"Libretto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the actor professing to speak without any precise text, but simply from "heads and hints before him to refer to should his memory falter." In an attempt to levy a fee on account of an oratorio performed at Covent Garden, Colman failed, however; it was proved that the libretto was entirely composed of passages from the Scriptures. After great discussion it was ultimately decided that the Bible did not need the license of the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... Travesty Atone Incarnate Charnal Etiquette Rejuvenate Eradicate Quiet Requiem Acquiesce Ambidextrous Inoculate Divulge Proper Appropriate Omnivorous Voracious Devour Escritoire Mordant Remorse Miser Hilarious Exhilarate Rudiment Erudite Mark Marquis Libel Libretto Vague Vagabond Extravagant Souse ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... is a cantata about the Britons and the Danes. There is a Druid priestess who sings of Cynthia and Endymion, and a chorus of jubilant Vikings. It is charmingly printed, and as a libretto for music quite above ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... nobility, who never picked up her fan and handed it to her without bowing, and always rose when she entered the room. Mrs. Barker's scant schoolgirl knowledge was touched by this gentleman, who spoke French fluently, and delicately explained to her the libretto of a risky opera bouffe. And now she had finally yielded to a meeting out of San Francisco—and an ostensible visit—still as a speculator—to one or two mining districts—with HER BROKER. This was the boldest of her steps—an original idea of the fashionable Van Loo—which, ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... don't you see, Aunt Wess'?" said Laura trying to explain. "And he forgives her. I don't know exactly. Look at your libretto." ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... II.,—Strauss, not Wagner,—had a hand in the orchestration, simply because his "Sinfonia Domestica" occupies itself with the same sweet history of the inglenook which is the basis of the Bluebeard libretto. Strauss's symphony is worked out along more tranquil lines, to be sure, but it is only the history of a single day of married life and a day arbitrarily chosen by the composer. It is conceivable that there may have ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a copy of the libretto, and the captain followed the performance of the next two ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... powers of his genius—only, alas! to reap the bitter fruit of disappointment. One after another of his operas was rejected, even, as in the case of 'Fierabras,' when at the very point of production—the reasons assigned in each case being either the unsuitableness of the libretto or the difficulties presented by the music, and the door which he hoped to enter was closed against him during his lifetime. The score of 'Fierabras' comprised no fewer than one thousand pages, and the mournful state into which he was thrown by its rejection may be gathered ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... VI. 106-74, Geibel wrote the libretto for Felix Mendelssohn in 1846. Mendelssohn died before finishing it; Max Bruch completed the opera independently in 1863. It has also been set to music by two obscure composers. Karl Goedeke gives a very unsatisfactory discussion of the matter in Emanuel ...
— Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei • Allen Wilson Porterfield
... lover, believing she has deceived him, despairingly drowns himself. The ending, with its "Ring, ring, ring the bell there! Horses carry me to the depths," has more poetic contour than the other. Without grafting any libretto on it, this Mazurka is a beautiful tone-piece in itself. Its theme is delicately mournful and the subject, in B major, simply entrancing in its ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... defect in the libretto of Patience is the decentralisation of interest in the second act. The alert ones who remembered that in that act the heroine has only one song, and certain passages of dialogue not remarkable for dramatic force, had predicted that Millicent would inevitably lose ground ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... Secretary, was the author of Coriolanus, a tragedy for which Beethoven in 1807 wrote the celebrated Overture dedicated to that poet. According to Reichardt, Collin offered the libretto of Bradamante to Beethoven in 1808, which Reichardt subsequently composed. This note evidently refers ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... what the Strauss of the last years thinly and rarely is. It is not Oscar Wilde's wax flowers of speech, nor the excessively stiff and conventionalized action of "Salome," that bores one with the Strauss opera of that name. It is not even the libretto of "Der Rosenkavalier," essentially coarse and boorish and insensitive as it is beneath all its powdered preciosity, that wearies one with Strauss's "Musical Comedy"; or the hybrid, lame, tasteless form of "Ariadne auf Naxos" that turns one against that little monstrosity. It is the ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... name 'British,' the name 'English' irritates all Scotchmen, and the Irish are irritated by both alike. Our national anthem is a peculiarly flat and uninspiring specimen of eighteenth-century opera libretto and opera music. The little naked St. George