"Music's obedient daughter" : the opera libretto from source to score / edited by Sabine Lichtenstein.

A libretto is an indispensable part of an opera as a musical genre: with few exceptions, operas have been the subject of musicological studies, and instrumental versions of sung or unsung opera numbers may be heard, but we never listen to libretto texts being performed without the music. Thus as a literary form the libretto is a highly specific genre with its own particular attributes. This volume offers an approach to the libretto through the discussion of these attributes in many different examples. It explores what may be expected of a librettist in response to the demands of the genre's characteristics, his trials and tribulations, his exchanges with the composer while adapting or converting a source, almost always a literary source, into the eventual libretto, and about the different musical ways of dealing with the text. In this way the volume clarifies the fundamental differences between the libretto and other literary genres.

Print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover -- Tittle Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- The Power of Music: Striggio and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo -- Octavia Reincarnated: Busenello's and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea -- In the Operatic Workshop: The Case of Varesco's and Mozart's Idomeneo -- The Librettist's Dilemma in London: Badini's and Haydn's Orfeo ed Euridice -- "But There Is another Intrigue and a Comic Element Placed Alongside": Hans Sachs -- the Relation of Lortzing's Opera to Deinhardstein's Drama -- "Ce bal est original!": Classical Parody and Burlesque in Orphée aux enfers by Crémieux, Halévy and Offenbach -- Burning the Heretics and Saving Don Carlos: Méry's, Du Locle's and Verdi's Don Carlos -- Tracing Wotan's Incendiary Past: The Evolution of Storms and Fire in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen -- Manon at the Opera: From Prévost's Manon Lescaut to Auber's Manon Lescaut and Massenet's Manon -- "Closed, Efficient, Terrible!": Reflections on the Genesis and Dramaturgy of Illica's, Giacosa's and Puccini's Madama Butterfly -- The End of a Line: Strauss' and Hofmannsthal's Elektra -- "Something Uncommonly German": Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina, Eine Musikalische Legende -- The Musical Personality of Don Quixote: Manuel de Falla's El Retablo de Maese Pedro -- Transformations of the Killing of a Boy: Weill's and Brecht's Der Jasager -- A Theological Midrash in Search of Operatic Action: Moses und Aron by Arnold Schoenberg -- The Making of a Victim: From Crabbe's The Borough to Slater's and Britten's Peter Grimes -- Opera on Opera: Luciano Berio's Opera -- Notes on Contributors -- Index.

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