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Music and literature were born together.
The ancient greek poems (lyrics) were written to be sung, not read, and that's literature (ex: hymn, ode, ecloga...)
In Middle Age, the rondo, the song, the cantiga, the madrigal, the ballad were written to be sung, not read, and that is literature.
The minstrel and trobadours in Middle Age were singers, and that is literature too.
So, what about the opera? It was based uppon literature, but it's sung.
Could we define opera as a kind of literature?
It is, but very few Librettos are good. The ones Wagner Wrote are excellent, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's are great (he wrote many for Richard Strauss). However, Puccini's libretti all seem to be mediocre at best (he had a love of taking popular pulp fiction and turning it into an opera) and Verdi's are hit miss (the one he used for Otello I find to be a work of art). The La Ponte libretti Mozart used weren't bad, but I would not go as far as to say they deserve reading on their own.
Opera is essentially a musical play, but all the bad ones have been sifted out over the years, and the music and not the play are central (with the exception perhaps of Wagner). Because of this, opera tends to be melodramatic, and doesn't work the same way as literature. It is a narrative told in many voices, hypothetically, and therefore doesn't really work the same way as other sung poetry.
Lieder perhaps is the better counterpart to what you are looking for. That is actually sung poetry.
Music and Literature didn't born together at all. Literature was only born when the written word was invented and the oral world (those of the oral storytellers and musicians) existed for a considerable amount of time before the first written word.
Some oral narratives are the source of the first artistic texts and poetry are written so they could also be read but they are not the same thing (otherwise why giving it a new name). When a text is created for paper they obey rules and have an structure that is different from music, even if they are similar. You may call the libretos and all the other writen support of music of literature, since they are written text, but Opera is music. It is not the libretos.
For JBI
Hamlet is theatre.
Theatre must to be played and seen, not read.
Opera is sung theatre.
So, if Hamlet is literature,
Opera is sung literature.
I love Verdi, Mozart and Bizet. I don't think any libretto is mediocre.
It's a personal taste thing. Very easy say "this is good or this is bad"
You must analyse not to judge.
That's my oppinion.
Thanks for sharing yours.
No, what is literature is the script of Hamlet. Hamlet the play is not literature at all. There is a difference here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brasil
...some British university, in a Literature course, was studing the words of a Lennon/McCartney song (Norwegian Wood by the Beatles).
I don't remember exactly where it was, I read about this a long time ago.
I found that great, cause a love the Beatles.
So, if a popular song can be taken as literature, why not opera?
The best aria for me is Vesti la Giubba by Ruggiero Leoncavallo, from the opera I Pagliacci. I prefer this one sung by Pavarotti.
Originally Posted by JCamilo:
"what is literature is the script of Hamlet. Hamlet the play is not literature"
Correct!
Follow me:
The script (of Hamlet) is literature, but the play is theatre.
So, the libretto (of a music) is literature, but the act is opera.
So, the word (of a song) is literature, but the song is music.
It is logic! There is no difference, at all.
The written text of the song is literature. The Song is Music. This is the difference. Opera is the music, not the text that is just a support for the show. Any text is literature, you can consider your paycheck literature, your super-market list literature, the phone list literature. Almost all arts have supports from other arts.
Wow, that isn't ignorant. Of course some libretti are mediocre, even the writers themselves have admitted as much. It is irrelevant however if the composer is excellent. Puccini's music is amazing, and he is one of the most preformed opera composes in the world. That doesn't stop his libretti from being mediocre. It just means his music is beautiful.
Many Hamlet operas surfaced, many even with changed endings to make them "happy". Some of them are still preformed today, as are other opera adaptations. As literature, they are mediocre in comparison to Shakespeare's version. As operas they perhaps are beautiful for their musicality.
We are talking about evaluating opera as literature, not as music here. In which case, we learn from examining the libretti (which I have done for many at length, and am still doing, since I am trying to learn Italian and it is somewhat a good way) and I can attest to the fact, that as poetry, or drama, if read and not listened to, those libretti are rubbish. If you want me to quote, I have about 50 of them in front of me and would gladly back it up.
I agree, Brasil, that Hamlet is theatre and should be seen performed - but it can be read, appreciated, enjoyed and studied as text, without a performance. It may lose a certain something in the process but all that is essentially Hamlet is there in the reading.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brasil
An opera on the other hand loses a great deal in just being read - you can read the words and, if your musicianship is good, you can 'hear' the music in your inner ear. However I doubt if you can 'hear' the full musical effect of soloists, chorus and orchestra just by reading the score. For that, you need a full production. I was never more aware of this than when I saw Eugene Onegin recently - Tchaikovsky makes the orchestra another character, not just accompanying the singers but underlining, echoing and expanding the emotional content of their singing.