on the gold coins, or the armorial pattern on the silver coins never inspired any one. The new copper coinage bears, it is true, a graceful figure of Miss Hicks Beach. But we have made it so small and ladylike that it has none ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... that many persons who scrupulously refrain from perusing Lord Byron's Don Juan, yet enjoy witnessing Mozart's opera of Don Giovanni, following the libretto with assiduity, and laughing with special heartiness at Leporello's song as it rehearses the adventures of his master. In the same way, many who are rather shocked at Camille, find no trouble in listening to La Traviata, and weep for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... tragedy and Attic decorum, The loathsome operatic brood which it spawned, Not matched by the composer or his imitators since, Mascagni's account of how it came to be written, et seq.—Verga's story, et seq.—Story and libretto compared, The Siciliano, The Easter hymn, Analysis of the opera, et seq.—The prelude, Lola's stornello, The intermezzo, "They have ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... author of the libretto.] has given me fairly good news as to the preparations for the performance of your Haubar at Dresden. Young composers ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... work, met with a like favourable reception, although "Masaniello" and "William Tell" had already taught the Paris public to be exacting. "Esmeralda" was another successful work, but "Notre Dame," written to a libretto of Victor Hugo's own arrangement, proved a failure. Mlle. Bertin won further musical fame by her string quartettes and trios, as well as her choruses and songs. She was also a poetess of some renown, and her collection of verse won a prize ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... and nothing more definite is known about it. This beginning of opera, for so it was, was also the beginning of opera in Germany, as we shall presently see, for about twenty years later a copy of "Dafne" was carried to Dresden for production there before the court, but when the libretto had been translated into German, it was found unsuited to the music of the Italian copy, whereupon the Dresden director, Heinrich Schuetz, wrote new music for it, and thus became the composer of the first German ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... us," he said. "We have been trying to 'grow up together,' like first-cousins, and nature forbids the banns. To-morrow you shall have half a libretto. And then, really, my child, you must adapt ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... about Lisa, then of music again. He seemed to enunciate his words more slowly when he spoke of Lisa. Lavretsky turned the conversation on his compositions, and half in jest, offered to write him a libretto. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... wander near To kiss this plant of unaspiring art— Translate it, even in the heavenly sphere, As the libretto of a maiden's heart. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... It makes no difference to be one row higher. It was more to the liking, after all. One felt more at home up here among the people. If one was thirsty, one could drink a glass of wine or beer being passed about by the libretto boys, and the music sounded ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... "Sketches by Boz." The familiar story of "Pickwick," its early conception and its final publication, is well known. Its first publication (in parts) dated from 1836-37. About this time Dickens had another bad attack of stage-fever, and wrote a farce, "The Strange Gentleman," the libretto of an opera called "The Village Coquettes," and a comedy, "Is She His Wife?" more particularly perhaps for amateur representation, in which he was very fond of taking part. "Oliver Twist," a courageous attack ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... a novel, and the difficulty it offered was that the struggling hero, Anthony Quintard, whose fate depended, in the absence of common-sense, on his winning a ten thousand dollar prize for an opera libretto, seemed to me, from samples of his work exhibited, to be an unlikely competitor. But I must say that when at the play I saw our Mr. NARES in his garret sucking at his pipe in that masterful manner and modifying what might so easily have been a too sticky situation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... "A libretto for an operetta. Entitle it Theatrical Criticisms and set it to music and you will have such a show that the whole nation will flock to it as ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... singer and the actor. While called upon to demonstrate with proper melody of voice and expression the meaning of the music of the opera, he is also required to portray by suitable dramatic movements its corresponding meaning as found in the libretto. These remarks apply more particularly to those who constitute the dramatis personae in operatic presentation. Of course we do not forget the very important aid afforded by those who are included in the pleasing chorus, nor those who by instrumental accompaniment add to the charm of—in fact, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... produced at Drury Lane his The Country Lasses; or, The Custom of the Manor, a rifacimento of Fletcher's The Custom of the Country and The City Heiress. It is a well-written, lively enough