Presenting

The ASL Opera Project

Arm Angles in American Sign Language by David Boles and Janna Sweenie Depicting Space: Advanced Classifier Morphology and Spatial Grammar in American Sign Language by Janna Sweenie and David Boles Beyond the Hands: Non-Manual Grammar, Discourse Structure, and Sentence Types in American Sign Language by David Boles and Janna Sweenie Back to Willowbrook: The Slow Winning and Fast Losing of Disability Rights in America by Janna Sweenie and David Boles
ASL Opera Transducer emblem

Boles.ai · ASL Opera Aria

Act I

Our Mission

The Deaf should no longer be excluded, ignored, and abandoned by the international Opera stage. Inclusion belongs to everyone.

Welcome to the ASL Opera Project where Janna Sweenie and David Boles are working to bring American Sign Language interpreting to Opera performances all over the world.

This ASL Opera Project was divined in order to right a wrong: the assumption that the Deaf are not interested in Opera. This project provides resources in performance and conclusion to help bring the high art of Opera to a diverse, if disabled, audience.

The Metropolitan Opera is Dying Because It Wants to Die

"We were not asking the Met for money. We were offering them something they desperately needed: a new audience. An untapped community of people who had been locked out of opera for its entire history."

"The Met did not reject our proposal because it was impractical or too expensive. They rejected it because it required them to change."

Read the full article at David Boles, Blogs

Janna Sweenie in dramatic rain photography

Read Our Interview with Opera Wire

Opera Wire Q&A interview with David Boles and Janna Sweenie about ASL Opera
ASL Opera official logo

The New Book

The Language He Couldn't Find

The Occupied Space: Sixty Years After The Empty Space by David Boles

Sixty years ago the most quoted stage doctrine of the century was published, and in a book about the theatre's future, the words sign language appear zero times. David Boles's new book, The Occupied Space, answers that book at the anniversary, and its seventh chapter gives the silence its history: the Congress of Milan, William Stokoe's proof that American Sign Language is a complete natural language, the National Theatre of the Deaf, and the scholarship of Janna Sweenie, credited where it lives.

The chapter is published whole on this site.

Read Chapter Seven

Act II

The Interpreter's Art

Janna Sweenie costumed as The Queen of the Night for her ASL interpretation

How does Janna, a Deaf woman with some residual hearing, interpret these arias in ASL? First, she has a printout of the lyrics in English. Then, she watches the video performance with English subtitles to learn the metrics of the staging. ASL is not English, so she then has to perform the interpreted translation of the singing into the language of the Deaf.

For her recorded performances here, she listens to, and feels, the audio of the target aria video using her hearing aids and performatively interprets via original aria language, to memorized English-translated text, into her ASL visual performance to present what you see. It's all a language memorization test with her splashes of brilliance to make it all make sense in context.

ASL Opera arm gesture logo

If this were a live-interpreted ASL Opera performance, Janna would use the live text captioning in the theatre to translate her ASL interpretation in real time for the Deaf audience.

ASL Opera illuminated logo design

We do not use any music in our interpreted arias because we do not have the Copyright to the source performance. That's why you need to simultaneously click on each video to see both the ASL interpretation and the performance being presented. They will sync up enough for you to get a good idea how the process will work in a live performance.

ASL Opera performance logo

Boles.ai · ASL Opera Dot Com

Act III

The Performances

Colors of the Wind - Pocahontas

In this video, Janna Sweenie takes on a fascinating interpreting task. In this song, "I colori del vento" (Colours of the Wind) from the Pocahontas movie musical, Janna is interpreting, in American Sign Language, the Italian translated version of the song. The translation complication is this: Original song in English, translated for Italian audiences, translated from the Italian back into English (that honors the Italian interpretation), translated into ASL, which is not based on the original English lyrics. You can see the difference in the interpretation of the intention of the same song, and that's why we chose this song, a non-Opera piece, to demonstrate the mainstream complications in communicative inclusion.

ASL Interpretation

Original Performance

Queen of the Night - The Magic Flute

Janna Sweenie interprets Diana Damrau performing the "Queen of the Night" aria from "The Magic Flute." In this performance, Janna has added a similar look, and feel, in both costume and design, to her interpretation. If this were a live stage interpretation, Janna would be dressed in regular performance blacks.

ASL Interpretation

Original Performance

Habanera - Carmen

Janna Sweenie interprets the Elina Garanca aria, "Habanera (L'amour est un oiseau rebelle)" from Carmen.

ASL Interpretation

Original Performance

Una Furtiva Lagrima

Janna Sweenie interprets the Luciano Pavarotti aria, "Una Furtiva Lagrima."

ASL Interpretation

Original Performance

O Mio Babbino Caro

In this example, Janna Sweenie interprets Maria Callas singing "O Mio Babbino Caro."

ASL Interpretation

Original Performance

Intermission

Listen & Learn

Act IV

In Defense of the Language

The work of bringing ASL to the Opera stage depends on one premise the culture keeps trying to forget: American Sign Language is a language in its own right, with its own grammar, syntax, and lineage, distinct from English.

When the Metropolitan Opera first heard our proposal, the resistance rested on the assumption that English captions already gave Deaf audiences sufficient access. The position looks generous on paper. Inside the Deaf community it reads as the old oralist assumption wearing a corporate suit. We had to explain, patiently and repeatedly, that ASL is not English, that ASL grammar and syntax descend from French Sign Language through Laurent Clerc, and that captions built on English syntax sit one layer removed from any of the Romance-language operas being sung on the Met stage.

That same misconception has now moved from institutional boardrooms to social media, where a content creator with no formal linguistic training has been telling a generation of young people that ASL is simply English on the hands. Janna Sweenie has answered, with thirty-five years of NYU teaching and the rigor of published scholarship behind her.

My Language Is Not English: A Deaf Educator Answers JB Mitchell

"ASL is not English. The claim has never been true, and no amount of social media confidence will make it so."

"Every time a hearing administrator at a museum, an opera house, a symphony, a theater, or a public agency hears that 'ASL is English,' the administrator concludes that English captions are sufficient accessibility. Deaf patrons are then excluded from the experiences the captions were supposed to make available."

Read the full article by Janna Sweenie at David Boles, Blogs

Boles Constellation Universal Line

New

One Number Connects
the Entire Boles Constellation

☎(212) 982-7700
Universal Line
Boles.com BolesBooks.com HumanMeme.com PrairieVoice.com UnitedStage.com Boles.ai

All roads lead to the same switchboard

Join the Movement

If you are interested in bringing ASL interpretation to your Opera performances, we want to hear from you. Together, we can ensure that the beauty of Opera belongs to everyone.

212-982-7700

david@asl-opera.com