Previous work on opera translation has tended to focus on the practical difficulties of rendering a verbal text embedded in a musical score. Where issues of theoretical significance are raised, authors usually do not go beyond the prescriptive formulation of dos and don’ts. Based on a classification of the various types of opera translation this paper outlines a theoretical framework of analysis based on the systematic investigation of the pragmatics of operatic production. Adopting a necessarily interdisciplinary approach, the author first explores the relationship between semiotics and translation studies. Then the semiotics of drama as modeled by Fischer-Lichte, who views operatic performance as text, is linked up with Holz-Mänttäri’s action-theoretical model of translation so as to account for all the various translation-relevant stages and agents of operatic productions.