On Opera Librettos:
Literature is too big a subject for this page so I offer the following information. The opera libretto is a form of literature that has fallen from its once (revered) position in the art world. At one time Wagner publish his librettos separately form his music and they had public readings to great acclaim (though they are not so prized today) . Many poets of past also wrote opera librettos.
The stage play and the opera libretto were very similar entities but most are forgotten. It is only through the music that most operas are remembered, with the exception of Faust. Opera was created, or reinvented by a group of Italian music lovers, the Florentine Cameratta, who knew that Ancient Greek drama was sung, not spoken. They developed a new style of singing (sing-speech) called parlando, what later became recitative. The parlando would allow singers to become characters who would act while they sang.
• On the practical side a libretto has 2 parts the scenario and the text.
• A libretto can be original though they are mostly adaptations of other works or based on fairy tales, folklore, etc.
• The scenario is about the scenes, characters and what will happen in each scene.
• The text is what the characters and the chorus will actually sing.
• “Senarization” is common to all literature including plays, screenplays and musicals. There are film directors who only work with scenarios as they have their actors improvise the actual text. (i.e. Topsey Turvy). This could work in opera as well it worked on Broadway with a Chorus Line.
• The traditional operatic text rhymes just as the poetry of that time did and as our popular music still does.
The conventional approach to opera is to adapt a well known story, keep some of the plot, add or condense as needed. The scenario can stay close to the original but the singing text is usually altered.- as it must rhyme -tends to change a lot. Wagner changed the end of Lohengrin. He has Elisabeth die for dramatic effect and to create closure. Stories are often adapted for opera. Many of these stories and plays are mere trifles so we hardly care if they are changed. Usually the change and the addition of music is for the better. We consider a libretto good when it keeps the spark of the original story alive. Consider the many operatic versions of Faust and Shakespeare. There was a time, and a style, of opera when their wasn’t much interest in the story at all, just in the Olympic nature of the power and coloratura of the singers. In this case the Opera just had to have Arias express a single strong emotion and have plenty of open vowels.
Modernist writers: Joyce, Pound, Hemingway, Steinbeck, to name a few, create new challenges for opera creation. Their text is so important and individual that to adapt it in a convention way does violence to the writers art. The Grapes of Wrath made a fine film yet all of the prose was cut out, the essence that made it unique as a work of art.