Living on in Translation: Fin de siècle Operatic Adaptations of Pierre Loti's Le Mariage de Loti

Abstract

This article focuses on two operatic adaptations of Pierre Loti's Le Mariage de Loti: Léo Delibes' Lakmé (1883) and Reynaldo Hahn's L'Île du rêve (1898). It will analyse these operas as translations that initiate afterlives for the original text by transforming and adapting it in new contexts of production and reception. These translations will also be considered as afterlives of Polynesian culture as it is represented in Loti's text. The article will look at the shifts, or changes, enacted upon the original text by the translator, as well as the extent to which the translations adhere to or shift away from exoticist norms. It will argue that Lakmé reinforces such norms, while also at times enacting shifts which call them into question. L'Île du rêve offers a close translation of Le Mariage that only deviates from the original in order to reinstate the exoticist norms that Loti attempted to challenge.