Shakuntala (play)

Manuscripts differ on what its exact title is. Usual variants are Abhijñānaśakuntalā, Abhijñānaśākuntala, Abhijñānaśakuntalam and the "grammatically indefensible" Abhijñānaśākuntalam.[7] The Sanskrit title means pertaining to the recognition of Shakuntala, so a literal translation could be Of Shakuntala who is recognized. The title is sometimes translated as The token-for-recognition of Shakuntala or The Sign of Shakuntala ( The mother of King Bharatha, Emporer of Lunar Dynasty). Titles of the play in published translations include Sacontalá or The Fatal Ring and Śakoontalá or The Lost Ring.[8][9] A more recent translation by Barbara Stoler Miller (1984) was entitled Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection.

Sacontalá or The Fatal Ring, Sir William Jones' translation of Kālidāsa's play, was first published in Calcutta, followed by European republications in 1790, 1792 and 1796.[8][12] A German and a French version of Jones' translation were published in 1791 and 1803 respectively.[12][13][14] Goethe published an epigram about Shakuntala in 1791, and in his Faust he adopted a theatrical convention from the prologue of Kālidāsa's play.[12] Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel's plan to translate Shakuntala in German never materialised, but he did however publish a translation of the Mahabharata version of Shakuntala's story in 1808.[15] Goethe's epigram goes like this:[16]

Wilt thou the blossoms of spring and the fruits that are later in season,
Wilt thou have charms and delights, wilt thou have strength and support,
Wilt thou with one short word encompass the earth and the heaven,
All is said if I name only, [Shakuntala], thee.

Shakuntala was disapproved of as a text for school and college students in the British Raj in the 19th century, as popular Indian literature was deemed, in the words of Charles Trevelyan, to be "marked with the greatest immorality and impurity", and Indian students were thought by colonial administrators to be insufficiently morally and intellectually advanced to read the Indian texts that were taught and praised in England.[17]

When Leopold Schefer became a student of Antonio Salieri in September 1816, he had been working on an opera about Shakuntala for at least a decade, a project which he did however never complete.[18] Franz Schubert, who had been a student of Salieri until at least December of the same year, started composing his Sakuntala opera, D 701, in October 1820.[18][19] Johann Philipp Neumann based the libretto for this opera on Kālidāsa's play, which he probably knew through one or more of the three German translations that had been published by that time.[20] Schubert abandoned the work in April 1821 at the latest.[18] A short extract of the unfinished score was published in 1829.[20] Also Václav Tomášek left an incomplete Sakuntala opera.[21]

Kālidāsa's Shakuntala was the model for the libretto of Karl von Perfall's first opera, which premièred in 1853.[22] In 1853 Monier Monier-Williams published the Sanskrit text of the play.[23] Two years later he published an English translation of the play, under the title: Śakoontalá or The Lost Ring.[9] A ballet version of Kālidāsa's play, Sacountalâ, on a libretto by Théophile Gautier and with music by Ernest Reyer, was first performed in Paris in 1858.[21][24] A plot summary of the play was printed in the score edition of Karl Goldmark's Overture to Sakuntala, Op. 13 (1865).[21] Sigismund Bachrich composed a Sakuntala ballet in 1884.[21] Felix Weingartner's opera Sakuntala, with a libretto based on Kālidāsa's play, premièred the same year.[25] Also Philipp Scharwenka's Sakuntala, a choral work on a text by Carl Wittkowsky, was published in 1884.[26]

Bengali translations:

• Shakuntala (1854) by Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar
• Shakuntala (1895) by Abanindranath Tagore

Tamil translations include:

• Abigna Sakuntalam (1938) by Mahavidwan R.Raghava Iyengar. Translated in sandam style.

Felix Woyrsch's incidental music for Kālidāsa's play, composed around 1886, is lost.[27] Ignacy Jan Paderewski would have composed a Shakuntala opera, on a libretto by Catulle Mendès, in the first decade of the 20th century: the work is however no longer listed as extant in overviews of the composer's or librettist's oeuvre.[28][29][30][31] Arthur W. Ryder published a new English translation of Shakuntala in 1912.[32] Two years later he collaborated to an English performance version of the play.[33]

Italian Franco Alfano composed an opera, named La leggenda di Sakùntala (The legend of Sakùntala) in its first version (1921) and simply Sakùntala in its second version (1952).[34]

Chinese translation:

• 沙恭达罗 (1956) by Ji Xianlin

Fritz Racek's completion of Schubert's Sakontala was performed in Vienna in 1971.[20] Another completion of the opera, by Karl Aage Rasmussen, was published in 2005[35] and recorded in 2006.[19] A scenic performance of this version was premièred in 2010.

Norwegian electronic musician Amethystium wrote a song called "Garden of Sakuntala" which can be found on the CD Aphelion. According to Philip Lutgendorf, the narrative of the movie Ram Teri Ganga Maili recapitulates the story of Shakuntala.[36]

In Koodiyattam, the only surviving ancient Sanskrit theatre tradition, prominent in the state of Kerala on India, performances of Kālidāsa's plays are rare. However, legendary Kutiyattam artist and Natyashastra scholar Nātyāchārya Vidūshakaratnam Padma Shri Guru Māni Mādhava Chākyār has choreographed a Koodiyattam production of The Recognition of Sakuntala.[37]

A production directed by Tarek Iskander was mounted for a run at London's Union Theatre in January and February 2009. The play is also appearing on a Toronto stage for the first time as part of the Harbourfront World Stage program. An adaptation by the Magis Theatre Company featuring the music of Indian-American composer Rudresh Mahanthappa had its premiere at La MaMa E.T.C. in New York February 11–28, 2010.