Word: librettos
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Sincerely speaking, I believe my own work superficial. It is true that new composers have much talent, but they are not strong. . . . With the exception of Eric Korngold, composer of Der Tote Stadt, I cannot mention anyone I believe in. I am now working on a libretto by Hugo von Hoff-mansthal, author of The Miracle, which suggests great possibilities...
High in favor likewise are Fred Allen and Jimmy Savo, who have been provided in lieu of a comedy book. Allen's comic methods are pungent] Savo's dancing never misses a good stroke. They wander continually through the performance as the authors of the libretto, escaped from a lunatic asylum. There are the customary, inevitable skits of current Broadway attractions...
...score. To this libretto, the amazing concoction of one Friedrich Kind, Weber wrote a score that combines the simple tunefulness of the folksong and the Bavarian yodel with the brilliancy of the concert hall. It contains also demoniac bombast and eerie "agits" which would be dear to the heart of any cinema organist. Its first Viennese success was tremendous. Weber himself wrote in his diary: "Greater enthusiasm there cannot be, and I tremble to think of the future, for it is scarcely possible to rise higher than this. To God alone the praise...
...preparing the play for the opera stage, Giordano was obliged to delete parts of the libretto. The motif appears in the first act and is elaborated into an octette in the third act when Gianetto's plot is perfected. In this way a passage which occupied 15 minutes in the drama is reduced to four minutes in the opera, because all the characters speak at once. The result must be striking if not effective. As yet no one is said to have heard the music except Giordano's wife. But the combined popularity of La Cena della Beffe...
Neither the orchestra score nor the libretto had the force of art. It was too ambitious a project for the modest talents of Ziegfeld, the son. The opera as it was savored only of a poor imitation of Richard, the father...