If you’re a behind the scenes kind of person, the assistant who gets the presentation ready for the uy in marketing but does not get to go in the meeting, then this article is just for you. Are you the PR professional who writes all their speeches and answers all the complaint letters for the chief executive officer; pianist practices; the deputy chief whose job description is doing all the things the chief doesn’t like to do or can’t do; or the paralegal who prepares all the pleadings, knows all the codes, and does all the licking and stamping.
Temistocle Solear, Antonio Ghislanzoni, Henri Meilhac, Jules Barbier, Michael Carre, Guiseppe Giacosa, Luigi Illica, Renato Semoni, and Nicola Haym all know what this is like.
Who on earth are these people??
Well even if you’re not an opera fan, I bet you’ve heard of the composers Verdi, Bizet, Mozart, Strauss, Gounod, Handel, Donizetti and Puccini. And I’m sure you’ve heard of some of their operas – Aida, Carmen, Cosi fan Tutte, Madame Butterfly, Faust, and Don Giovanni, for instance.
Did you know that these composers wrote the music for their operas but not the lyrics? Solear, Ghislanzoni and the other individuals in the list are what’s called “librettists.” It is they who wrote the words to the music that tell the story, without which you would be listening to a symphony, not an opera. And we never hear their names! They’re called “librettists” because the words to the songs, which basically comprise the script of the opera, is called a “libretto.” It’s Italian for little book.
Like Gilbert and Sullivan, the pairs worked together. The inimitable Richard Wagner was the only one to compose all his operas entirely by himself, creating both music and lyrics, which may account for why they are so powerful, so “Wagnerian.” This is quite a feat because composing music and writing words require different parts of the brain.
Sometimes the composer and librettist met in person, while other times the work was done by correspondence. Strauss worked exclusively with one librettist, after writing his own lyrics for his first opera and finding out he wasn’t good at it, but most other composers switched around, finding the right librettist for the job, or one who was available. It’s not unlike the way a lot of us work these days – long distance and by contract.
Again, grasp the significance of the work these unsung heroes did. The words are so integral to the opera they are never translated. Subtitles run across the big screen on stage, or the little screen on the chair in front of yours at the opera. We read them in our native tongue while they are sung on stage in the original German, Italian, or French. (For aficionados, anyway. Beginners may enjoy translations, such as The Chandos Opera In English series, which translates the lyrics into English.)
What an incredible collaboration an opera is. It takes costume designers as well, because an opera is as much visual as it is auditory. The Grand Opera is known for its elaborate sets and costumes. In “Turandot,” when the mob turns surly and the moon appears, she is personified and costumed in a magnificence dominated the stage for what seems like half an hour, that will keep you transfigured.
One opera I hope to see one day is Verdi’s “Aida,” excuse me, Verdi and Ghislanzoni’s “Aida” at the Bath of Caracalla in Rome, where the Triumphal March of Rhadames features live elephants and horses on stage. Now that’s entertainment!
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