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Journal articles on the topic 'Operas Librettos'
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Krejčová, Kristýna, and Jana Spáčilová. "Dittersovy italské opery z Jánského Vrchu : současný stav pramenů." Musicologica Brunensia, no. 1 (2023): 47–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/mb2023-1-4.
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During his stay at the castle Jánský Vrch near Javorník between 1771 and 1776, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf composed at least twelve Italian operas for the Bishop of Wrocław, Philip Gotthard Schaffgotsch. Four of these operas were later performed in Esterházy under the direction of Joseph Haydn. Information on Ditters' operas is incomplete or erroneous in the existing literature; the purpose of this study is therefore to present the current state of the sources – libretti and scores. Most of the librettos are stored in the Department of Music History of the Moravian Museum in Brno, two librettos considered lost were newly found in the Scientific Library in Olomouc. All librettos from Esterházy have also been identified. The sheet music for eight operas is stored in Budapest, one score is in Vienna. The work La poesia e la musica in gara belongs to the genre of serenata, the opera I visionari is known only by name. This study reestablishes the chronology of Ditters' operas, identifying the authors of the libretti and the names of the performers. Haydn's settings for Esterháza are also briefly discussed. The most important outcome of the research was the identification of two arias from the lost opera Il viaggiatore americano in Joannesberg.
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[方博], Fang Bo. "The Transtextual Gender Construction in the Opera Madame White Snake." ASIAN-EUROPEAN MUSIC RESEARCH JOURNAL 7 (June 21, 2021): 1–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.30819/aemr.7-1.
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The opera Madame White Snake (hereafter Madame), co-commissioned by Opera Boston and Beijing Music Festival, premiered at Boston Cutler Majestic Theater in February 2010. It was the first commissioned opera by Opera Boston.1 Based on the story from the famous Chinese ancient myth Bai She Zhuan 2 (in Chinese: 白蛇传), this opera’s libretto was created by a Singaporean American librettist, who has shed the story’s “traditional skin and taking on modern trappings” (Smith, 2019: 27) on purpose. When sniffing at male librettists’ discourses about female characters’ vulnerable and tragic lives in their operas, opera Madame’s initiator and librettist Cerise Lim Jacobs argues that women should seize the initiative to make their own decisions in life. The white snake, in her mind, ought to be a whole woman who is powerful and demonic, and yet, is also nurturing and caring, is capable of deep and intense love. In the first section of this article, I introduce the original legend’s background and the story outline in its operatic adaptation; I also trace back the opera’s commissioning process. After providing the background information of the story and the operatic version, then, in the second section I analyze the opera in terms of its transtextual figural gender construction in her characterization through comparative studies of the white and green snakes’ images from the sources of literary works, traditional xiqu scripts and operatic librettos. Referring to Lim’s personal growth and migrating history, as well as she and her husband co-founded charitable foundation’s missions and its recent IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) opera grant program partnering with Opera America, I aim to examine her gender construction of the “female” roles in the opera from the perspectives of feminism, interracial marriage; and heterosexual, transsexual, and homosexual relationships.
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Parker, Mary Ann, Ellen T. Harris, and Handel. "The Librettos of Handel's Operas." Notes 47, no. 4 (June 1991): 1120. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/941628.
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Spáčilová, Jana. "Zpracování pověsti o Libuši v italské barokní opeře." Musicologica Brunensia, no. 1 (2022): 89–113. http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/mb2022-1-6.
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The study deals with four Italian operas created in the Baroque period on the theme of the legend of Libuše and Přemysl. The first of these was La Libussa (libretto by Flaminio Parisetti, music by Clemente Monari, Wolfenbüttel 1692), reprised in Prague c. 1702 in the musical setting of Bartolomeo Bernardi. The next was Primislao primo re di Boemia (libretto by Giulio Cesare Corradi, music by Tomaso Albinoni, Venice 1697). Last was the pasticcio Praga nascente da Libussa, e Primislao (libretto by Antonio Denzio), performed in Prague 1734. The study discusses the historical circumstances of the creation of these operas, selected issues of libretto analysis, and a hypothetical identification of their music. The appendices contain selected excerpts from both Prague librettos.
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Yazar, İlhan Uğur. "The Influence of Orientalism in the 18th and 19th Century Opera Librettos." Journal of Human Sciences 19, no. 2 (June 21, 2022): 300–310. http://dx.doi.org/10.14687/jhs.v19i2.6283.
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This study aims to trace the change and transformation of meaning and influence of orientalism and in the West from the 18th century through the 19th century in the operas where both content and visual codes were penetrated in the subtlest way, which first evolved geographically and politically, then diplomatically and culturally, and finally the purpose of domination by the West. While opera librettos embodied orientalism visually, the evolving content of orientalism shaped the operas. From this viewpoint, this study discusses the interaction between the East and the West in the 18th century, and the reflection of the historical memory in the performing arts in the 19th century, in which the attempts for domination emerged. In this context, ‘Tamerlano’ Opera by George Frederick Händel and the ‘Abduction from the Seraglio’ Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 18th century are looked through, and ‘Aida’ Opera by Giuseppe Verdi in the 19th century is construed subsequently.
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Miklaszewska, Joanna. "Inspiracje Moniuszkowskie w muzyce XX wieku. Opera Pomsta Jontkowa Bolesława Wallek Walewskiego." Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Sklodowska, sectio L – Artes 15, no. 1 (December 8, 2017): 59. http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/l.2017.15.1.59.
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<p>Bolesław Wallek Walewski był jedną z czołowych postaci krakowskiego życia muzycznego w okresie międzywojennym. Do jego najwybitniejszych dzieł należy opera <em>Pomsta Jontkowa</em>, której libretto jest kontynuacją <em>Halki</em> Stanisława Moniuszki. W artykule scharakteryzowano muzyczne związki pomiędzy obu operami, widoczne m.in. we wprowadzeniu przez Wallek Walewskiego cytatów motywów z <em>Halki</em>, a także wskazano różnice stylistyczne między obydwoma dziełami. Wyznaczają je trzy elementy: warstwa językowa librett, główne założenia dramaturgiczne oraz styl muzyczny. Libretto <em>Halki</em> napisane zostało przez W. Wolskiego bez aluzji do elementów gwarowych, natomiast B. Wallek Walewski w libretcie <em>Pomsty Jontkowej</em> wykorzystał w szerokim zakresie gwarę podhalańską. W przeciwieństwie do <em>Halki</em>, osią dramatu Wallek Walewskiego jest motyw zemsty górala na możnych panach. Styl muzyczny opery Walewskiego wykazuje pokrewieństwo z muzyką Wagnera, z nurtem muzycznego folkloryzmu (poprzez nawiązanie do folkloru podhalańskiego), oraz impresjonizmu. W artykule poruszono ponadto problem recepcji dzieła. <em>Pomsta Jontkowa</em> była najbardziej znanym i często wystawianym w Polsce dziełem operowym krakowskiego kompozytora. Jej prapremiera odbyła się w Teatrze Wielkim w Poznaniu w 1926 roku. Na przełomie lat dwudziestych i trzydziestych opera ta cieszyła się w Polsce dużą popularnością, wystawiły ją także inne teatry operowe w kraju (z wyjątkiem sceny warszawskiej). Po II wojnie światowej <em>Pomstę Jontkową</em> wystawiła Opera Wrocławska.</p><p>SUMMARY</p><p>Born in Lvov but fi rst of all associated with the musical circles in Krakow, Bolesław Wallek Walewski (1885-1944) referred to one of Stanisław Moniuszko’s most famous operas – <em>Halka</em> [Helen] – when composing his own opera Pomsta Jontkowa [Jontek’s Vengeance] (1924). The contemporaries regarded Halka and Pomsta Jontkowa as a series. Both operas share common elements: <em>Halka</em> (Warsaw version) and <em>Pomsta Jontkowa</em> are four-act operas, the same characters appear in their librettos (Jontek, Zofia), and in both works the confl icts between the gentry and the peasants are highly important. The musical connections between the operas are evidenced by Walewski’s use of the leading motifs. Moreover, both in <em>Halka</em> and in <em>Pomsta Jontkowa</em>, there are highlanders’ dances. Walewski also includes melodies from Halka into his work.</p><p>The principal difference between the two operas is determined by three elements: the language of the librettos, the main dramatic assumptions, and the musical style. The libretto of <em>Halka</em> was written by Włodzimierz Wolski (1824-1882) without references to dialectal elements whereas Walewski liberally used the Podhale highlanders’ dialect in his libretto. Moreover, unlike <em>Halka</em>, which emphasizes the personal experiences of the main heroine and social confl icts, the axis of Walewski’s drama is the motif of the highlander’s revenge on the wealthy lords. The musical style of <em>Pomsta Jontkowa</em> shows, on the one hand, a similarity with Richard Wagner’s music (harmony, instrumentation, and the way of treatment of leitmotifs), while on the other – a similarity to the trend of musical folklorism and impressionism. An innovative idea is the combination of impressionist features with the stylization of highlanders’ folklore.</p><p><em>Pomsta Jontkowa</em> was the best known opera of the Krakow composer in Poland in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, and at the same time it was one of the most original Polish operas of the interwar period. It combines traditional elements with modern ones, and it is an expression of the late inspirations by Wagnerian music and esthetics in Polish music, as well as referring to the best traditions of the Polish national opera.</p>
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Sparti, Barbara. "HERCULES DANCING IN THEBES, IN PICTURES AND MUSIC." Early Music History 26 (October 2007): 219–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0261127907000253.
