Thanks to all for the advice. It definitely helps my thinking on this question.Having read the other comments so far I would second the advice (and repeat my first one) to use the original orthography.
Then you would have even more difficulties with modernizing (in terms of quantity ;-)
A few points I didn't make clear in the first post:
- I'm not just citing a few texts; I'll be reproducing entire librettos.
- I have two source texts available to me, one "original" and one "modernized". My choice is pretty much just which of the two to use; I wouldn't have to go through and make the changes myself. I've got a list of the current official rules, and I think I could apply them properly, but that's more work than I care to do.*If* this "modernized" edition exclusively uses "ss" then it certainly is no good edition!
It's been a while since I've looked at that second source text (I used the first one in an earlier edition) so I don't recall exactly how much is changed in it. I'm pretty sure that ALL ß's were changed to ss, and all th's are changed to t. There may have been other changes I didn't notice.
As others pointed out, 'ß' is still used along with 'ss'.
(Just a comment on the name 'sz' (doesn't help you with your decision)). People of my grandfather's generation still call it 'es-zett' while nowadays it is called 'scharf-es' (something like 's sharp' ;-) If it has to be spelled in capitals today it is written as 'SS' (e.g. 'GROSS') while in earlier days it was written 'GROSZ').
BTW: Do you know how "original" your "original" edition is?
Really no need to even with "historical" orthography. That's not what modern editions do in Germany...
- I'm definitely not using Fraktur!
That is definitely not true. Classics are usually only printed in original spelling in historical critical editions. Text that are for sale and to be read by Germans today are nearly always modernized since the original looks unusual for us too. The decision is always to what extent it is being modernized.
I was already leaning toward sticking with the old spellings, and now I'm even more inclined in that direction. This comment from Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_spelling_reform_of_1996> also leads me in that direction: <<Classics are typically printed without changes, unless they are specific school editions.>>
That brings another question to mind: What purpose is your publication intended for? Is it as a reference to the music, something to work with or just a matter of curiosity?
One remark about capitalization (what I read about in one or more comments).
I'm still interested in further opinions, if anyone else wants to chime in.
Please keep it!! This has nothing to do with original vs. modern. The German language just has this somewhat unusual way of capitalizing. And besides a politically motivated to print everything lowercase (in the 70ies of the past century) there isn't any tendency towards changing this.
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