Klingon Opera Opens In The Netherlands + Klingon Shakespeare Coming To Washington DC

2010 seems to be the year of the Klingon. Evidence of Klingon infiltration has shown up in Scotland, California and Australia. And this weekend Klingons are back, performing an opera in The Netherlands, and later this month Klingons will be in our nation’s capital performing Shakespeare. Details below.

 

"U" – an opera Klingon – this weekend in The Hague

Klingons are known for being fierce and honorable warriors, but they also have a creative side and are also known for their love of opera. This weekend "U", an opera in Klingon is being performed live at the Theater Zeebel in The Hague in The Netherlands. The opera is being performed Friday = Sunday and will be performed again at Qetlop in Farnsberg, Germany on the 25th of September. Linguist (and Klingon consultant) Marc Okrand was a guest of honor for the opera. Click the image below for a video report from the BBC (including comments from Okrand).

CLICK to see BBC VIDEO

Message to Qo’noS

This documentary from earlier in the year shows how the team behind "U" sent a message to the Klingon homeworld to invite the Klingons to the Opera.

More information on the Klingon opera at www.u-theopera.org.

Shakespeare in Klingon coming to Washington DC – with George Takei

The Washington Shakespeare Company will be presenting “By Any Other Name: An Evening of Shakespeare in Klingon,” with special guest George Takei on September 25th. And for this event once again Klingon expert (aka the man who "invented" Klingon) Marc Okrand will be on hand. Okrand is the current president of WSC board. The special Klingon event is being held to celebrate the opening of the 21st season of the WSC. The cast will perform scenes and speeches in both English and Klingon from Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Much Ado About Nothing (with a same sex couple performing as Beatrice and Benedick).

“By Any Other Name: An Evening of Shakespeare in Klingon” featuring George Takei takes place at 8 p.m. on September 25th, 2010, at the Rosslyn Spectrum in Arlington. In addition to the scenes from Shakespeare, the performance includes an introduction by Okrand and a question and answer session with Takei and Okrand. Tickets cost $150 and include and four flex use theater passes for the WSC 2010-2011 season. There is also $250 ticket package that includes a ticket to the VIP reception following the performance. More information at www.washingtonshakespeare.org

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Klingon isn’t any more intelligible than Olde English.

or Olde Entish. How long before we get an Opera in Stroyarian !?! ;)

If only I had known sooner… xD

1. Spoken like somebody without an appreciation for poetry, West Side Story (Romeo and Juliet) or The Lion King (Hamlet with a happy ending).

I have to admit I find the idea of a Klingon opera laughable. It can only be bad PR for Trek in general.

I once saw a German acting troop in Wurzburg do a Klingon themed version of Macbeth. They were pretty clever about it, mixing video screens with their live performance. My German was awful, but I was pretty familiar with Macbeth, and most technobabble translates pretty easily. It was really enjoyable, but God bless my wife for sitting through two hours of German speakers dressed as Klingons shouting and stabbing one another!

The opera is called ‘u’. The ‘ is a full letter in Klingon.
If English grammar rules require quotes, then say “‘u'”.

@oogaboogawooga How is it bad PR?

@Gary I understand Klingon just fine.

The Klingon language is a frak easier to learn than Russian.
Wish I could see the opera. That would be fun.

Sort of reminds me of a bit by the late Victor Buono.

“My first night in Naples, I was taken to a recital by a German soprano. She sang beautifully, but somewhere between her first selection and Thursday, she elected – for some perverse reason – to include three arias from ‘Madame Butterfly. In German. Out Loud.

“She sang them well, but hearing ‘Madame Butterfly’ sung well in German is not unlike seeing ‘Swan Lake’ danced well by the San Diego Chargers.”

@6 naHQon – “If English grammar rules require quotes, then say “‘u’”.”

I thought the accepted orthography in DIvI Hol for rendering a quotation mark for tlhIngan Hol was to use the angle brackets (less than and greater than symbols). Using the DIvI Hol “quotation mark” makes the apostrophe vanish to the teragnan eye.

Of course, this forum automatically strips out anything inside those symbols, on the assumption that it’s HTML code.