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A general assumption persists among musicologists and dance historians that dance in seventeenth-century operas was a French phenomenon, with Italians only occasionally staging a final ballo. In large part the assumption is the result of lack of information concerning dance in seventeenth-century opera, due, particularly in comparison with other periods, to limited source material and limited research. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that when Italian operas included balli at the end of one or more acts, dance indications in the librettos tended to be brief, and the dance music appeared only rarely in scores.
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Hume, Robert D. "The Morphology of Handel's Operas." Eighteenth-Century Life 46, no. 3 (September 1, 2022): 52–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00982601-9955324.
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Little scholarly attention has been devoted to the dramaturgy of Handel's operas, which seems secondary to musical and circumstantial matters of venue and performers. This article argues that important things can be learned by attempting to categorize, analyze, and assess the librettos in strictly dramaturgical terms. We need to ask whether there is coherence or development, and what Handel wanted in the librettos he set. Handel's operas have generally been categorized by date and/or venue. Winton Dean categorized them by “dominant temper,” characterized as “heroic or dynastic,” “magic operas,” and “antiheroic.” By implication, Handel approached each opera on a case-by-case basis, not much concerned with generic form. Ellen T. Harris critiqued Dean and offered a dialectical model, dividing the operas into “pastoral” and “heroic” groups. But if we ask “What is the ‘source of action’ within each plot?,” we find four largely distinct groups: (1) villain or villainess; (2) intrigue complexities; (3) situational donné; and (4) character display. After nearly fifteen years of plot structures driven by villains, Handel began to experiment with quite different plot designs (though he did not change librettists). Handel's operas comprise, structurally, a series of mostly static scenes in which intense feelings (ambition, lust, hope, fear, doubt, pain, remorse, etc.) are expressed. The happy-ending convention in opera seria renders plot resolution secondary. Handel's operas are essentially situational rather than plot driven. They use dramatic situations over and over (e.g., supplication, deliverance, abduction, remorse, enmity of kinsmen, self-sacrifice). Handel is far more concerned with intense expression of emotion than with telling a story. In all four types of Handelian opera, quasi-ideal heroes or heroines are featured. In (1) they are threatened by the machinations of a villain; in (2) they find themselves entangled in intrigue; in (3) they are caught in the toils of fate or circumstances; and in (4) the aim is mostly just display of heroic character. Handel's bent was for situation and emotion rather than narrative and resolution. Great and stageable as the best of Handel's operas are, the English oratorio offered him a genre ultimately more congenial to his talents and inclinations.
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Власова, Н. О. "In Search of a Libretto. Anton Rubinstein’s Two Operas That Were Never Composed." Научный вестник Московской консерватории, no. 2(33) (June 22, 2018): 38–65. http://dx.doi.org/10.26176/mosconsv.2018.33.2.02.
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В статье прослеживается история двух неосуществленных оперных замыслов А. Г. Рубинштейна конца 1850 — начала 1860-х годов: оперы «Бросок камня, или Жертва за жертвой» на либретто, специально заказанное композитором Ф. Геббелю, и оперы «Росвита», над которой Рубинштейн начал работать совместно с либреттистом М. Гартманом. Важнейшим источником для статьи послужили неопубликованные письма Рубинштейна и рукописные варианты либретто «Росвиты», хранящиеся в Венской библиотеке в Ратуше и в Кабинете рукописей Российского института истории искусств (Санкт-Петербург). В статье раскрываются особенности работы композитора над оперным текстом, причины того, почему оба сочинения так и не были написаны, а также значение двух этих проектов в контексте эволюции оперного творчества Рубинштейна. This article is devoted to two opera projects conceived by Anton Rubinstein in late 1850s — early 1860s: “Ein Steinwurf oder Opfer um Opfer” and “Roswitha”, the librettos for which were commissioned to F. Hebbel and M. Hartmann, respectively. Our research is based on unpublished letters by Rubinstein and draft manuscripts of the libretto for “Roswitha” from Vienna Rathaus library (Wienbibliothek im Rathaus) and Manuscript Cabinet of Russian Art History Institute (Saint-Petersburg). In the article, we show how Rubinstein worked on operas’ texts and why both operas were never actually composed, as well as what role the two unrealized projects played in the artist’s evolution as an opera composer.
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BELLINI, ALICE. "MUSIC AND ‘MUSIC’ IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY META-OPERATIC SCORES." Eighteenth Century Music 6, no. 2 (August 3, 2009): 183–207. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1478570609990030.
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ABSTRACT‘Meta-operas’, that is, operas portraying the world of opera and its protagonists (such as impresarios, music directors, librettists and virtuosi), became increasingly common during the eighteenth century. Most of the scholarly literature on meta-opera, however, concentrates on the operas' poetic texts, their librettos. Scholars have dealt with these operas about operas almost as though they were spoken dramas, without taking into account the many ways in which metatheatrical practices and conventions are made more complex by the presence of music.What do meta-operatic scores look like? Are they similar to other ‘ordinary’ scores of the same time, or do their metatheatrical techniques set them aside as special? Considering a number of eighteenth-century works, this article points out how specific musical means can contribute to the overall effect of meta-operatic plots: the stratified nature of meta-narratives is, in fact, mirrored in the scores when realistic music is performed on stage. On these occasions, the presence of more than one layer of musical performance (of music and ‘music’) can be detected in the score. Furthermore, the presence of realistic music allows for a highly flexible treatment of standard operatic practices, and a number of passages work across conventional oppositions such as recitative/closed number, ‘real-life’/‘performed’ and ‘spoken’/‘sung’. Meta-operas, therefore, offer a special perspective on the presence of realistic music in opera.
