[ENG SUB] Ciboulette (Moon, 1982)
Oct. 25th, 2022 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nightless_castle
Summary: A lively village girl named Ciboulette (Kuroki Hitomi) has 8 suitors but doesn't love any of them. She goes to the local market’s fortune teller (Natori Rei) to ask who it is she'll fall in love with, only to receive a ridiculously impossible set of circumstances to find her one true love. First, she must find him underneath a cabbage, second, she must win him from another woman who turns white in seconds, and third, she must receive a letter on top of a tambourine. After confiding with the comptroller of the market, Duparquet (Haruna Yuri), he decides to play matchmaker between Ciboulette and Antonin (Daichi Mao), a spoiled aristocrat who just got dumped by his girlfriend.
CW: the topic of suicide being used in a joking “light hearted” manner
DOWNLOAD HERETakarazuka's charming adaptation of the comedic French opera Ciboulette, directed by renowned French director Nicholas Bataille himself. The above illustration which was used in the TV broadcast was made by shoujo manga artist Miya Chie (宮 千恵). Special thanks to Daz, Fig, and Mel for helping and proofreading!
EDIT 11/8/2022: fixed a runaway line and some other minor corrections
I used the NHK TV broadcast recording of this show, which cut out a total of three songs and some chunks of dialogue, probably for timeslot reasons when it was broadcasted. Similar to what I did with Diga Diga Doo, I've edited them all in with the audio I transferred from my cassette tapes but obviously there is no footage to accompany them.
Ciboulette is considered to be one of the very few and rare Takarazuka shows in which the musumeyaku is the main character. In a very rare occurrence in Takarazuka history, the changes in this adaptation were made to shine the spotlight onto the musumeyaku instead of the otokoyaku. Most of it, I suspect, has to do with its foreign director Nicholas Bataille, and the fact that it was a vehicle for Kuroki Hitomi to showcase her skills right before being promoted to top musumeyaku alongside Daichi Mao. There is a short interview with a TV presenter at the beginning of this recording. It's kind of an awkward standing man emoji interview but I subbed it nonetheless, it’s quite insightful.
Ciboulette is a french operetta composed by Reynaldo Hahn and is apparently considered to be one of the “last masterpieces of French opera” in the opera world. It’s a sweet and cheerful romcom and the music is very pleasant. Aside from getting rid of the first few scenes which focus on Antonin and Zenobie, this adaptation is quite faithful to the original operette. And getting rid of the Antonin scenes and instead having the play open with the market vendors and straight into introducing Ciboulette made her even more of a main character than she already was.
Kuroki Hitomi, who played the titular character Ciboulette is such a delight. She was only in her second year at the company when she performed this lead role and was paired with top star Daichi Mao, quite a thing by Takarazuka standards. In fact I believe she has had the fastest top star promotion in the company’s history. I knew she had a vastly successful acting career during and after her time in Takarazuka and just from this one small theater play I can see what’s so special about her. Her singing voice is lovely but what really stands out about her is definitely her acting and just the way in which she carries herself. I think the fact that she was quite young really helped her in this role. At the time of the performance, Kuroki was the exact same age as her character Ciboulette, 21 years old. Kuroki and Daichi were the youngest top combi in the company at the time, so this innocent young love play was perfect for them. Bataille was also apparently notorious for being extremely particular about casting and I imagine he was happy with this one.
Daichi Mao played Antonin, the helpless and spoiled aristocrat who gets his heart broken. And she was hilarious at it, I liked her interpretation of the character a lot. And so did the audience, they couldn’t stop laughing at every little line she said. Such a comedic role was quite a rare thing for her at the time too as she’s usually in quite serious ones. I especially loved her singing in this, her voice sounds so pleasant over Hahn’s melodies. Haruna Yuri (famed first “official” Moon Troupe top star and the first star to ever play Oscar from Rose of Versailles) plays Duparquet, the romantic old man who sets Ciboulette and Antonin up. I don’t know if I quite like the direction they took with her character, or if maybe comedy just isn’t her specialty, but still a nice addition to the cast nonetheless.
By the way, there’s a bit of audio from the cassette tapes that I decided not to include just because it’s a tad too long and boring without any visuals and wasn’t important to the story or any of the major characters anyway. It’s the part where Tsurugi Miyuki’s character comes in during the party and basically it’s a bunch of rich people talking about rich people stuff.
