f ‘Telling the tale’: Adaptation as interpretation

The introduction considers the adaptations of stage musicals from previously existing source material as acts of cultural translation, operating through intricately interwoven intertexts of narrative meaning in myths, folk tales, fairy tales, prose fiction, poetry and films across a wide spectrum of cultures and languages. One of the key questions problematized is the common sense idea of fidelity to the original source material; it is however logically impossible for an adaptation to be faithful to its source as all adaptation involves interpretative decisions so that even the simplest translation from one medium to another is a hermeneutic act. Rather than focusing exclusively on the technical differences between media, the articles in this volume address adaptations of sources for the musical stage as interpretations.