# Why do composers get the credit for operas?



## sonnenuntergangstunde (Apr 20, 2013)

Only recently have I been making excursions into opera-land. I've been wondering why the person who wrote the music for the opera rather than the libretto is the one who gets the main credit? It seems akin to saying 'Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy' or 'John Williams' Schindlers List'. Most folk would associate Mozart with Le nozze di Figaro, but not so much Lorenzo Da Ponte. If you could shed some light on this that would be helpful :tiphat:


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Any fool can write the words, the real trick is to write singable music that encapsulates the words. 

The oddities are Wagner who did everything (and it shows) and Gilbert and Sullivan where Gilbert's words are a major part of the enjoyment - especially the patter songs.


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## aisia (Jul 28, 2013)

Because in opera music is the more prominent and important feature. How often do you suppose the plays of Beaumarchais get staged these days? And yet how many productions of The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville do you suppose are running worldwide right now? A better comparison is really with musicals. There, as in opera, the main interest is in the music, and there, as in opera, it is the composers who get most of the credit.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

sonnenuntergangstunde said:


> I've been wondering why the person who wrote the music for the opera rather than the libretto is the one who gets the main credit?


It used to be exactly that way. In the 18th century, it was a privilege for composers to be able to set Metastasio's libretti, and it was Metastasio rather than his composers that was the main draw for audiences. Da Ponte was at least as big a superstar as Mozart. In some cases the composer wasn't even the second most important person: that honor would have gone to the leading singers. It's only in the nineteenth century that composers began to eclipse librettists as the most important component of an opera.

Exactly why that happened would be a very interesting historical study. I know that in the case of Rossini, Weber, and Meyerbeer, for example, those three composers were thought to have such distinct approaches to timbre and orchestration that the instrumental components of their operas started garnering unusually close and disproportionate attention compared to the text, singing, etc. (In fact, one historical curiosity that can be pretty perplexing to us modern listeners is that, in France, the first composer to be consistently praised for his "purely musical" qualities as opposed to the "extramusical" content his music communicated was... Rossini.) This, coupled with the general godlike status composers acquired in the 19th century--which continues to the present day--surely had something to do with the decline of the librettist as "the" driving force behind an opera.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Any fool can write the words


Most composers would vehemently disagree with that, methinks. Anyone can string words together, it's true, but not everyone can string words together in a way that is suitable for opera. In the Baroque period, for example, opera seria followed a more or less standard outline of aria-recitative-aria-recitative, etc. Therefore the text needed to be written such that moments of emotional soliloquy (i.e. arias) came at exactly the right moment. Any ancient myth or historical legend, the main substance of opera seria libretti, can be written using such a template, but to pull it off in a way that did not seem artificial or contrived is what separated successful librettists from unsuccessful ones. Some librettists were definitely considered better at it than others, if Metastasio's superstardom was any indication. (Seriously... you have to be one cool cat to warrant a one-word stage name like Metastasio!)


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

The total experience is what makes opera so very great an art form, but for me the music is the most important ingredient.

You can perform an opera without the drama and it's still worth it. A concert performance for example. No staging no interaction just singers standing and singing their part. Still worth seeing.

Now imagine leaving out the music. All that's left is a (rather short) play.

Also, the libretto is often changed after intructions by the composers. Too my knowledge, this never happened the other way around. So even the composer deserves credit for the libretto.

Finally, most libretto's are not very original or are taken from plays or novels. For example, Don Giovanni's libretto has been a lot of "copy and paste" work by Da Ponte from another work. But, the music is 100% original.

This is why composers get the most credits.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Writing a good libretto is, indeed, a skilled art. That is why da Ponte and Boito deserve such praise for their participation in some of the greatest ever operas.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Dongiovanni said:


> Also, the libretto is often changed after intructions by the composers. Too my knowledge, this never happened the other way around.


Historically, when it came to edits and alterations to the opera, both the composer and librettist often had to take a backseat to the singers, who (depending on their prestige) were at liberty to remove entire arias and replace them with arias from wholly different operas by wholly different composers. The practice was totally routine in the 17th century and continued right up until the romantic period.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

A librettist has a highly specialized niche skill, and it is different than that of the playwright. The librettist must know what sings readily and well, and whatever the language the text is in, that is different from writing a fine play. bit of prose or poem. There are stage mechanics (a playwright would know, but not necessarily an otherwise fine writer) and those are crucial to the overall tempo of what is happening on stage, and many nuts 'n' bolts realities must be considered as well as moving the story along.

Most fans relatively "into it" will know who the librettist of an opera is.

Without the composer, though, there is a rather artificial synthetic "play" which would not work well as a play alone -- that shifts over to the playwright's bailiwick.

And there are numbers of operas with not so great or clever libretti which have been far elevated by the composer's part of the contribution -- whereas there may be brilliant libretti languishing, embedded in less than spectacular music, on a shelf in a library, gathering dust.

Opera is a musical drama. A bad / lesser libretto can mar a work, but the music can save it, keep it as desired by audiences so it continues to be performed. A great libretto with a bad score is not enough to keep a work afloat... one reason to well argue that although they are musical dramas, the music carries the day more than the libretto.


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## sonnenuntergangstunde (Apr 20, 2013)

Fantastic and comprehensive answers, thanks everyone :clap:


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## Bardamu (Dec 12, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Opera is a musical drama. A bad / lesser libretto can mar a work, but the music can save it, keep it as desired by audiences so it continues to be performed. A great libretto with a bad score is not enough to keep a work afloat... one reason to well argue that although they are musical dramas, the music carries the day more than the libretto.


Yet Leoncavallo work as a librettist for Pagliacci cover his not so hot score.

Boito's Nerone libretto met with huge editorial success when it was published far before the Opera got its premiere (which contrary to many thinks was successful).

Puccini huge successes was a combination of a dream team composed by Puccinin, Giacosa and Illica (also Tito Ricordi).

The so called Gluckian reform was inspired by the librettist Ranieri de' Calzabigi.

Giordano big success, Andrea Chenier, was well deserved since the composer went through great hardship to get the libretto and a collaboration with Illica (the genesis of Andrea Chenier is very interesting).

As to why it's usually remembered just the composer name, it probably for the same reason it is usually only remember the director for movies: it's easier to remember just one name (not just that but it's easier to remember just the surname).


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## maumautheopera (Nov 15, 2013)

this fool wrote some words, now then clever dick find me a hot fearless composer www.maumautheopera.com (ex norfolk resident)


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

One reason is that many opera librettists, particularly the Italian ones , were nothing but hacks , and
their librettos are pretty formulaic . There are very few great ibrettists, such as Arrigo Boito and Hugo von
Hoffmannstahl . 
Wagner's own librettos, like them or not , are far from being formulaic hackwork . 
Verdi, Rossini , Bellini and Donizetti used these hack librettists all the time , yet their operas re wonderful
IN SPITE of the librettos, not because of them.


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

As has already been said , the words without the music are pointless,even with as great a librettist as Boito. With Othello and Falstaff , without music, we have Shakespeare who is still "pretty good".
I would gladly go and see a production of The Bard's work, but not Boito's without the not inconsiderable help from Verdi's music.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

superhorn said:


> Verdi, Rossini , Bellini and Donizetti used these hack librettists all the time


This is simply untrue, especially for Bellini who worked with Felice Romani for most of his operas and Donizetti who sometimes didn't use any librettist at all, writing the text himself - so how is it "all the time"?


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