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Gallarati, Paolo. "Music and masks in Lorenzo Da Ponte's Mozartian librettos." Cambridge Opera Journal 1, no. 3 (November 1989): 225–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954586700003013.
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In his trilogy of masterpieces composed to texts by Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart radically changed the musical and theatrical nature of Italian opera. The dramma giocoso became a true ‘comedy in music’ through the use of psychological realism: a vivid representation of life in continuous transformation and in all its naked immediacy is now the real protagonist of the story, an all-embracing totality within which each character represents a separate feature. This influx of a non-rationalist sense of life into the classical proportions of sonata form (whose tonal relationships and free approach to thematic development controlled the vocal set pieces) made for an explosive mixture. Even before his collaboration with Da Ponte, Mozart himself seemed well aware of his uniqueness: ‘I guarantee that in all the operas which are to be performed until mine [L'oca del Cairo] is finished, not a single idea will resemble one of mine.’
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Greschner, Debra. "Bookshelf." Journal of Singing 80, no. 4 (March 2024): 483–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.53830/sing.00034.
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Abstract: Debra Greschner reviews three recent publications. Singing Down the Barriers: A Guide to Centering African American Song for Concert Performers by Emery Stephens and Caroline Helton covers the history of African American song, cultural appropriation and other contextual considerations, and suggestions for encouraging performance of this repertoire. Stella Guo Chen and Carlo Alberto Petruzzi offer Word-by-Word Explanation of Italian Opera Librettos in Chinese in seven volumes, covering eight classic operas. Franco Corelli and A Revolution in Singing: Fifty-four Tenors Spanning 200 Years , Volumes II and II by Stefan Zucker are the concluding volumes in a trilogy devoted to the tenor voice.
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Karácsony, Noémi, and Mădălina Dana Rucsanda. "At the Crossroads Between Opera and Oratorio: Biblical Themes and the 19th Century French Opera." Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Musica 68, no. 2 (December 30, 2023): 21–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/subbmusica.2023.2.02.
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"The present study aims to investigate the delicate border between oratorios and operas based on biblical subjects, focusing on French music. A brief analysis of the period prior to the 19th century reveals that the oratorio was not one of the most popular genres in France, allowing the genesis of various genres inspired by biblical subjects. The oratorio enjoyed a brief revival in the 18th century, leading in the 19th century to the composition of biblical operas and the dawn of genres that are at the crossroads between opera and oratorio: mystére, drame sacré, or légende sacrée, represented by works of Jules Massenet. Although traditionally referred to as oratorios, these works allowed for staged representation, due to the dramatic qualities of the librettos, which in turn allowed for the musical discourse to depart from the sobriety of the oratorio and to include certain features that are characteristic for opera. Gradually, biblical subjects began to be tackled in operas as well, as will be seen in the works of Camille Saint-Saëns and Jules Massenet, the two composers on whose works the present study mainly focuses. At the same time, biblical themes can be related to musical orientalism, but also to the fin de siècle decadent aesthetic (through their exploration of such themes as the opposition between sacred and erotic love), serving as mirror for the political, social, and religious context of the Third Republic. Keywords: opera, oratorio, Bible, orientalism, fin de siècle"
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Muir, Edward. "Why Venice? Venetian Society and the Success of Early Opera." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36, no. 3 (January 2006): 331–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/002219506774929854.
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Why did opera first succeed as a public art form in Venice between 1637 and 1650 when all the elements of the new form were fully evident? The answer is to be found in the conjunction between Venetian carnival festivity and the intellectual politics of Venetian republicanism during the two generations after the lifting of the papal interdict against Venice in 1607. During this extraordinary period of relatively free speech, which was unmatched elsewhere at the time, Venice was the one place in Italy open to criticisms of Counter Reformation papal politics. Libertine and skeptical thought flourished in the Venetian academies, the members of which wrote the librettos and financed the theaters for many of the early Venetian operas.
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Garzonio, Stefano. "Механизмы переложения "на наши (русские) нравы" итальянских оперных либретто [Mechanisms of adaptation “to our (Russian) customs” of Italian opera librettos]." Sign Systems Studies 30, no. 2 (December 31, 2002): 629–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/sss.2002.30.2.16.
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Mechanisms of adaptation “to our (Russian) customs” of Italian opera librettos. The paper deals with the history of poetical translation of Italian musical poetry in the 18th century Russia. In particular, it is focused on the question of pereloženie na russkie nravy, the adaptation to national Russian customs, of Italian opera librettos, cantatas, arias, songs and so on. The author points out three different phases of this process. The first phase, in the 1730s, coincides with the reign of Anna Ioannovna and it is linked to Trediakovsky’s translations of Italian intermezzos, comedies and to the first opera seria, La forza dell’amore e dell’odio (‘The force of love and hate’, 1736) by F. Araja and F. Prata; the second phase, in the period 1740–1770s, is characterized by a very varied production of translations and imitations, which undoubtedly influenced the general developing of Russian musical and dramatic poetry. It is during this period that pereloženie na russkie nravy is introduced into dramatic genres and sometimes it is findable in musical poetry as well. The third phase, in the 1780–1790s, is linked with the activity of such poets-translators as Ivan Dmitrevskij, Michail Popov, Vasilij Levšin and is characterized by the new practice of performing operas in Russian translations. In the paper the different forms of pereloženie na russkie nravy are pointed out, starting from the formal niveau of metrics and stylistics up to the adaptation of themes, places and realia.
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Rice, John A. "The Staging of Salieri’s Les Danaïdes as Seen by a Cellist in the Orchestra." Cambridge Opera Journal 26, no. 1 (February 19, 2014): 65–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954586713000335.
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AbstractDuring the 1780s a cellist in the orchestra of the Opéra, known only as Monsieur Hivart, served the Russian Count Nicholas Sheremetev as an operatic agent, sending scores, librettos, costume designs, stage designs and other materials related to opera in Paris, and advising the count on the production of French operas in Russia. Hivart was in contact with such composers as Grétry, Sacchini and Piccinni, and the stage machinist and ballet master of the Opéra, and from his place in the orchestra he could watch their work take shape on stage. This gives his letters to Sheremetev (published in Russian translation in 1944 but largely unknown in the West) significant value for historians of opera in eighteenth-century Paris. Especially extensive are Hivart’s reports on the first production of Salieri’s Les Danaïdes, which contain much information about the first production available nowhere else.
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CHEN, JEN-YEN. "MARIA THERESIA AND THE ‘CHINESE’ VOICING OF IMPERIAL SELF: THE AUSTRIAN CONTEXTS OF METASTASIO'S CHINA OPERAS." Eighteenth Century Music 13, no. 1 (February 11, 2016): 11–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1478570615000408.
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ABSTRACTPietro Metastasio's two librettos featuring ostensibly Chinese subject matter, Le cinesi (1735, revised 1749) and L'eroe cinese (1752), came into being during a period of crisis in the Holy Roman Empire, as the reigning Habsburg dynasty confronted a war of succession motivated by resistance to the Empress Maria Theresia's accession to the throne. This article investigates how Austria envisioned China and how this was used to voice notions of rightful political legitimacy at a time of grave threat to the continuance of a long-standing ruling house. It argues that idealized traits of the Chinese other such as loyalty, deference and wisdom furnished the basis for a reflexive critique that helped to bolster and renew a native imperial self. This stance of ‘dialogic monologism’ towards a foreign culture emerges in a detailed examination of the textual style of the two librettos, the musical characteristics of the settings performed in or near Vienna around the middle of the eighteenth century and the conditions of sponsorship of these performances.