comedy, but very weak and anaemic withal when compared to Mrs. Behn. B. G. Stephenson, in his vivacious libretto to Cellier's tuneful opera, Dorothy, produced at the Gaiety Theatre, 25 September, 1886, has made great use of Johnson's play, especially Act i, where the gallants meet the two ladies disguised as country girls; the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... (heartily reciprocated) with the daughter of his captor, Khan Konchak. An opportunity of escape being offered, Prince Igor seizes it, but Vladimir's dear heart is divided between passion and patriotism, and before he can make up his mind the chance of freedom is gone. A study of the so-called "libretto" showed that this was the only thing in the opera that bore any resemblance to a dramatic situation. Figure, therefore, my chagrin when I discovered that the character of Vladimir Igorievich had been cut clean out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... produced by similar causes. Brazilian "Indianism" reached its highest point perhaps in Jose Alencar's famous Guarany, which won for its author national reputation and achieved unprecedented success. From the book was made a libretto that was set to music by the Brazilian composer, Carlos Gomez. The story is replete with an intensity of life and charming descriptions that recall the pages of Chateaubriand, and its prose often verges upon poetry in its idealization of the Indian race. Of the author's ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... libretto, the means of producing dramatic effects that the French comedy or the grand opera never approached, and such as made Bayreuth seem thin and feeble. Duke William's barons must have clung to his voice and action as though they were in the very melee, ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... when we were told that the whole company would now "join hands and move around in a circle" to music. The entire jury sensed that the crucial moment had come. We saw boys and girls alternating, hand held in hand—and all to the undeniably secular libretto of "Looby-Loo." It was, moreover, noted with inward pain that many of the little feet actually left the ground. We adjourned to an adjacent fish stage to discuss the matter. I need not dilate on the vicissitudes of the session. It was clear that all but "Looby-Loo" could ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... music is beautiful. It is so tuneful it lingers. I've been humming snatches of it ever since he played it for me. The 'Rebellious Princess' has some wonderful songs. That clever young man, Eric Darrow, composed the libretto and thought out the plot. It's about a princess who grew tired of staying at home in her father's castle and going to state dinners and receptions, so she put on the dress of a peasant girl and ran ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... K. M., from what leaked out of his libretto through Idaho, seemed to me to be a kind of a dog who looked at life like it was a tin can tied to his tail. After running himself half to death, he sits down, hangs his tongue out, and looks at the can ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... Spielwerk und die Prinzessin (1913). Schreker's earlier opera, Der ferne Klang, I missed, but I enjoyed the later composition, charged as it is with fantasy, atmosphere, bold climaxes, and framing a legendary libretto. The influence ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the fetish of Jumboism in so far as to write to Chopin in Paris that he was anxious, before he departed this Vale of Tears, to hear an opera from his pen, both for his benefit, and for the glory of his country. Chopin took this admonition to heart sufficiently to ask a friend to prepare for him a libretto; but that is as far as the project ever went. Chopin must have felt instinctively that his individual style of miniature painting would be as ineffective on the operatic stage, where bold, al fresco painting is required, as ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... how his whip scourges the immorality of the French opera, and his whole soul abhors the sensuality of that stage! how steadfastly he refuses to undertake the composition of an opera till the faultless libretto for which he patiently waited year after year could be prepared! We wish our religious societies would call out a few of the letters of this man and scatter them broadcast over the land: they would indeed be "leaves for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... home in Aldershot he resumed work, giving some time to a libretto for a musical comedy, but his health was failing and he accomplished little. A surgical operation for cancer of the throat in March, 1902, afforded a little relief, but he worked with difficulty. On April 17th he began a new story, "A Friend of Colonel Starbottle." He wrote one ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... place in popular regard. John Howard Payne, a native of Long Island, a wandering actor and playwright, who died American consul at Tunis in 1852, wrote about 1820 for Covent Garden Theater an opera, entitled Clari, the libretto of which included the now famous song of Home, Sweet Home. Its literary pretensions were of the humblest kind, but it spoke a true word which touched the Anglo-Saxon heart in its tenderest spot, and, being happily married to a plaintive air, was sold by the hundred thousand, and is evidently ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... crowd: the chorus-girls wedged themselves into a solid mass, and murmured good-mornings to each other; Mortimer told a long story from the top step; Dubois tried to talk of Balzac to Montgomery, who listened, puzzled and interested, fancying it was a question of a libretto; whilst Bret, till now silent as the dead, suddenly woke up to the conclusion that it would probably all end in a reduction of salaries. At last Dick appeared and called them into the presence of Mr. Cox. Whisky and water ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... sneered. "I knew that the Signorina would warn you. You were acting a tableau I presume just now as you held her in your embrace. A pretty scene, i' faith, but one of which the Grand Duke will not be amused to hear. I had hoped to learn still more of the libretto of this little play, but you know more of mine. We will make no further pretence, and lest I lose you by further shilly-shallying, we will start upon ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Cordova was singing the mad scene in Lucia for the last time in that season, and she had never sung it better. The Bride of Lammermoor is the greatest love-story ever written, and it was nothing short of desecration to make a libretto of it; but so far as the last act is concerned the opera certainly conveys the impression that the heroine is a raving lunatic. Only a crazy woman could express feeling ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... listening, with her eyes devoutly fixed on the Libretto of "The Mountebanks," under the firm conviction that she is in direct communication with the Lyric Theatre.) I always understood The Mountebanks was a musical piece, my dear, didn't you? and even as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... fellow, when possible I always studied a play or libretto quite carefully over, by myself, (sometimes twice through) before seeing it on the stage; read it the day or two days before. Tried both ways—not reading some beforehand; but I found I gain'd most by getting that sort of mastery first, if the piece had depth. (Surface effects ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... men. He was a star reporter, pulling down his thirty-five per; but any first-class horoscoper would have allowed that Whitlock was destined to contribute to Puck and Judge, and probably attempt the libretto of a comic opera. He legged it on the newspaper for a while and then re-deserted, the same as most of the others, and went to Springfield to resume his studies. This was his first erratic move. If he had been a true journalist there ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... she had bought the libretto of the opera of Louise when she and her mother had ventured out to see the tomb of Napoleon after the visit of Cousin Sally in the morning; and when they were taking their much needed rest before dressing for dinner in the Faubourg, ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them fricasees, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective—"brekekex-koax"; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in each hoof—a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... an affirmative, when Agostino broke in,—"Camilla! And honour to whom honour is due! Let Caesar claim the writing of the libretto, if it be Caesar's! It has passed the censorship, signed Agostino Balderini—a disaffected person out of Piedmont, rendered tame and fangless by a rigorous imprisonment. The sources of the tale, O ye grave Signori Tedeschi? The sources are partly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Easter, Keiser began the composition of a new opera, Almira, on a libretto by the local poet Feustking, but for some reason or other he found it necessary to call in Handel's assistance, and eventually left the whole work to Handel to compose. It was to be produced in the autumn. Handel seems to have consulted Mattheson over every detail of ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... only the libretto of which has ever been published, was given four nights during the centennial celebration of the siege of Saragossa, and was never performed elsewhere. The book is a mere scenario of the well-known Episodio nacional, and contains practically no spoken lines. It cannot be judged without the music. ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... court; music, Korean influence; pantomimic, of monkey Sarume in myth; music and poetry; development in Heian epoch; white posture dance, shirabyoshi; mimetic dance, libretto for, develops into no; no ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... to talk about music, then about Liza, and then again about music. He seemed to pronounce his words more slowly when he spoke of Liza. Lavretsky turned the conversation to the subject of his compositions, and offered, half in jest, to write a libretto for him. ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... and Judy," shouted Barbara Gordon hoarsely through a megaphone. "Give the children a season of refined and educating amusement. Libretto by our most ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... H.B. Smith: "I did not suppose that our reverend Brother Gunsaulus ever attempted poetry. His verses have that grace and lilt that are the prime essentials to successful comic-opera libretto writing. When I want a collaborateur, I shall ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... were to get a mystical libretto and write an opera!" But she did not say it. She felt that she would not care to suggest anything to Heath which might indicate a desire on her part to see him "a success." In her ears were perpetually sounding the words, "and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... performances on the stage were almost mediocre, but to private audiences of those known to be appreciative, he was a tireless marvel. Allison was a frequent visitor at Waller's quarters and here his idea germinated for an American opera. At that time he had no intention of writing the libretto but, after outlining the plot, at Waller's urgent request he wrote the scenario. Waller was enthused by Allison, the past master in creating enthusiasm, to a point where he had entered into its spirit and ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... picturesque dwelling, but scanty in domestic comforts. The first of the Comic Annual series was brought out at Christmas, 1830. In the following couple of years, Hood did some theatrical work; writing the libretto for an English opera which (it is believed) was performed at the Surrey Theatre. Its name is now unknown, but it had a good run in its day; a similar fate has befallen an entertainment which he wrote for Mathews. He also composed a pantomime for the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... impulses of circumstance, or of natural laws, but rather the stupendously nonsensical notion of the Arabian kismet, that from the beginning of time every event was fore-arranged as in a fairy tale, and that all which is, is simply the acting out of a libretto written before the play began—a belief revived in the last century by readers of Leibnitz, who were truer than the great German himself to the consequences of his doctrine, which he simply evaded.[15] In coupling this humiliating and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the analysis of his own works. On the other hand, it would be impossible to exaggerate the influence Les Deux Journees had on the lighter parts of Beethoven's Fidelio. Cherubini's librettist was also the author of the libretto from which Fidelio was adapted, and Cherubini's score was a constant object of Beethoven's study, not only before the production of the first version of Fidelio, as Leonore, but also throughout Beethoven's life. Cherubini's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... same work; and sometimes the confusion is complicated by different versions having been prepared by the composer himself. This is notably the case with Gluck's Orphee, first written to an Italian libretto by Calzabigi and produced at Vienna. When Marie Antoinette called her former Viennese singing-master, Gluck, to Paris, she gave him an opportunity of displaying his genius by facilitating the production of his Iphigenie en Aulide at the Opera, in ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... the lady accompanying him is provided with a programme. If at the opera, he must also provide her with a libretto. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... of a joke at his own expense, dedicated the libretto of Amadis to the Earl of Burlington, at whose house, in Piccadilly, the music had been composed by Handel. When the King asked the Earl why he went so far to live, he replied that he was fond of solitude, and that ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... profondo! Amore profondo del vasto mar." Ah, there was our poor bella lingua again. I wonder who wrote the libretto." ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... spirit with the world-comedy, limiting themselves to no set of funny subjects, finding inspiration in the habits and manners of men and women at large. 'HE WON HER' is the title appended to a picture of a young lady and gentleman seated in a drawing-room, and the libretto runs thus: 'Mabel: Last night I dreamt of a most beautiful woman. Harold: Rather a coincidence. I dreamt of you, too, last night.' I have selected this as a typical example of the larger style. This style, however, occupies but a small space in the bulk ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... which was meant to refute Prynne's angry "Histro-Mastix." Noy and Selden were members of the committee, and many grave heads met together to discuss the dances, dresses, and music. The music was written by Milton's friend, Lawes, the libretto by Shirley. The procession set out from Ely House, in Holborn, on Candlemas Day, in the evening. The four chariots that bore the sixteen masquers were preceded by twenty footmen in silver-laced scarlet liveries, who carried torches and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Japanese stage. We saw some very interesting things yesterday, including dances, and learned that they are very anxious to come to America, but they want a patron. If the scenes were selected with great care to take those that have lots of action and not so much talking, and the libretto was carefully explained, they could make a hit ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... Let it be enough for us to know that he was above the medium height, robust, with sandy hair, a face elongated, flushed and freckled, vivid light gray eyes, the nose shaped like the beak of an eagle, and that he always was dressed like a monk. (Bernaldez, Oviedo, Las Casas, and the author of the Libretto, all eye-witnesses.)