"So we were able to exploit a variety of ways to make a libretto work".
Now Mozart persuaded Da Ponte to make a libretto from its sequel, The Marriage of Figaro.
Full of passionate expression and cast in unrhymed ballad meter, Walser's play makes a wonderful libretto, and Mr. Holliger honors it with a setting in which its words are clear.
The score, slick, superficial and wedded to a simplistic libretto which made a travesty of its source, impressed few of its listeners.
Every word of the opera's text comes from Nietzsche, but Mr. Rihm has strung the bits together to make an allegorical libretto.
Meanwhile, John Adams, who had made a breakthrough with Nixon in China (1985 87; libretto by Alice Goodman), wrote a number of other operas that were performed by major opera companies both in the United States and in Europe.
Christopher Hampton, who has made a most vivid, lucent translation, is also working on a libretto for an operatic version of The Trial.
Meyerbeer's large choral 'tableaux' also made a major contribution to the overall dramatic effect; the composer particularly sought opportunities to write such large-scale crowd scenes, and preferred libretti which offered such possibilities.
Between Der Freischütz and Oberon, he had written Euryanthe, another piece rendered virtually unstageable by its clunky libretto, although Glyndebourne recently made an attempt to prove otherwise.
Les brigands was presented in London in 1871, 1873 and 1875; for the first of these, Gilbert made an English translation of Meilhac and Halévy's libretto.