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Rovner, Anton A. "An Interview with Austrian Bass-Baritone Rupert Bergmann." IKONI / ICONI, no. 1 (2022): 59–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.33779/2658-4824.2022.1.059-066.
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The editorial board of the journal ICONI is happy to present to our readers an interview with Austrian bass-baritone Rupert Bergmann, a talented, artistic musician, brilliant performer of the classical vocal repertoire, an ardent enthusiast of contemporary vocal music, and a participant of many contemporary music concerts and festivals. Rupert Bergmann was born in 1956 in Graz, studied at the Graz Music Academy, then moved to Vienna, where he has lived ever since. He has performed in many concert and opera venues in Austria and in other countries of the world, where he has sung premieres of works by composers from many countries. He has frequently instigated composers to write mini-monooperas for solo bass-baritone and small chamber ensemble on Biblical plots, or on comic librettos, from Aristophanes’ plays to those by contemporary playwrights. This interview was taken from the musician in July 2021 at the festival Two Days and Two Nights of New Music, where he sang premieres of two new mini-mono-operas.
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Degott, Pierre. "“Déjà vu/déjà entendu” ? Handel’s opere serie on the London Stage." Recherches anglaises et nord-américaines 47, no. 1 (2014): 147–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/ranam.2014.1474.
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Handelian opera seria might well be regarded as a huge recycling machine. Partly based on the setting of outdated librettos revamped in order to suit modern taste, it often makes use of previously composed music, usually enriched and improved to please London audiences. Handel’s Serse is a case in point inasmuch as it reveals the British specificities of an exogenous musical genre which somehow manages, once it has been acclimatised to its new context, to combine strangeness and familiarity, déjà vu and creativity, rehashing and originality. Quite surprisingly, many operatic arias from Handel’s works found their way into the ballad operas once believed to parody and undermine the imported musical genre. The final part of the article, devoted to the farce The Lottery (1732), thus examines the various shades of meaning derived from the intrusion of those déjà entendu musical pieces whose incongruous origin paradoxically enlightens the dramatic and aesthetic issues at stake in Fielding’s play.
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Albrecht-Hohmaier, Martin, Berthold Over, Emilia Pelliccia, and Sonia Wronkowska. "Pasticcio-Daten und Daten-Pasticcio – zur Edition kompilierter musikalischer Werke." editio 34, no. 1 (November 1, 2020): 45–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/editio-2020-0004.
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AbstractThis text, which was written by members of the project Pasticcio. Ways of arranging attractive operas, uses Gérard Genette’s term ‘paratext’ in a broader sense. Assuming that every text besides the edited work, which is part of the genesis of these oscillating works compiled of pre-existing musical material called pasticcios, can be understood as a paratext, it reveals the importance of printed librettos, related musical sources and philological contexts (like the often underestimated influence of the singers in the creation of a musical work) for their understanding and edition. Aiming at connecting a database with the online edition of four operatic works via XML, the project members present ideas and structures of the project’s data which can be described as a paratext as well.
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Xinhang, Cui. "The role of Nicolo Grimaldi (Nicolini) in the Italian opera development in London in the early 18th century." PHILHARMONICA. International Music Journal, no. 3 (March 2023): 34–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.7256/2453-613x.2023.3.43425.
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The subject of the research is the artistic phenomenon of Nicolo Grimaldi, an outstanding Italian operatic castrato of the early 18th century. The author examines the creative biography and focuses on the analysis of the stage skills of the singer, who set the bar high for dramatic art in England. Nicolo Grimaldi (1673–1732) became famous under the pseudonym Nicolini (or Nicolino). His name became widely known thanks to the legendary performances on the stage of the Royal Theater in London in 1708–1712 and 1715–1717. The reconstruction of the vocal-dramatic profile of the singer, based on reliable historical sources, required to employ a comprehensive methodology, including historical, cultural and linguistic research methods. Information about Nicolini’s life and work has been still unknown to the Russian musical community and is being published in Russian for the first time. Various sources of information about Nicolini have been preserved: music-critical reviews in London newspapers, scores and librettos of operas, essays, letters and memoirs of contemporaries who testified to the character of the artist’s vocal and acting skills. They served as material for a historical and biographical analysis, the results of which will be of interest to both practicing singers and researchers of Italian baroque opera. The historical significance of Nicolini lies in the fact that, as an excellent singer and actor, he influenced the strengthening and development of Italian opera in the early period of its existence in London.
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Cividini, Iacopo. "Paratext oder paralleler Text?" editio 34, no. 1 (November 1, 2020): 72–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/editio-2020-0005.
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AbstractIn intertextuality studies, libretto is generally regarded as a paratext on the fringes of the opera performance. However, the extension of Gérard Genette’s concept of paratextuality to this medium does not fully acknowledge its essential contribution to the production of meaning during the opera performance. Based on the definition of theatre performance as plurality of simultaneous sign systems and by the example of the libretti to Mozart’s operas edited at the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation, the essay proposes an alternative semiotic concept of libretto as parallel text. This means an optional sign system that generates aesthetic content parallel to the other sign systems of the opera. In the context of this new intertextual definition of libretto, the digital medium proves to be particularly suitable for a libretto edition that serves both scholarly and practical purposes.
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Demoz, Héloïse. "HEARING SOLARIS: DAI FUJIKURA'S OPERA AND A MUSICAL APPROACH TO STANISŁAW LEM'S NOVEL." Tempo 77, no. 304 (April 2023): 33–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0040298222001139.
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AbstractAlthough many opera libretti are based on novels and short stories, only a few have used a science-fiction story as their main subject. The first opera of the Japanese composer Dai Fujikura was written in 2013–14 to a libretto by Saburo Teshigawara and is developed from Stanisław Lem's acclaimed novel Solaris (1961). By analysing passages from the score, this article will explore both the different strategies used by the composer and his librettist to create a new version of the story and the ways in which they have renewed the genre of opera.
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Maximova, Alexandra. "BALLET «DOUBLES» IN THE RUSSIAN THEATRE OF THE CATHERINE — ALEXANDER TIMES." Ученые записки Российской академии музыки имени Гнесиных, no. 45 (2023): 14–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.56620/2227-9997-2023-2-45-14-25.
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The European Ballet Theater has a long tradition of replenishing its repertoire with plots of operas, dramas and popular ballet productions. So on the stages of the capital's Russian theaters, since the formation of the ballet genre in the XVIII century, twin performances with the same names have appeared. This phenomenon of transformation of the work is almost not studied. In this regard, questions arise: what in the new version of the play can be considered original material, and what is borrowed? Does the plot, music, and set design remain in it? To solve these tasks, documentary sources are involved: unknown librettos, musical manuscripts of the studied ballets and compositions that form the basis of new theatrical versions. The original ways of «processing» are revealed, including with and without preserving the plot, with musical quoting of fragments of the original source and without quoting. It is proved that the presence or absence of borrowings is confirmed only by a scrupulous reconciliation of literary and musical texts of the original and derived compositions.
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Saccenti, Edoardo, and Leonardo Tenori. "Multivariate modeling of the collaboration between Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa for the librettos of three operas by Giacomo Puccini." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 30, no. 3 (March 18, 2014): 405–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqu006.
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Severn, John R. "Migration and Opera Old and New." Nordic Theatre Studies 34, no. 1 (June 20, 2023): 22–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.7146/nts.v34i1.137923.
