Frequently Asked Questions about Opera Supertitles

Please make all payments payable to:
Chadwick Creative Arts
Planetarium Station
P.O. Box 106
New York, NY 10024

Slideshows appear as white lettering on a black background. The black background does not show up on the surface on which you are projecting, but allows the white lettering to shine through with greater ease. Slideshows typically use the Arial font, which is available on just about every computer out there, and which is quickly and easily read by your patrons.

Your operator will see a screen shot similar to the one below during the process of dealing with cuts and prior to the show's start, although your version of Powerpoint may differ slightly. The slide number appears in the upper left hand corner of the slide, while the editable text sits in the middle. Once the slide show has begun (by pressing F5) your operator will see exactly what is being projected.

Yes! The second rental in a given season receives a 10% discount, the third gets 20%, the fourth 50%, and for five or more supertitle rentals in a given season, we can work out a custom payment program for you. If you are doing a combined production (such as Cav/Pag or Puccini's Il Trittico) there are also discounts on the titles to make them align with a normal opera's rental fee.

For an additional fee of $75 per day, plus travel and lodging, a title runner can be sent. However, this is not a difficult task for someone who is involved in the production, such as an Assistant Conductor or Production Assistant. It is not cost-effective to hire OperaSupertitles to come and run your slideshow for you, but we will do so if you require that assistance.

You may rent a projector from OperaSupertitles.com for an additional fee of $200 plus shipping and insurance. Soon, we will also have projection screens available as well. Most companies have access to this equipment through sponsor companies or through the venue in which they perform. If you are planning on using titles for more than three performances in the future, it is well worth it to purchase a projector system or have one donated.

The supertitles that we rent are formatted for use on a screen dimension that is a ratio of 1 to 8, but can be altered for almost any screen size. We can make this alteration for a fee, or you can make the alterations yourself. How large the receptor screen is depends on how far your projector will be and what kind of throw it provides. Most projectors have many ways to adjust the image size. It is recommended that if you are building a screen for these titles, get a sample slide in advance and project it in your venue. The sample slide will show you the boundaries of the projection. Measure the projection and make your receiver screen accordingly. Bear in mind that your audience is going to get neck strain if your screen is too high. You should be able to look at the stage, then simply move your eyes (not your neck) up to see the words.

Absolutely. Once you have paid for your rental of the supertitles, you can receive a .pdf file outline of each slide in the presentation. This is not a large file and can be emailed easily for you to print out at your location. That way, your director can know what the audience is reading while his or her staging is going on. This is a resource most stage directors will appreciate having.

A deposit and a signed contract holds those titles for your future production. Some more frequently performed pieces should be reserved in advance.

Yes, though it would take you producing the opera 4 to 6 times before it paid for itself. Renting is a more financially reasonable option. The reason the rental fees for these operas is so low is that the cost of creating them is capitalized over several rentals.

Either. If you have a cuts list that you can send to OperaSupertitles.com, we will make a new slideshow and clip your score for you. There is a $50.00 add-on charge for this service. Or, you can do the cuts yourself. We recommend you make a backup copy of the original slideshow to go back to, and we recommend you use paperclips and Post-It notes in the score itself. Marking up the score in pen is strictly prohibited and doing so will cause you to be charged the full purchase price of the tabbed supertitles score, which is $1250. Making huge marks in pencil means you have to go back and erase them later, so do it lightly. Scores returned not in their original condition will be charged a fee of $.50 per system for corrections required to return the score to its original condition. Scores damaged beyond repair are charged the full purchase price listed in your contract. Included with your CD is a tutorial on how to make cuts in the tabbed score. We highly recommend you view this tutorial prior to making cuts.

Yes! And, we're happy to put together a slide show for you that includes scenes and arias from various operas. We'll also add a one-slide synopsis of the scene if you like. A full scenes program evening would cost roughly the same as an opera production rental. A single aria or two would obviously be less.

You can get a brief sample to use, but not any large part of the copyrighted translation. If you have a specific aria or scene in mind (for example, the crazy garden scene in Falstaff) just let us know and we'll send you a clip. Clips from commonly requested operas are also available on our samples page.

Not at this time. This service can be provided, but it is considerably more expensive.

Of course! New titles are being made all the time. Just let us know when your production is so that we can plan appropriate time to create the titles you need.

The titles include as much of the literal libretto and plot as possible, but are restructured to be consistent with normal English, and condensed for quick comprehension. Some operas actually include two versions in the rental, a literal and a "quick read" version.

Yes! The slideshow is done electronicaly in Microsoft Powerpoint. Each slide is fully customizable to meet your particular staging needs. Translations are copyrighted, so significant changes to the translation itself must be approved by Michael Chadwick via phone or email.

We recommend you make a backup copy of the original slideshow to go back to, and we recommend you use paperclips and Post-It notes in the score itself. Marking up the score in pen is strictly prohibited and doing so will cause you to be charged the full purchase price of the tabbed supertitles score, which is $1250. Making huge marks in pencil means you have to go back and erase them later, so do it lightly. Scores returned not in their original condition will be charged a fee of $.50 per system for corrections required to return the score to its original condition. Scores damaged beyond repair are charged the full purchase price listed in your contract. Included with your CD is a tutorial on how to make cuts in the tabbed score. We highly recommend you view this tutorial prior to making cuts.

Simply return the score to its original condition (remove paper clips, move tabs back to their original location, remove pencil marks, etc.) and mail it back to the address at the top of this page. You have thirty days from the end of your production to accomplish this. Scores not returned after 30 days are subject to purchase price, which is usually around $1,250.

You should have both the score and the Powerpoint presentation in front of you. The slide numbers are associated with the numbers on the tabs, and this will not change when you remove slides in the Powerpoint presentation. Small cuts should have Post-It Notes placed over the section to be skipped, especially including the tab so that the runner will not transition the slide at the wrong time. Cuts sometimes remove only part of a slide. If the normal location of the slide transition is altered, the easiest way to keep track of this change is to place a tab marker ON the Post-It Note, so that when you remove the Post-It Notes at the end, the added slide transition is easy to spot. For larger cuts, use a paper clip in combination with Post-It Notes to make the cut as easy as possible for your runner. Clips are easy to spot and remove afterward.

For making cuts in the Powerpoint, you should first be using a COPY of the slideshow (you should copy from the CD to the desktop of the PC you will be using). Highlight the slide you wish to remove, then simply delete it by pressing the "Delete" key on your keyboard. Make sure to remove the entire slide, unless you are only deleting part of the text. In that case, simply click on the slide itself and you will be able to edit the text directly. You can also edit the text directly in the Outline view.

The easiest thing is to simply place a border in front of the projection, such as cardboard or a shutter of some kind. Heat-resistant tape is also a possibility.

You can alter it on the projector itself, or within the slide show. Select "Slide Show" and "Set Up Show." Within the dialog window, you'll see "Slide show resolution." Play with this setting until you alter the slide show to your needs. As a final possible step, you can alter the overall screen resolution of your computer.

This happens if the mouse is bumped during projection. If you are masking the top half of your screen (which you should be, or you also have floating numbers!) just move the mouse cursor up until it's in the portion of your screen that is being masked by your shutter (see "How do I hide the slide number in the projection?")

This process varies from projector to projector. Some projectors you have to power up prior to plugging them in to the laptop. Sometimes you have to plug the powered on projector into the laptop and reboot the laptop. Some laptops can change from monitor to monitor (the projector is considered another monitor by most laptops) by pressing F8. Don't panic - just try a few different things.