—H. Harrisse's "Columbus, and the Bank ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... met an author who fully appreciated his ideas, and had the talent of writing a libretto in accordance with them. This coadjutor wrote all the librettos that belonged to Gluck's greatest period. He had produced his "Orpheus and Eurydice" and "Alceste" in Vienna with a fair amount of success; but his tastes drew him strongly to the French stage, where the ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... greenery, from which hang strings of small birds, apples, nuts, chestnuts, and other fruits. It is their Christmas offering to the cure; the shepherds have already placed a whole sheep before the altar, in a like spirit." The play is not mere dumb-show, but has a full libretto. ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... quite the right word to apply to them, for one of this gang wrote a comic opera and another wrote a farce; but these were just thrown out in their spare time, and when I attended a reading of the libretto of the comic opera I went so fast asleep that I cannot say how comic it was. But if it had been very funny I should think some one would have laughed loud enough to wake me up. Generally speaking this set seemed to be bent on the reformation of England, a thing which has happened once and is rather ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... think, permit me gently to disillusion you; and if you are imbued with the flattering faith that after studying these chapters you will suddenly be able to sit down and write a successful playlet, monologue, two-act, musical comedy libretto, or even a good little "gag," in the words of classic vaudeville—forget it! All this book can do for you—all any instruction can do—is to show you the right path, show precisely how others have successfully essayed it, and ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... never hinted at the idea that was taking shape in his mind. When he left the bedroom at last, Ivan felt that, in spite of himself, he should get some sleep; for Nicholas had assured him solemnly that, when "The Boyar" should be finished, and the libretto, to be provided by Ostrovsky, properly polished, he would himself arrange for its production during the ensuing winter season. And while Ivan stood, dazed and silent, wondering if such a thing could really be, this great-hearted friend of Russia and Russian art, had ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... thing to do," he insisted. "Indispensable preliminary. You can't enjoy the opera without a libretto. Come along." ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Fair in Chicago; also one of the large number who had been left stranded when the tidal wave of artistic effort had receded, exposing the dead flats of hard times. After graduation from an eastern college of the second class, where he had distinguished himself by composing the comic opera libretto for his club and drawing for the college annual, he had chosen for himself the career of art. With a year in a New York art school and another spent knocking about various European capitals in a somewhat aimless fashion, an amiable but financially restricted family had declined to embarrass ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... The libretto shows the father Schlendrian, or Slowpoke, trying by various threats to dissuade his daughter from further indulgence in the new vice, and, in the end, succeeding by threatening to deprive her of a husband. But his victory is only temporary. When the mother and the grandmother indulge in coffee, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... book [libretto]. Except the first act, which is rather insipid, it is written in such a masterly style that it does not by any means require a first-rate composer. I will not say that on this very account it would be the more suitable for me; still, if I can get rid of previous ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... Grandson of the Wild Ass. There are operas in which at certain moments the libretto speaks of a leaping fire, the music plays leaping fire, and the fire actually leaps and blazes on the stage. But unfortunately it always happens that the words cannot be heard because of the orchestra, and the fire sinks when the ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... his only oratorio, "Christ on the Mount of Olives." This production has not attained to the popularity of his instrumental works or of his single opera, "Fidelio," in part because it is not in pure oratorio form, and in part because of its wretched libretto. Schubert, contemporary with Beethoven, also undertook an oratorio on the subject of "Lazarus;" but it was never completed, and the fragment even ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Idiot. "I'd undertake the job cheerfully if some manager would make it worth my while, and what's more, if I ever got into the swing of the business I'll bet I could turn out a libretto a day for three days of the week for the next ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... aristocratic personnel of the opera. A confused noise of words and some distinct sentences reached my ear from the neighboring boxes when the orchestra was silent. I listened involuntarily; the occupants were not talking secrets, their conversation was in the domain of idle chat, that divides with the libretto the attention of the habitues ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin |