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This article uses Eva Noer Kondrup’s chamber opera Den Rejsende (Copenhagen 2018) to examine the challenges and opportunities provoked by the operatic form when attempting to create socially responsible theatre. Focusing on how opera reflects and contributes to contemporary discourse on migration, it examines how opera’s unusual performance and reception demands differentiate it from, for example, spoken verbatim theatre. The article first considers the most common way opera companies today engage with migration – through productions of existing operas – in which socially responsible decisions are primarily in the hands of directors and designers and relate mostly to interpretation, and it explores some of the risks and opportunities of engaging with migration in recent revivals of repertoire works. It then analyses how questions of social responsibility in new operas extend to structural issues that are the field of the composer and librettist. The article examines Kondrup’s decisions as librettist-composer of Den Rejsende, demonstrating the potential for opera to use non-realist operatic techniques to engage with some of the issues with which spoken verbatim theatre has wrestled, including questions of authority, authenticity and authorship, and of empathy, engagement, and identification. The production, performed by two Swedish singers from non-refugee backgrounds in multiple roles, favoured distanciation techniques over “authenticity effects” and avoided tensions between giving voice to and speaking for contemporary refugees that can arise in spoken verbatim theatre. While the libretto contained found text, this was from historical refugee situations, and from the words of Inger Støjberg in her role as Danish Minister for Immigration, Integration and Housing. By throwing a spotlight on the words of an elected representative, Den Rejsende indicated an area in which audience members of what is often thought of as an affective theatrical form might have some influence in effecting practical change.
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Ożarowska, Aleksandra. "Beyond the libretto." STRIDON: Studies in Translation and Interpreting 1, no. 2 (November 30, 2021): 49–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/stridon.1.2.49-63.
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Nowadays both intra- and interlingual surtitles are an inherent element of almost all opera productions and, partly thanks to this technology, opera is now going through a renaissance. The trend of staging operas in a modernised fashion is especially popular these days, but it represents a particular challenge for surtitlers. It is argued in this article that while surtitles accompanying traditional opera productions are usually intrasemiotic, as their source text is just the libretto, modernised productions often have intersemiotic surtitles. The article analyses fragments of surtitles prepared for four different operas staged in the Metropolitan Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper and Royal Opera House. The result show that while traditionally surtitles provide the viewers with the meaning of the libretto, the role of intersemiotic surtitles is much more extended, as they provide the audience with more comprehensive information about the whole opera production.
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Bajer, Michał. "The librettos of Moniuszko’s operas and the European literary tradition: a comparative perspective on the opposition between serious drama and comedy." Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology, no. 23 (December 29, 2023): 7–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/ism.2023.23.1.
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The aim of this study is to indicate several features of serious drama and comedy proper to Moniuszko’s operatic output and to describe them within the context of European points of reference (Pierre de Beaumarchais, Alfred de Musset, Jane Austen, Italian librettists). The network of generic and intertextual relationships shows that an important feature of Moniuszko librettos is not their supposed closure within the circle of national inspiration, but on the contrary – a seemingly insatiable openness to the most valuable areas of foreign legacies. The consistent comparison of comic and serious works in a single study also reveals an affinity between the issues at the heart of Moniuszko’s musical dramas, regardless of the tone of particular works. Moniuszko’s oeuvre, both in its comical and serious aspects, reflects, in different ways, one of the themes that has recurred in Europe after cataclysms, such as the holy wars of the Renaissance, the French Revolution (or the Partitions of Poland during the same period) and the conflicts of the twentieth century. One issue at the core of Polish opera turns out to be the disintegration of the social order and the transition to its opposite – the sudden or gradual, but ineluctable movement from harmony to confusion and violence-filled chaos. Halka and The Pariahforge models of a community based on the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Highlighted are instances of individuals refusing to conform to the anti-order. In the comic variant of Moniuszko’s output, meanwhile (The Haunted Manor, The Countess), the relationship between the order and its contradiction takes on the form of an unjustified renouncing of communal values. At the same time, the comparison between serious and comical works refutes the thesis that Moniuszko was an unequivocal eulogist of an ethics based on the unconditional belonging to a national community.
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Ким, А. В. "The Peculiarities of Yakov Zadykhin’s Libretto and Its Musical Embodiment by Alexander Mosolov in the Opera “Dam”." Научный вестник Московской консерватории 15, no. 1(56) (March 27, 2024): 62–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.26176/mosconsv.2024.56.1.04.
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В статье выявлены особенности либретто оперы Александра Васильевича Мосолова «Плотина», созданной в сотрудничестве с литератором Яковом Леонтьевичем Задыхиным. «Плотина» — не только крупнейшее сочинение композитора, подытоживающее творческий период 1920-х годов, но и важный экспериментальный опыт в рамках проекта ГАТОБа по созданию жанра советской оперы. Освещены подробности процесса утверждения личности либреттиста Я. Л. Задыхина организованной в театре Комиссией по созданию советской оперы, раскрыты некоторые подробности творческой биографии Задыхина. Либретто оперы рассматривается как опыт сотрудничества коллектива авторов: композитора, либреттиста и театральных руководителей проекта, Б. В. Асафьева и С. Э. Радлова. Раскрыты особенности основанного на реальных событиях сюжета на индустриальную тему, выявлена специфика литературного языка либретто и использованных лингвистических средств для характеристики персонажей, определены примеры влияния либретто на музыкальное воплощение характеристик персонажей. Использованы материалы фондов Российской национальной библиотеки (РНБ), Российского государственного архива литературы и искусства (РГАЛИ), Центрального государственного архива литературы и искусства Санкт-Петербурга (ЦГАЛИ). The article reveals the features of the libretto of Alexander Vasilyevich Mosolov’s opera “Plotina” (“The Dam”), created in collaboration with librettist Yakov Leontievich Zadykhin. “Plotina” is not only the composer’s largest work, summarizing the creative period of the 1920s, but also an important experimental experience within the framework of the GATOB’s project to create the genre of Soviet opera. Details of the process of approval by the Commission for the Creation of Soviet Opera, organized in the theater, of the personality of the librettist Ya.L. Zadykhin are covered, and some details of his creative biography are revealed. The libretto of the opera is considered as an experience of cooperation of the collective of authors: composer, librettist and theatrical managers of the project, B.V. Asafiev and S.E. Radlov. The features of the plot based on real events on an industrial theme are revealed, the specifics of the libretto’s literary language and the linguistic means used to characterize the characters are revealed, examples of the libretto’s influence on the musical embodiment of the characters’ characteristics are identified. The materials of the collections of the Russian National Library (RNB), the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), the Central State Archive of Literature and Art of St. Petersburg (TsGALI) were used.
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VAN DER LINDEN, HUUB. "EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ORATORIO REFORM IN PRACTICE: APOSTOLO ZENO REVISES A FLORENTINE LIBRETTO." Eighteenth Century Music 16, no. 1 (February 14, 2019): 31–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1478570618000337.
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ABSTRACTAlthough the circulation and revision of Italian opera librettos is a well-known aspect of musical life in eighteenth-century Europe, the practice has hardly been touched upon with regard to the Italian oratorio of the same period. Librettist Apostolo Zeno (1668–1750) worked in and theorized about both genres, yet his involvement with the oratorio has been little studied. This article addresses three editions of an oratorio libretto by Domenico Canavese. Following versions for Florence (1712) and Pistoia (1714), a third appeared in 1726 in conjunction with a Lenten performance at the Imperial Court Chapel in Vienna. An annotated copy of the 1712 edition from Zeno's library shows that he revised the text for the Viennese performance. His textual changes – some small, some radical – reveal practical, stylistic and dramaturgical concerns. A comparison of the annotated copy with the printed libretto for the 1726 performance and the principal musical source for the new setting by Giuseppe Porsile shows that Zeno's revisions were scrupulously followed.