Also I feel that when an operatic composer takes an existing literary work as the basis for an opera, all he is really doing is plundering it for its plot and characters, rarely for its language. I saw Falstaff recently (the day after Eugene Onegin in fact - I had a little opera fest!) and saw The Merry Wives of Windsor recently as well and it seemed to me that only the characters and the barest outline of plot had been transferred from one to the other.
As to whether a libretto is good or bad, I think it is possible to say 'This libretto could be better - it does not do the story or characters justice, it is not of the same calibre as the music.' Also, I think very few libretti stand alone - they need the music to give them any sort of stature.
Literature is the written word.Whether one sings it or reads it silently doesn't change that. But literature was not born at the same time as song. The oldest known work of literature is from 2100 BCE, and it is thought to have been originally written a few centuries earlier. It is not unlikely that people have been singing in some form for several hundred thousand years, almost as long as people have been speaking.
Yes or No, i am not sure what you mean, but there is difference between music and literature and all the rest (maybe you mean there is no difference between opera and theatre, and it should not since Opera is a form of dramatization as well) . Even when we got oral storytellers - even the modern storytellers - they need to adapt the text for an oral performance. Sometimes the difference is considerable, sometime it is just subtle. Try to get an oral storyteller using his expression to convey pain while presenting a writen comedy - the perception of the public will change with that. The same goes for music and text, a one can see in the movie and the manipulation of the music in the scenes. The tunes will change the perception of the audience and all artwork is about manifestation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brasil
Heck, even Marshall McLurham will tell you that the difference of media can change the message.
Kasie:
"An opera loses a great deal in just being read" - Yes, I agree.
"Hamlet is theatre and should be seen performed, but it can be read" - Yes, it can be read, but it is not to be read.
Hamlet loses a great deal in just being read (ask an actor or director)
You can read, it is possible and a good thing to do. But loses the "magic" of the permormig act.
JBI,
You're very kind, but...
I disagree, I think it is your oppinion saying "it is rubbish... it's mediocre"
I not share the same oppinion and I'm talking about literature too.
JCamilo:
"The written text of the song is literature" - Yes, that's what I've been tell you at the thread "Brazilian Literature".
Now I've convinced you that Cazuza and Renato Russo are literature too?
Even you do not apreciate them, but they are composers, they write words and songs, they make rhymes and metres, etc... so they are poets.
Lennon is poet, Jim Morrison is poet, why not Russo?
A libretto or a poem set to music, if taken by itself, may be called literature, even great literature. But these words, when paired with music, take on a completely different existence, and are transformed by the immediate communication of the music itself. One has only to think of Beethoven's Ninth, or Das Lied von der Erde, or the end of Rosenkavalier, or Handel's Amen in the Messiah to realise that what we have is not sung literature, but an entirely different and transcending experience.
Opera is opera, and thank heaven it is.
[QUOTE=Brasil;569531]Kasie:
"Hamlet is theatre and should be seen performed, but it can be read" - Yes, it can be read, but it is not to be read.
Why should you not read it? A performance is a rare occasion, over in a matter of a few hours, reading the text can take place whenever you want it. By all means aspire to see a performance, it will enrich your life and live in your memory for ever, but don't cut yourself off from the drama by refusing to read it because it is 'not the real thing'.
Hamlet loses a great deal in just being read (ask an actor or director)
Yes, of course, but in reading the text, you can go back and re-read, study and ponder, which you can't do in a performance which is taking place in real time. And this familiarity will enhance your enjoyment of the next performance you are fortunate enough to see.
You can read, it is possible and a good thing to do. But loses the "magic" of the permormig act.
Can't argue with that, Brasil! But I still want to read the text - before and after a play, if it's something as meaty and thought-provoking as the Bard!
You could say that a recording of an opera is not as good as 'the real thing' - I'd have to agree but I want to know more about (for example) Eugene Onegin which I am very unlikely to be lucky enough to see again, at least not in the near future, so I will be looking out for a recording of it so that I can absorb more of its essentials - the fusion of words and music - over several re-playings.
Lennon is not a poet, Jim Morrison, except for the few books when he tried to be a poet, was not a poet. Cazuza and Renato Russo neither (that have nothing to do with status). They are musicians. Their lyrics are created to be alive while sung. Sometimes the music was even before the lyrics. (Reckonizing then as poets have nothing to do with saying they are good or not - Lou Reed, Lennon, Buarque all are good musicians but not poets.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Brasil
But you are wrong - I never said the words of their music is not literature, I said they are not poets. They are musicians and I think you not being fair with them - They fought hard to be good musicians and yet you are trying to say they did something else (being poets). Almost like calling Hitchcook a comic illustrator just because you can see his movies in the storyboards.
They write songs (and not songs and words, just songs) that use devices used by poetry, but what they do is something else (in fact, rythim and metric is something poems borrowed from music).