libretto

libretto, the Italian word for the ‘little book’ in which the text of an opera (or oratorio) was printed, and hence the text itself. A few composers have written their own librettos, but the majority have used a poet or professional librettist.

A libretto must provide the composer with three elements: a core of character, situation, and plot; a framework of words laid out for musical treatment; and language that will stimulate the creative imagination. Few writers have succeeded in satisfying all these requirements though there are exceptions such as Hofmannsthal's librettos for Strauss, Boito's for Verdi's Falstaff, or Auden's for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. Tate's libretto for Purcell's Dido and Aeneas has been much attacked on literary grounds. Tate was not the first English librettist: he is generally held to have been preceded by D'Avenant with The Siege of Rhodes.

In the 18th cent. the taste for Italian music gained ground in England, and with Handel's arrival in London in 1710 the fate of English opera was sealed. Only in the lighter field did the English libretto survive; the ballad operas which followed Gay's The Beggar's Opera were effectively straight plays interspersed with music. It was not until 1871 that the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas introduced a new and invigorating talent. Many 20th-cent. composers have taken an active part in the preparation of their own librettos, and the professional librettist has disappeared: in his place names like Hardy, Synge, A. P. Herbert, Clifford Bax, J. B. Priestley, and Plomer have been found in the opera programmes. Auden, in his librettos for Britten, Stravinsky, and Henze, established himself as the most important writer in the form in the last few decades.