Is opera a kind of literature?

[JCamilo]

I would say there is oral art with the moderm oral storytellers, although the majority uses some short of record before memorizing.
The thing about Opera is that no art lives in a bubble isolated from the other arts. Take William Blake who considered his illustrations part of the poems or Andre Breton claim that a text should have no narratives and because that he used pictures in Nadja. A Drama always combined his acting with the support of other forms of art, first the oral form, then the text, sometimes music ,dance, etc.
But thinking that makes all arts one art is just being near-sighted.

[jgweed]

Let us say that I wish to go to a performance of Glass' Akhnaten, and I read the libretto before attending; how does this effect (or improve my understanding) of the opera itself?

Now, since I have the time and money, I go to Stravinski's Oedipus Rex. I do the same study of the libretto. How does this effect my understanding of the performance (and why does the narrator tell the story behind the music)?

[Virgil]

"Separate the music out and you have nothing."

- Maybe opera loses some attributes when translated to english.

Ma per chi capisce l'italiano le parole sono bellisime!

Opera is pure lyricism!




The same thing is the Portuguese Fado. Perfect, beautiful!!!

I'm sorry Brasil. I disagree with you. All you're proving is how beautiful a language Italian is. (And I think it's the most beautiful language in the world ) An opera singer can sing "Im taking out the garbage" in Italian and it would sound wonderful. That's why most operas are in Italian. It's easy to integrate the sounds of Italian to music. And it goes to show that it's how it sounds (and therefore integrated medium with music) that counts, not the literary ingrediants of the words.

[Nossa]

An opera singer can sing "Im taking out the garbage" in Italian and it would sound wonderful.

He has to be one hell of a singer to say this and actually amuse people
But I agree. I for one think that Arabic is the most beautiful language in the world, but still, I can't see it going anywhere when it comes to Opera. If we say that Opera is a literary genre, then Arabic operas would be good (based on their literary value). It depends mostly on the music, since, as far as I know, some Operas were literary works that turned to Operas later. So basically the judge in the opera isn't based on literary grounds but rather musical ones.
If we consider Opera literature, then we might as well call Ballet literature, since it's, sometimes, based on literary works. Literature means books, or that's how I see it. Anything else adds a new element to that book to make it 'different' from literature, and that's how they get their names and techniques. I'm not sure if that made sense, but hope you get my point.

[Virgil]

I for one think that Arabic is the most beautiful language in the world,

I haven't hread enough Arabic to compare it's inherent beauty with other languages. The little bit I have heard compares favorably. It seems to have a lot of vowels, and vowels are the key for language sounds. I always remember this. Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones (rock group) was asked what was the key to writing songs, and he said, "it's all in the vowels." What makes Italian have the edge over some of the other languages with lots of vowels is that there vowel sounds are disctinct from each other and don't blurr. Apparently that means something to song writers. Perhaps because each syllable is a distinct note. I don't know, I'm not a musician.

[Nossa]

I haven't hread enough Arabic to compare it's inherent beauty with other languages. The little bit I have heard compares favorably. It seems to have a lot of vowels, and vowels are the key for language sounds. I always remember this. Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones (rock group) was asked what was the key to writing songs, and he said, "it's all in the vowels." What makes Italian have the edge over some of the other languages with lots of vowels is that there vowel sounds are disctinct from each other and don't blurr. Apparently that means something to song writers. Perhaps because each syllable is a distinct note. I don't know, I'm not a musician.

Maybe. I'm not an expert on Opera (and haven't heard much of it either) so you might be right. But I remember that there was an attempt (I think in the 40s or the 50s) to make an Arabic Opera, and it failed big time. The singer who was supposed to sing it, was at that time (and still is) the best most famous Arabic singer. Her vocal abilities were compared to an Opera singer called Maria Callas (Whom I'm told was a great Opera singer herself).

If you're interested in listening to Oum Kolthoum (the singer I was just talking about), here's the best YouTube video I could find:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ8Cu...eature=related

Maybe you can judge from this. But I'm still not sure about Arabic being an Opera language. Maybe if I hear it and judge myself. Who knows.

[JCamilo]

I would say Opera is a wonderful use of Italian language and there is little wonder that Dante managed to be Dante in italian.

Anyways, I think the big problem is the super-generalization, if we transform a song, a opera, a music in literature just because there is a part of the process is writen, we would end having almost no musician - they would all be writers and there would be no music, just literature.
This is a dangerous inversion of vallue, sounds like Music depends on Literature, and we all know that Music came before literature and existed without a single writen symbol for god knows how long.
Today we have a writen society, so almost all art forms have writen register, but that is now.

[Virgil]

Maybe. I'm not an expert on Opera (and haven't heard much of it either) so you might be right. But I remember that there was an attempt (I think in the 40s or the 50s) to make an Arabic Opera, and it failed big time. The singer who was supposed to sing it, was at that time (and still is) the best most famous Arabic singer. Her vocal abilities were compared to an Opera singer called Maria Callas (Whom I'm told was a great Opera singer herself).

If you're interested in listening to Oum Kolthoum (the singer I was just talking about), here's the best YouTube video I could find:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ8Cu...eature=related

Maybe you can judge from this. But I'm still not sure about Arabic being an Opera language. Maybe if I hear it and judge myself. Who knows.