Things That Didn’t Age Well
Some things here and there that you would unfortunately expect from a show from the 80s. I try to soften the blow with my subs so maybe you won’t notice anything off at times. A lot of it is old fashioned remarks on women, mostly.
But probably the biggest offender is this one problematic song where they sexualize a theoretical Spanish girl who has been sleeping with men since she was 14. I felt uncomfortable translating this song, to say the least. Most Ciboulette productions these days change or cut out the lyrics of this song entirely.
About the “topic of suicide” CW, there obviously isn’t anything graphic but basically the gist of it (with minimal spoilers) is that a character is so sad because of something that happened he starts writing his will/suicide note and it’s all presented in a “joking” manner. Nothing egregious but if you are sensitive to the topic just be aware.
Translator’s Notes
There’s a bit that relies heavily on the Japanese language and its writing system and basically not possible to translate into English. I didn’t like the idea of having paragraphs of translator’s notes appear on the screen so I made the jokes closer to the original French operetta instead.
The actual joke is that Antonin doesn’t know how to write kanji and so Duparquet is explaining how to write them by telling him what radicals make up the character.
『知らせ』と言う字は口に矢
"The character for “shirase (知らせ)” is written with “kuchi (口)” and “ya (矢)”
『分かって』はつのへんです
“Wakatte (解って)” is written with “tsunohen (角)”
『待つ』はぎょうにんべん
てへんかと思った
“Matsu (待つ)” is written with “gyouninben (彳)”
"I thought it was “tehen (手)”
There’s also another joke where Antonin spells Ciboulette’s name and he says “Shibuuretsuto” (シブーレツト). Essentially the joke is that he pronounces a silent letter because in Japanese, a small “tsu” or sokuon is used to mark a geminate consonant. If the joke was localized into English it would be like if he pronounced Ciboulette's name with an "e" at the end and said "Si-bu-le-te".
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Date: 2022-10-25 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-28 03:02 pm (UTC)I'm super uncultured so whenever I call back to things when watching any kind of stage performance, I think of the Sailor Moon musicals, and I felt there were some ways in which Kuroki portrayed Ciboulette's coquettishness that reminded me of the way Usagi is portrayed on stage, and that obviously made me want to root for her character even more.
Again, thank you so much for your hard work. I don't want to fill up your comments section with my waffling but I do want to express how grateful I am for your hard work! Thank youuu~!
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Date: 2022-10-30 04:29 pm (UTC)Ah, La Fille mal gardée! You're absolutely right, old French romantic comedies set in small villages... the light-hearted gaiety of it all... I think that's quite the cultured ballet for the only ballet you've ever seen :'D
In fact I'm probably uncultured one because I haven't seen the Sailor Moon musicals (despite loving Sailor Moon and magical girl anime in general!). I just never know where to start, it seems!
And ahh no please don't hesitate to fill up my comment section lol!! I always love to hear people's thoughts, I really appreciate it ^^
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Date: 2022-11-01 09:22 am (UTC)Oh, you're far too kind, thank you.
Not that I wish to come here and foist other musicals on you, but Sea of Serenity have most of them up except the most recent one, and they're wonderful... I mean, it's difficult because they are obviously less lavish productions, but I can't take these rose tinted glasses off whenever I consider them.
I'm so pleased that I can depend on you to broaden my horizons though. before I encountered your journal, I only really knew Takarazuka through association, so it's just so, so exciting for me to actually get to witness some of these performances and step outside of my small idol fandom bubble for a moment.
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Date: 2022-11-02 08:08 pm (UTC)"I'm so pleased that I can depend on you to broaden my horizons though."
Wow, thank you for such wonderful words! I'm so honored
And oh, speaking of idols...! I'm working on another Takarazuka subs project and it actually involves a certain Japanese idol group. After hearing you were into idols I took a quick look at your profile and noticed that the group was listed in your interests! Would you mind at all if I dropped you a private message some time? I'm not too familiar with this group so I could use someone else's expertise xD I'd just love to have the insight of someone who actually knows their stuff!
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Date: 2022-11-02 08:28 pm (UTC)I'd be delighted! I'm not sure if I will be of any actual use beyond an abundance of enthusiasm, but if there's any way in which I can help, I will totally do my best!
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Date: 2022-11-07 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-07 09:36 pm (UTC)