Seeing is believing

WENDY Ebsworth leaves the audience of the English National Opera (ENO) in awe every time she performs.

Dressed in black, she stands at the edge of the stage, interpreting three hours of an opera for the deaf people in the audience.

The entire opera - sung in English - is translated through her hands, facial expressions and body movements. By the end of the opera, she has a good part of the audience watching her rather than the stage.

Within a 10-month opera season, lasting until July each year, Wendy interprets around 15 operas. Each is different and each performance is effectively done live. "I don't get to rehearse with the opera performers before the night, so each performance is like sitting an exam. You want to be your best and you have one shot at it," she says. Her work lacks any structured time schedule.

Performances at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane are always in the evening - she arrives by 5pm - but every opera she interprets is preceded by two months of preparation. "For months before, I listen only to opera. I like to learn the opera in its original language first (often Italian or French) then learn every word and possible interpretation, and every movement of the music. Sometimes I have sleepless nights."

The intensity of the preparation is essential. Throughout the opera, Wendy may have to sign for two people singing simultaneously - "I do it fast" - or signal offstage activity to her deaf audience.

She also needs to know if a performer will start or finish on a held note so she can use a hand movement which signifies a continuation. Every movement is crucial: "My facial expressions are important as the lip pattern is a part of sign language. You can change the meaning of a word by the face."

Although the ENO currently runs one "sign-interpreted performance" for each opera, the potential audience is huge.

There are more than one million people in greater London who have some degree of hearing loss. The people who Wendy performs for at the ENO are not necessarily fully deaf - many will be able to hear music within a certain range of pitch and many attend the opera regularly.

Ironically, she has no former musical training, and degree courses in sign language did not exist when she started out.

Her interest in working with the deaf stemmed from a childhood curiosity.

She took sign language classes while at university and was initially employed in social work for deaf people. She crossed into performance by first interpreting for musicals, and was later asked to interpret an opera. Five years ago, she started with the ENO and now signs for television and stage as well. "It's another dimension of signing. Even moving from a play to the opera is completely different. There's a bigger time delay in opera and you do not necessarily need every word in the interpretation - it's the just the same as for a hearing person."

Last week, Wendy started her sixth season for the ENO. "I sometimes look back and think, if someone told me 10 years ago that I'd have done more than 200 operas by now, I'd never have believed them."

SIGN OF THE TIMES

Wendy's sign language skills for the opera are shared by only two other people in Britain. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) says there is currently a major shortage of deaf interpreters in the UK. There are only 100 interpreters catering for Britain's 8.7 million people who suffer from some form of hearing loss.

Courses are available (the BNID helpline has information, 0870 6050123), but fulI qualifications can take up to seven years, including two years as a trainee. The City Literary Institute (0171 831 9631) runs a centre for deaf studies, to reach NVQ qualification standards.

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