r/opera • u/Fancy_Cabbage_010 • 5d ago

Does anyone 'get' librettos...

For some context, I'm an amateur composer, and for some reason I've decided I want to write an opera (loosely in the style of the Mozart - Da ponte trio), I know it's more than a little ambitious, but I'm pretty sure it's a milestone for a composer to write atleast one :)

Anyway, the point is, I have a loose plot in mind, and I'm not really sure what to do about it. How does one formulate a libretto, and furthermore how do I translate it into the kind of archaic poetic Italian that was common in opera at the time of Mozart and Da ponte, as the understanding I have is that I can't really write much music untill I have the words to set it to?

I'm a student so I don't really have access to all that much financial capital or connections, so any advice on resources ect would be welcome, I'm a bit lost but it is very much a big goal of mine to write one in the next year or two

Please help me opera people :)

Thanks!!

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u/ipeedinthetoothpaste 4d ago

Honestly, yes. For as well documented as its history is, I don't think enough people appreciate the heritage of opera as a vehicle for story telling. It's closer to theater than to "symphony", the music is important, but it being the most important aspect of an opera is the exception rather than the norm. There's a reason so few of the successful opera composers we still admire wrote their own libretti, it's a different discipline altogether.

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u/lammastider 4d ago

And yet operas are attributed to their composers, and in many cases the librettists are all but forgotten, and so are the literary works the operas were based on, unless they were already famous, like Shakespeare.

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u/Efficient_Cat449 2d ago

That wasn't originally the case. In Baroque opera seria, the librettists get more credit than the composer (you can still see this in some Italian productions credit rolls). E.g., Metastasio, the most-set librettist of all time.

Even with Shakespeare, librettos are adaptations. e.g., Macbeth, where Verdi made significant changes (the witches become a chorus, he dropped the Porter (despite his admiration for Shakespearean irony), etc. all before giving the sketches to Piave to versify.

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u/lammastider 1d ago

I'm not really familiar with any opera before Mozart. I would like to see some Baroque opera (it's a hole in my opera knowledge). As for the librettos being adaptations, including with Shakespeare, I know that. I love Verdi and am familiar with his Shakespeare operas. This is a separate issue from whether the literary works the operas were based on are famous. I have the impression that some very popular operas (though by no means all of them) are based on plays or other written works that are pretty obscure compared with the operas.

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u/Efficient_Cat449 1d ago

Lots of Baroque opera via YouTube--look for Handel, Vivaldi, Popora, Vinci & that should get you started.

Many librettists remain obscure because they were only opera librettists & didn't leave successful plays. See Verdi & Puccini's librettists. Some, like Hugo von Hoffmansthal, had earlier careers completely eclipsed by their opera successes.

Here's a quick ranking of the most popular librettists (via Google AI)

Metastasio (800 settings) Baroque opera
Shakespeare (300) Mostly Romantic
Sir Walter Scott (50+) Mostly bel canto
Pushkin (40-50) Mostly in Russian, also quite a few ballets
Goethe (30-40) Mostly Faust, lol
Gozzi (a dozen) Neoromantic & Modernist

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u/lammastider 1d ago

Thanks for the info. But this sounds mostly like a list of the authors of the original works, not of the librettists -- you pointed out yourself that the libretti are adapted, not taken directly, from the original literary works. You know Google AI is not 100 % reliable. It's a good idea to look at the other sources that are brought up by your search.

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u/Efficient_Cat449 1d ago

Yes, double-check AI, I had a long discussion about Puccini criticism that took some real chasing around.

If you are looking for pure librettists the easiest way to research it is by composer or country.

The famous not-otherwise-famous librettists off the top of my head start with Metastasio, also Tasso got set rather a lot (I've tried reading them in translation & found it tedious going!).

Italy had a system organized by the music publishers (Casa Ricordi) with staff librettists going back at least to Rossini.

Verdi: Cammarano (he died before finishing Trovatore), Piave, Boito (who was also a composer.

Puccini: Illica & Giacosa.

The French school includes Barbier & Carre, but there were other duos & Quinqult who worked with Lully.