Ok. When is it coming to the U.S. How about having it in vegas. I would go in a hart beat.

RE: #10

Capt. Mike….if you can attend one of our monthly club meetimgs, you could meet the Captain of Las Vegas’s Klingon ship the IKV Kahless Ro. His name is Kent Scow.
Then perhaps you could discuss a plan to organize and promote and execute to the company to intice them to put on a performance here. Remember the USS Las Vegas meets on the 3rd Wednesday of every month. Our next meeting is on Wed. Sept. 15. For more info on time and location please email me directly . Just click on the link by my name .

Capt. Walker

Re;#10

Capt, Mike, If you could attend one of the monthly meetings of the USS Las Vegas I could put you in contact with the Captain of the IKV Kahless Ro (Las Vegas’s only KLINGON Ship) captained by Kent Scow.

Then perhaps you could work with the Klingon ship to begin a marketing capaign to invite them to put on a performance here in Las Vegas like you suggested. Remeber our club meets on the 3rd Wed. of every month. Our next meeting is scheduled for Wed,. Sept. 15th. For more infor inc. time & loc. please email me directly. Just click on my name above and that should take you to our clubs main website.

Capt. Walker
USS Las Vegas

Anthony and all….

Sorry about duplicate posts…..

Paul Walker

there is so much win here.

Very nice to read about more klingon operas.
But sorry, this is definitly not the first official klingon opera. The German Frieder Butzmann did one a couple of years before. It came on the radio. A mix of klingon and chinese. Very experimental instruments and singing. About a Chinese/Klingon couple.

ah, sorry, the name of the opera was “juHrop” (home sickness)

1. Elizabethan English is not Olde English. It’s actually considered Early Modern English, which dates roughly from the 15th century to the 18th century. The only real difference between it and Modern English is that Modern English has a slightly different vocabulary. If you watch Shakespeare done really well, then the English is perfectly understandable–in fact the word play can be quite funny, if delivered properly.

#11. I live in Austin Tx. But I did live in Vegas and try to get out there when ever I can. I will look you up whe Im out there again.

RE: #18

Capt. Thanks for the update. From your earlier comment I got the idea you lived here in Vegas. You did not make that clear you live in “The Lonestar” state now….

Well you know where to find us next time you in town on the 3rd Wed. of every month.

Capt. Walker
USS Las Vegas

@1

“Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas and his leod-biscopas and Thurcyl eorl and ealle his eorlas and ealne his theodscype, twelfhynde and twyhynde, gehadode and laewede, on Englalande freondlice.”

Old English, A.D. 1019

And here’s Shakespeare, ca. 1609:

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate; rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease hath all too short a date…”

Which is more intelligible?

In any English or Klingon an Opera would be great! Worf spoke of Opera evan tried singing it. Would love to expeirence it. Loving Opera as I do, great classic Klingon would be an evaning well spent. Organize a touring Company, to perform nationwide

@8: If I had been drinking anything while reading that, you’d owe me a new keyboard! :D

That is quite interesting. In the Trek movie, “The Undiscovered Country”, didn’t the Klingon, played by Christopher Plummer, tell Kirk, after Kirk recited a Shakespearan quote, he said something like, ” You haven’t heard Shakespeare till you’ve heard it in Klingon!” Something to that effect. Now there is a Shakespearan Opera. LOL

Correction: I mean a Shakespearan Klingon Opera !

@22 – [evil grin]

Klingons are going to be confused and think the play is callled “FU” ….this will not end well!

Casting call for Klingon Extras happening this Saturday, 9/18 in Dupont Circle in Washington DC for the Washington Shakespeare Company event. http://www.washingtonshakespeare.org/extras.pdf

Did you know that the first ever play written and performed in Klingon has been going on in America since 2007? It’s “A Klingon Christmas Carol” an ancient Klingon story (that had been translated and co-opted by the classical Terran writer Charles Dickens) about SQuja’, a cowardly Klingon with no honor. There are productions this year in Minneapolis and Chicago. Both open the day after Thanksgiving. http://www.cbtheatre.org/index.html Does the opera offer batleth fights?