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Lutsker, Pavel V., and Irina P. Susidko. "Early Italian Opera Within the Labyrinths of Postmodernity." Problemy Muzykal'noj Nauki / Music Scholarship, no. 4 (2022): 87–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.56620/2782-3598.2022.4.087-095.
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The article is focused on certain critical questions of the position of early Italian opera in contemporary culture. For a long time both performers and scholars considered it as an outdated genre meriting only historical interest. This state of affairs began to change in the 1970s, when a series of facsimiles prepared by Garland Publishing revealed a certain number of published opera scores and librettos. Over the past 50 years, three trends have emerged in the scholarly approach to early Italian operas. The first is that of deconstruction of the prevailing and largely erroneous stereotypes. The second is that of reconstruction, filling in the gaps of knowledge (compilation of encyclopedias, catalogues, works on the history of opera, and monographs about composers). The third is that of interpretation of the 17th- and 18th-century European musical and theatrical heritage in the context of culture and style. In this regard, a special position is held by the issue of performance interpretation. The postmodern era has transformed the early opera from an antique rarity into a topical musical and theatrical phenomenon. The dimension has opened up for directorial experiments aimed at projecting this genre onto the topical problems of today, bringing it closer to the perception of the mass of listeners – each and every one. The plotlines based on ancient myths and historical legends, conventional comedic and farcical situations referring to the earliest literary specimens are easily adapted to the realities of the modern theater: one convention becomes replaced by another, the wigs and camisoles of the 18th-century singers are replaced by army camouflage. Most of these productions provide interpretations not so much of the early opera as such, but particularly of us, bringing our own existential fears and ambitions onto the stage, playing on our political sympathies and antipathies. But there also exists an opposite side. It finds expression in the manner of singing and instrumental playing which comes close to the norms of three and four centuries ago, i.e., historical performing practice, which in our conditions is perceived by everyone as exquisite, designed for the refined taste of the elite, and in this sense of the “aristocratic” listener, rather than the general masses. Thus, in many cases there arises a combination, which is paradoxical in its essence – an unreasonable duality. Interpretation of the essence of early Italian opera is becoming acutely relevant as the path for this art to regain its previously lost artistic integrity.
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Simonton, Dean Keith. "The Music or the Words? Or How Important is the Libretto for an Opera's Aesthetic Success?" Empirical Studies of the Arts 18, no. 2 (July 2000): 105–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/xyf7-juuh-hedy-2e88.
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What are the comparative contributions of composer and librettist to the aesthetic impact of great operas? This question was empirically answered using a sample of 911 operas by fifty-nine composers. The aesthetic success of each opera was gauged by a composite measure that included performance and recording frequencies as well as archival indicators. The predictor variables were both idiographic (e.g., the specific identities of the librettists and the literary sources) and nomothetic (e.g., literary genre, language, librettist's age, and experience). After introducing appropriate control variables, the multiple-regression analyses demonstrated that composers play a much bigger role in determining operatic impact than do librettists or their libretti. The identity of the composers alone accounted for almost half of the variance in aesthetic success. As far as opera is concerned, the music is aesthetically more crucial than are the words.
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Ladič, Branko. "Karl Goldmark und seine letzten Opernwerke." Studia Musicologica 57, no. 3-4 (September 2016): 325–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/6.2016.57.3-4.3.
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Karl Goldmark (1830–1915) was undoubtedly one the most influential composers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and through his first opera – The Queen of Sheba – he was also very well-known abroad. This opera, with its very fashionable oriental subject, was first performed in Vienna in 1875 and was one of the greatest successes of the period. After Merlin (1886) and The Cricket on the Hearth (1896), a “song-opera” strongly influenced by the Biedermeier-period, Goldmark wrote three operas over the next ten years. A Prisoner of War (libretto E. Schlicht, premiered in 1899 in Vienna) was based on one episode of the Iliad. In this short opera the composer tried to express the change of Achilles’ soul, but he mostly failed due to a relatively weak and conventional libretto and vague musical style. In the following opera, Götz von Berlichingen (libretto A. M. Willner, premiered 1902) the libretto is also the weakest element of the work and the whole opera reminds one of Meyerbeer ’s operas. The composer found a renewed inspiration during the work on his last opera – The Winter’s Tale (libretto by Alfred Maria Willner after Shakespeare, premiered in 1907 in Vienna). This fairy tale opera is full of interesting musical moments and elements written in Goldmark’s late style and is still attractive for the opera-going public.
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Betzwieser, Thomas. "Exoticism and politics: Beaumarchais' and Salieri's Le Couronnement de Tarare (1790)." Cambridge Opera Journal 6, no. 2 (July 1994): 91–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954586700004195.
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Not least because of its librettist, Tarare (1787) ranks among the most interesting ‘reform’ operas of the eighteenth century. The work was by no means unique among such efforts at the Académie Royale de Musique, but it undoubtedly had the greatest impact after the Piccinni controversy at the end of the 1770s, in part because Beaumarchais was untiring in his efforts to promote the new opera – a task at which he was far superior to his librettistic colleagues. He presented his new operatic conception in a detailed preface to the libretto (‘Aux Abonnés de l'Opéra’), the central point of which was to emphasise the mixture of conventional genre traditions, in particular of serious and comic elements.
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Burden, Michael. "Dancers at London's Italian Opera Houses as Recorded in the Libretti." Dance Research 33, no. 2 (November 2015): 159–211. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/drs.2015.0137.
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For the audience, the purchase of a libretto when attending the King's Theatre, London's elite house for foreign opera and dance, was a commonplace. It offered the text of the opera, and a parallel English translation; it could also contain an argument for the opera, and other material relevant to the performance. A dramatis personae was nearly always included, together with a cast list, and after the mid-century, the libretti often contained the names of the dancers and choreographers. This article sets out to document the mentions of these names, and to chart their inclusion in the context of the history of the libretto. It identifies the first inclusion of a choreographer's name (in Antigono, in May 1746), the first dancers (in Ipermestra, in November 1754), and the first leader of the dancers (in the libretti for the 1790–1791 season), and identifies the inexplicable tailing off, and then total omission, of dancer personnel from the London Italian opera libretti.
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Emerson, Caryl. "Back to the future: Shostakovich's revision of Leskov's ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District’." Cambridge Opera Journal 1, no. 1 (March 1989): 59–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954586700002767.
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‘Librettology’ has begun to acquire a working vocabulary. Critics now investigate the relationship between a libretto and its literary source in terms other than fidelity; a text adapted for musical setting no longer disappears from the realm of the ‘literary’. Historians and musicologists are considering the role of opera librettos in cultural history, with special attention to librettos that rework historical, national or mythic themes. How operatic texts transpose and thus ‘re-accent’ a nation's literary classics is emerging as a fruitful and still unexplored field.
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Park, Chang-min. "A Study of the Diversification of Materials of Korean New Operas: Focusing on selected works by the Creative Factory of Performing Arts." Academic Association of Global Cultural Contents 57 (November 30, 2023): 79–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.32611/jgcc.2023.11.57.79.
