evoke emotions in theater and on screen for everyone involved – producers and audiences. 

10. What advice would you give to someone starting out as a song adapter?

Look for ways to present your work inside the theater or film community, so you can get feedback, improve and build a network. This doesn´t have to be the best of the professional yet. Look for an open stage, maybe, or a musical theater company or school that would present one or two songs or even try an online demo. But make sure that you have the legal right to present your translation.