Translation as de- and reconstructing synsemiotic relationships

In order to describe the nature of opera as a polysemiotic artifact and to address the challenges around its transfer, reference is often made to the concept of “context,” which, however, is usually used rather casually and intuitively and is rarely defined precisely. Building on the theory of synsemioticity, a somewhat tighter analytical grid will be presented that allows the extension of context to become clearer. This is achieved in two ways: first, the status of nonverbal in the polysemiotic artifact is addressed, which, referring to Catford, must be defined as co-text rather than as context. Second, it will be shown on which semiotic levels contextuality can be described. The examples given here are taken from the opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) by Christoph Willibald Gluck and from some of the translations in German and French based on this work.