Word: librettists
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Verdi's libretto was inspired by the 1792 murder of Sweden's King Gustavus III at a masquerade in the Stockholm Opera House, but in 19th century Italy, a direct reference was impolitic. So Verdi and his librettist shifted the shenanigans to colonial Boston, disguised the King as Britain's colonial governor, "Riccardo, Earl of Warwick...
...another year. The work is Troilus and Cressida, based on Chaucer's poem, not Shakespeare's play ("You can't set Shakespeare's to music"), and the world's top opera houses have already made bids for the premiere. The story, adapted by British Librettist Christopher Hassall, is practically foolproof opera material. The scene...
...Librettist Jeremy Gury preserved the 13 stanzas of iambic heptameter intact, but also worked up a good deal of added story business besides two more stanzas. After a scene outside the Mudville ball park, in which he discloses a few previously unrevealed facts (Casey was a left-handed rightfielder with a batting average of .564), he takes the audience to a spot somewhere back of shortstop and puts the poetry into the mouth of a narrator...
...Charivari, according to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, is "a crude music made in derision of incongruous marriages." Composer-librettist-conductor Peter Westergaard has expanded this into a masque-like opera buffa that bubbles over with finess...
Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex (Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra & Chorus conducted by the composer; narrated by Librettist Jean Cocteau; Columbia). The famed Greek tragedy, telescoped by Cocteau into six scenes and sung in Latin with French narration. With its craggy outlines and dry orchestration, the score has a faddish sound (it was written 26 years ago), but there are moments of drama and fetching lyrical beauty. The voice parts are heavily emphasized, often obscure the orchestra...