Bernard Picart Engraving

Librettist - the biggest crux of each composer?

for supremacy Pietro Metastasio

© Sarah-Maria

Almost exactly 100 years after the birth of the opera was Pietro Metastasio ( * Born in 1698) and was regarded as a true star among the writers. He fed with 27 opera librettos a whole generation of musicians. Musicians such as Handel, Haydn and Salieri made use of the libretto-Star. Metastasio librettos set to music three Vivaldi, Gluck and even 18 is also in several Mozart operas in the text by the poet laureate of Charles VI. warbled. Not infrequently, the pieces 20 times or more were set to music. "La Clemenza di Tito" is even in more than 40 versions. Among the composers are also Mozart and Gluck. His first libretto, "The deserted Dido" holds the record with 60 musical settings.

The next equipped his eloquence with a not to be underestimated musicality Pietro Metastasio knew the librettos to write so that, after the then musical conventions ideal vertonbar were. He designed his lyrics mostly playing and singing at the harpsichord. Among the many performers of his pieces was located next to the most famous castrato Farinelli and his patroness and adoptive mother, the star soprano Marianna Bulgarelli. Not infrequently applied its theater opera performances not match the name of the composer, but with Metastasio's famous text book. There could even compete with the young Mozart and had to be content on the play bills of his operas to come second.

way: Metastasio lived in Vienna a large apartment in the St. Michael's House. A little later there was referring to the famous composer Nicola Antonio Porpora also some of the rooms. And 1751 was joined to another music size. The then 19jähre Joseph Haydn was looking for a home because he was good for nothing more after the break in the vocal choir and eventually thrown out because of bad behavior from the conductor WG Reutter, together with six choirboys. Now, equipped only with a few side jobs as an organist or singer in churches were not so many alternatives, and they moved to the oven without attic of the house.

© Sarah-Maria

But who has the upper hand?

Most of the librettist for opera performances and is only mentioned in passing, and also by the composer often reviled as a bungler who is not ready to bring it to implement the wishes of the composer. Already in 1607, Monteverdi had trouble with his Striggo lyricist who wrote the libretto for his first opera L'Orfeo. Mozart also pay for his librettist many nerves: "[I] easily 100 - Yes probably viewed more book - but I have found almost no one with whom I be satisfied could." Richard Wagner has co-equal calmly and from the start his librettos written - Argue about his literary skill, can certainly, but at least he has been so incredibly long correspondence with a writer saves. Wagner's fellow Italian Giuseppe Verdi is different and he has since been issued in several clashes and demanded detailed instructions his librettists a lot. In Francesco Maria Piave, he found early on a text that was probably something like the lesser evil for him. The former wrote nine librettos for Verdi, and drew the following conclusion: "I am the ass that is tied to the crib of its master. Verdi is a tyrant, and you can not imagine how many and how high demands it places on me and my poor verses. Here wishes it an accent, there a slurring, here a short verse, where a long. And anyway, he torments me constantly, and I must obey "Verdi has not only return once said derogatory about him.. However, the fact that Verdi Piave after his stroke, which left as a result of permanent paralysis and eventual depletion, has occasionally used some money to the poor, suggests that he has Piave ultimately appreciated. Also, the librettist Gaetano Rossi, who wrote for Rossini, Donizetti and Meyerbeer got help from one of its composer Meyerbeer as he begged for a clothing donation, it was the desire not cut off ... ...

But the question of who wins the tug of war for supremacy over seems to be clear.

© Sarah-Maria

But what about an equal cooperation?

Today's equally well-known artist Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal seems there are rather the exception to prove the rule. And the example of the now best known as a writer ETA Hoffmann, the textual background of his opera "Undine" his friend Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué entrusted, should not contribute enough to counterbalance the many disputes between the composer and librettist.

But what about another example: the artistic connection between Gluck and Calzabigi should also have been really quite fruitful. even as he called it - - because he was the librettist with the Gluck together the "risk" was his extensive opera reform tackled. They broke through in the wake not only the former musical conventions but also those who Metastasio librettos for opera has given. Calzabigi wrote about the renovations, "My Meaning was directed at the music back to its true office due. The drama in his expression and his alternating images to serve, without interrupting the action or useless through them and to catch a cold redundant Jewelry "Calzabigi had apparently not generally as with Conventions: Paris, he chose not to make rare road together with Casanova and Madame Pompadour, from Naples, he is as a result of being involved in a poisoning kicked out and he was deported from Vienna.