As Constance, the cheerfulest of the nuns, Alisa Jordheim didn't always emphasize the text in Poulenc's verbose, detailed libretto and her voice sometimes struggled with filling the Venetian Theater.
Not only did this original score, notated for orchestration, have different passages (and that different ending), it was accompanied by a detailed libretto by Prokofiev and the dramatist Sergei Radlov that diverged in important ways from Shakespeare's play.
My second experience of Welch's Potato was in 2004, when I had co-written the libretto of an opera, and it's detailed in my second book, Hypocrisy Excused (Faber £7.99).
For the extra money the Philips set offers an excellent libretto with translation, plus background essay, where the Melodiya has a synopsis only, albeit well detailed with links to the many index points.
Mr. Fairouz wrote the libretto, adapting it from the Hakim play, and in this first scene there are cumbersome dramatic stretches where the back story has to be filled in through overly detailed dialogue between the sisters.
Aside from this uncontroversial departure from the libretto and a last scene staged in a police cell rather than on a convict march, Tcherniakov plays it pretty straight, drawing sensitively acted and detailed performances from his excellent cast.
But before I proceed with the attempt to sketch the philosophical content to which both Leporello's and Giovanni's first words provide clues, let us consider some preliminary details in the libretto that point out the interpretive direction we will take.
In addition to Belafonte's interview, luxury brand Montblanc is set to launch a special edition, 1963 libretto written by the singer-actor, detailing his personal account of his civil rights involvement, as well as his relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the months leading up to the march.
Though the plot is explained in detail in the program book, no libretto is provided (evidently because of legal hassles over rights).
In Treliński's version, he watches his father commit suicide, rather than learning of the death via a mournful melody that Wagner's score and libretto present in more poetic detail.
Ms. Sorkin's libretto tells the story in abundant detail with subtly poetic, often rhymed lines.