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Starting in 1950, Korean Opera, which has a history of 73 years to date in 2023, served as an motive to pave the way for the creation of Korean opera through the “MOM Creation Contest” organized by Korea National Opera in 2009. Since then, it has been changed to the Creative Factory of Performing Arts organized by the Arts Council Korea since 2014, and new operas have been discovered every year through continuous support until 2023, and 17 new operas have been finally selected. This study examined the diversified aspects of material utilization for new operas discovered through the Creative Factory of Performing Arts, focusing on the material of the libretto, which is the first work and basic element of the creation of an opera.
In order to study the material diversification of new opera selected through the Creative Factory of Performing Arts, six classification criteria were set, each of which is a genre, method of libretto, original foundation, the spatial background of work, the temporal background of work, and basic material. In addition, in order to help understand, this study also examined aspects of the diversification of materials of new operas in overseas opera theaters such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, Italy, and France.
As a part of the development of cultural contents, I hope that this study will help understand the trend of diversification through the recently discovered Korean new operas, help revitalize creation, and further promote convergent development in all fields of performing arts.
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Tziboula, Areti, and Anna-Maria Rentzeperi-Tsonou. "Historical approach to the opera’s libretto-theme in Italy from the end of the 16th century to the first Italian reform." Muzikologija, no. 31 (2021): 145–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/muz2131145t.
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The creators of opera in Italy at the end of the 16th century gave great importance to the choice of their subject matter in order to reproduce an overall work of art according to the archetype of ancient Greek tragedy. During its progressive course, opera underwent changes, in which libretto and its subject matter constituted major issues of study and criticism and were reformed according to the style of each period but always with quality as a keystone. The present study examines the formation of the Italian opera based on the choice of the librettos from its birth to the first Italian reform.
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Stenzl, Jürg. "York Höller's ‘The Master and Margarita’: A German Opera." Tempo, no. 179 (December 1991): 8–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0040298200061337.
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1 ‘Literaturoper’: Literary Opera and the ‘problem of opera’Right up to the end of the 19th century, an opera libretto was conceived differently from a stage play. This was because, from the outset, the libretto was thought out and constructed with a view to being set to music and sung. The librettist, whether he was writing in Italian or French, had to respect the conventions of this particular literary genre, conventions that were derived from a specific type of musical drama comprised of an alternation between recitatives (action) and arias or ensembles (tableaux). The use of specific lines and rhymes made the libretto into a ‘pre-composition’, and gave the composer an architectural plan to follow.
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Zheng, Yan. "Study on the English Translation of Librettos of Modern Qinqiang Opera under the "Three Beauties Theory"." International Journal of Education and Humanities 8, no. 3 (May 17, 2023): 9–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.54097/ijeh.v8i3.8074.
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The librettos in the script of modern Qinqiang Opera The Rose Come Late into Bloom are similar to ancient Chinese poetry in form, sound and sense. Its translation can be adapted to the "Three Beauties Theory" of poetry translation proposed by Professor Xu Yuanchong. This paper introduces the similarities between Qin Opera, libretto and Chinese poetry, script content, translator team, rhyme characteristics of Chinese and Western poetry, and the "Three Beauties Theory", trying to explore the applicability of "the beauty in sense, the beauty in sound, and the beauty in form" in script translation.
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Pilipenko, Nina V. "Franz Schubert’s Alfonso and Estrella: Concerning the Origins of the Plotline." Problemy muzykal'noi nauki / Music Scholarship, no. 2 (July 2023): 90–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.56620/2782-3598.2023.2.090-102.
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Alfonso und Estrella, the only opera composed by Franz Schubert without spoken dialogue, was created in collaboration with one of the composer’s closest friends, Franz von Schober. Despite the fact that a significant amount is known about the circumstances of the libretto’s origin, we can only surmise regarding the sources on which its creator relied. In the literature about Schubert, a number of assumptions are made about these sources — two books on the history of Spain published in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as well as a number of works by German romantic writers. This article discusses other books which in all possibility served as source materials: History of Spain by Alexander Adam (Adams Geschichte von Spanien seit der Entdeckung bis zur Thron-Entsagung Karls IV), published in Vienna in 1809, as well as a number of librettos that may have been known to Schober — first of all, Der Taucher by Samuel Bürde, written for Johann Friedrich Reichardt and published in 1811 in Berlin. Based on the analysis of the plot and the poetic text of Alfonso und Estrella, it is shown that Schober was most likely familiar with these sources and actively used them when creating his own libretto.
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Bullock, Ph R. "Dialogues with Pushkin: From Tchaikovsky to Stravinsky and The Rake’s Progress." Versus 2, no. 6 (September 16, 2023): 41–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.58186/2782-3660-2022-2-6-41-60.
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A key feature of the study of Russian opera has been its interest in ‘page-tostage’ adaptation of canonical works of literature. Behind this research story, in many respects, there is only the fact that a significant number of Russian operas are really based on literary primary sources. The contribution of philologists who have studied this subject on a par with specialists in the history of music also played a role in its credibility. This logocentric approach overlooks, however, another tradition, one in which the libretto is the product of a negotiation between agents and where the relationship between the source text and operatic adaptation is attenuated. The work that most fully subverts the ‘pageto-stage’ tradition and fully incorporates the librettist as a co-creator of the finished composition is The Rake’s Progress, with music by Igor Stravinsky and words by Wystan Hugh Auden and Chester Kallman. It may seem eccentric to see The Rake’s Progress as a Russian opera, yet as this chapter argues, it is certainly an opera shaped by aspects of Stravinsky’s Russian origins, upbringing, and education, and somehow spoken ‘in translation’. In particular, it engages in a series of intertextual dialogues with the legacy of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades.
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Avram, Cristi. "Pelléas and Mélisande – Maurice Maeterlinck and the Opera Performance. 2018 Retrospective." Theatrical Colloquia 9, no. 1 (June 1, 2019): 163–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/tco-2019-0003.
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Abstract The road from the theatre text towards the opera performance is an attempt to essentialize words which unravel in order to ease the communication between the characters and the playwrights’ message. This endeavor is very difficult, as the play which stands at the root of the libretto already operates with an essentialization. Anyhow, the libretto cannot have the length of a play, but appends a musical dimension to the production. These things apply to Pelléas And Mélisande by Claude Debussy, built on the same text written by Maurice Maeterlinck. This article, although oriented towards an operatic retrospective of the year 2018 of the great musical stages of the world, also follows this libretto’s journey on these stages. Furthermore, 2018 marks the centenary of Claude Dubussy’s death.
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BURDEN, MICHAEL, and CHRISTOPHER CHOWRIMOOTOO. "A MOVABLE FEAST: THE ARIA IN THE ITALIAN LIBRETTO IN LONDON BEFORE 1800." Eighteenth Century Music 4, no. 2 (September 2007): 285–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1478570607000954.
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The purpose of this short essay is to announce a new research project, ‘The Aria in the Italian Libretto in London before 1800’, the aim of which is to list the incipits of all the arias included in Italian-language opera and oratorio librettos printed in London before the turn of the nineteenth century. The notion that an opera libretto may not be the stable text it appears on the page to be is no news to scholars working on opera and musical theatre, who understand perfectly well the possible nature and origins of the sources they use, especially the libretto. At least one hopes they do; but in the case of the last, do they? The seductive lure of the printed page is strong, a lure which has an almost irresistible pull for scholars when there is a score to ‘match’; it becomes even stronger when those working on canonic composers stray out of their chosen territory to look for ‘contemporaneous examples’ from the works of ‘minor composers’, or when there is no thematic catalogue to provide even a basic chart with which to navigate the treacherous waters of the output of even some major eighteenth-century ones. A libretto is, after all, not ‘music’, they say – ‘that’s all very well, but why aren’t you talking about the music?’ – so why worry? Just hurry on to the matching score to identify the ‘composer’s intentions’, and all will be well.
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Berezkina, Svetlana V. "Stepan Shevyryov’s Libretto on the Ballad by Vasily Zhukovsky (Opera Vadim, or the Awakening of the Twelve Sleeping Maidens by Alexey Verstovsky)." Imagologiya i komparativistika, no. 16 (2021): 39–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.17223/24099554/16/3.
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The article focuses on the history of S.P. Shevyryov’s work on the libretto for A.N. Verstovsky’s opera Vadim, or The Awakening of the Twelve Sleeping Maidens, staged in Moscow in 1832. Shevyryov’s parody-polemic rendition of V.A. Zhukovsky’s ballad reflected his Italian theatrical experiences. The changes introduced by the librettist to the ballad plot were not accepted by Verstovsky, who rejected Shevyryov’s composition. The article reviews the sources on the texts from Shevyryov’s libretto, which has not been preserved in its entirety.
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Jagosz, Michał. "Rywale, czyli opera mieszczańska w Krakowie. Historia, kontekst kulturowy, znaczenie." Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ, no. 52 (1) (2022): 55–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/23537094kmmuj.22.004.15648.
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Rivals [Rywale], or the Burgeois Opera in Kraków: History, Cultural Context, Meaning During the period of stagnation in Kraków’s theatre culture in the 2nd half of the 18th century, an opera entitled Rivals, or the Tattoo in Kraków [Rywale czyli czapstrzyk w Krakowie] was created by Kacper Meciszewski (libretto) and Zagórski (music; not preserved to this day), unknown by first name. Although mentioned several times in the theatre studies literature, it has not been by far a subject of separate musicological research. This opera is an example of a work that can be described as a 'burgeois opera', i.e. a model of magnate operas, regarding to both theme and structure of the libretto, as well as to musical arrangement, transferred to the middle class standards and entrepreneurial capabilities of that time. Seemingly non-original, secondary and, due to its provincial character, relevant only to the 18th century residents of the former capital city, it seems to have a slightly deeper meaning. In order to understand the significance of Rivals in its full, this article will present the history of the comedy’s creation and staging, an analysis of the libretto and a hypothetical form of musical setting in the context and in comparison with analogous operas of that period. For a better understanding of the title tattoo meaning, the history of its creation and reception as well as the condition of Kraków regiment band will be outlined.
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Boyarkina, Аlbina V. "Principles of libretto translation and problems of multimodal text interpretation." Russian Journal of Linguistics 26, no. 3 (September 30, 2022): 807–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-27360.
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The multimodal nature of texts to music involves the complex interaction of verbal, auditory, in some cases visual and other components, which determines the functioning of the textual unity. In this regard, the translation of multimodal texts, and in particular the translation of opera librettos, puts forward special requirements for the translator, due to which even the knowledge of the subject area, terminology and style of the source text is not always sufficient to achieve high quality translation. Based on the analysis of the translation principles of one of the most prominent translators of opera librettos Viktor Kolomiitsov (1868-1936) and his translated texts, the article aims to determine the basic requirements to the translation of libretto as a multimodal text, combining the verbal and auditory components in the text unity. It also aims to answer the research question: what exactly is the special feature of multimodal text translation focused on auditory mode, and in case of opera libretto translations - what resources can be used to perform the translation? The material for the study included the texts to L. Beethoven and R. Wagner’s works and their translations. The comparative analysis of V. Kolomiytsov’s translations and several other translators’ approaches allowed us to confirm the assumption about the complexity of auditory multimodal texts translation, identify the main problems of libretto translation, and demonstrate different translation solutions in the transfer of the rhythmic logic of the source text, its syntactic features, alliteration and vocabulary. The procedure of text analysis involved elements of philological and comparative analyses of translations, as well as statistical calculations. It was revealed that the connection of the verbal component with the melodic line, its accents and rhythm predetermines the structure of the text to vocal works. For the translator, this means additional limitations, which are quite difficult to overcome. Equirhythmic translation correlated with music is one of the most difficult types of translation, in which preservation of “form” (rhyme, meter, number of syllables, coincidence of accents, etc.) plays an important role and predetermines the quality of auditory multimodal text translation.
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MÓRICZ, KLÁRA. "Decadent truncation: liberated Eros in Arthur Vincent Lourié's The Blackamoor of Peter the Great." Cambridge Opera Journal 20, no. 2 (July 2008): 181–213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954586709002468.
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AbstractRussian composer Arthur Vincent Lourié (1881/2–1966) dedicated his The Blackamoor of Peter the Great (1948–1961), an opera based on Pushkin's story about the poet's African great-grandfather, to ‘Russian culture, the Russian people and Russian history.’ Neoclassical in its subject matter, reliance on conventional musical forms, and adherence to tonality, Lourié's Blackamoor is nevertheless also an exemplary symbolist opera. This article explains three symbolist aspects of the work: the sources of its libretto (Lourié's librettist Irina Graham interspersed the libretto with symbolist texts), its multi-layered cultural associations, and Lourié's decision to liberate and embody the erotic drive of the main character Ibrahim by representing it as the figure of Eros. Eradicated during the years of Stalinist terror, the culture of Silver Age Russia thus continued to find a voice in the emigrant Lourié's last opera.
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LÜTTEKEN, LAURENZ. "NEGATING OPERA THROUGH OPERA: COSÌ FAN TUTTE AND THE REVERSE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT." Eighteenth Century Music 6, no. 2 (August 3, 2009): 229–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1478570609990017.
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ABSTRACTAmong the operas on which Mozart and Da Ponte collaborated, Così fan tutte is a special case. In some ways, the libretto is more conventional than those provided for Le nozze di Figaro or Don Giovanni, and Mozart was not the first composer asked to set it. To understand the work best, it is necessary to read the text closely. This article concentrates on a few, highly significant characteristics – in particular, the locations in which the opera takes place. Such details provide the foundations for surprising insights into the opera. First, the libretto deals with central issues in eighteenth-century aesthetics, but the mechanist philosophy that informs the plot (reminiscent of that theorized by Julien Offray de La Mettrie in L'Homme machine) defuses these issues over the course of the action. Secondly, the music that turns the libretto into an opera resonates with specialist issues of eighteenth-century music aesthetics, often to turn them, once again, on their heads. In the last analysis, Così fan tutte is an opera in which both text and music question truth and reliability, and the consequences are serious for the opera, for music and for the very Enlightenment itself.
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Poltavets, Margarita Aleksandrovna. "The history of creation of libretto to the opera “The Demon” by A. Rubinstein based on the text of eponymous poem of M. Y. Lermontov." Litera, no. 1 (January 2021): 144–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.25136/2409-8698.2021.1.32097.
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The subject of this research is the history of creation of libretto to the opera “The Demon” by A. Rubinstein based on the text of eponymous poem of M. Y. Lermontov. The object of this research is the text of libretto written over the period from the end of 1870 to 1871. The article examines the stages of creation of the opera, which involved Y. P. Polonsky, A. N. Maykov, P. A. Viskovatov, and A. G. Rubinstein. The article presents the previously unknown facts of working on the text, and considers the question of possible attribution of the text. The research employs historical-literary and hermeneutical methods, which allow to systematically trace the teamwork of authors on the text of libretto. The conclusion is made that the composer took part in in creation of the text along with the librettist, which is testified in correspondence and memoirs of the contemporaries, namely the reminiscences of P. A. Viskovatov. The question of authorship of the text of libretto remains relevant.