I can't open the youtube video while at work. They block them. So I'll try to remember when I get home. But if it wasn't successful it may have had to do with lots of other things than the language. They can make a good opera out of any language. Some have mentioned famous German operas in this thread. If you can have a successful opera in german than you can have one in any language. (Sorry to you German people, I love you guys, but your language isn't sweet to the ear. ) For some reason they stopped calling any operas great after the early part of the 20th century. No matter how good it is, even in Italian, then the opera experts look down on it. It's almost a dead art form, except for the old classics. I never really understood why.

[JBI]

Maria Callas was one of opera's greatest sopranos. She was a Greek-American, who was born in New York City. Her name at birth was Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou. Her voice was always controversial, some thinking it not polished enough for opera, others thinking that the lack of polish increased her voice's charm.

Her "classification" was also controversial. She sang coloratura roles as well as mezzo-soprano roles, as her voice was very dramatic and had much warmth. And she did sing everything from the heaviest roles to the very lightest and had tremendous range.

That has nothing to do with literature though. She was even famous for modifying the traditional way dialogue was "sung" during opera to give it a better flow, showing the true floppiness of the writing in opera.

On another note, I just went to see Pelleas and Melisande by Claude Debussy. That opera has no real singing, and is purely in dialogue, with a little bit of orchestra. That is perhaps the best example of opera as literature outside of the idiosyncratic Wagner tradition. The opera itself was based on a play not a libretto, and therefore acts as a play instead of an opera. Even so, if one was to read it as literature, they would most assuredly go for the original play, and not the modified text used by Debussy. Why? because the music changes the literary composition to yield to the sound, and not the meaning, or to the flow, and not the accuracy. The opera itself is about the musical element over the literary element.

That of course, is an exception. And either way, the writing wasn't that great to begin with (wow, Maurice Maeterlinck botched that one, if anyone knows more about him please say something, because based on that, a Nobel prize was not deserved).

[kasie]

kasie[/B]
Do not worry, you can read the text and you must to read, it is a good thing.
But it "loses the deal" as you said.
Try to see the act, but keep reading as well.
I am just trying to say: the same you think about Hamlet (theatre) is for opera.

I think my friends would smile at your reply, Brasil, and say you are preaching to the converted - they give me Theatre Tokens for birthdays and Christmas. I have seen nine plays this year and have three more booked (including Hamlet); last year I saw seven and the year before twelve. Before that I was not able to go to the theatre for many years, so you could say I am now making up for the years when my drama was all read at home.

In those three years I have also seen eight operas and hope to see a few more in Welsh National Opera's Autumn season.

[Virgil]

On another note, I just went to see Pelleas and Melisande by Claude Debussy. That opera has no real singing, and is purely in dialogue, with a little bit of orchestra. That is perhaps the best example of opera as literature outside of the idiosyncratic Wagner tradition.

How can it be called an opera without singing? Leave it to Debussy to do something silly like that. As a side note, Debussy's music has never inspired me. Frankly he's boring, and an opera without singing sounds incredibly boring.

[Virgil]

And I consider French the most beautiful language in the world,

Yeah, but you're biased. Your husband's french.

Oh, my, that hurt, Virgil! LOL I agree that an opera without singing in no opera at all, but I dearly love Debussy. His music is so impressionistic and almost skeletal in its beauty, but it is difficult to play - at least for me. I can manage some of the Russians better than Debussy.

I'm not a big fan of his music, but some of it is ok. What's prejudiced my opinion of him is his terrible personality. When I learned about his bio, and the way he treated his wife, it made his music seem worse.

[Taliesin]

Wiktionary gives, among other meanings, the following definitions to the word "play":

1. A literary composition, intended to be represented by actors impersonating the characters and speaking the dialogue.
2. A theatrical performance featuring actors.

Do you understand - there are two different meanings that happen to be homonyms. (because their meaning is quite close)
In Estonian, there are two different words for them, and although people often mix them up, at least more theater-conscious people give them annoyed looks for that.
In my opinion, one of those meanings above is literature, the other is performance (meaning nothing derogatory by the latter, I don't think one is better than another)
So, one thing is a rendering of some opera on the stage which certainly isn't literature and then there is the opera written down which generally isn't much fun to read, unless you are musically so gifted that you can hear the music (of orchestra, choir and solists) in your head just by reading the notes - and anyhow, since the music isn't literature, you just have your written word, the libretto, which, as mentioned before, is usually quite mediocre. But generally people don't care since the music is so good. (I remember a passage in Pratchett's "Maskerade" where a new singer is taught an aria where she complaints how hard it is for her to leave her loved one. Later, someone translates to her the words or the aria, which apparently were "This damn door sticks! This damn door sticks! It is written "Push!" and indeed I am pushing. Perhaps it should be written "Pull"?")


Opera isn't really about words nor plot nor realism. It is actually quite postmodern in nature, in my opinion. I have heard about instances in the previous centuries where opera stars would, after their arias, sing other arias that they liked out of totally different operas, regardless of the plot.

Also I remember, while performing in the choir of a rendering of "Il Trovatore" a scene, where the choir parted in two - some, about ten played the gypsies of Manrico and the others (including Your Humble Narrator) were the soldiers of Count di Luna. There weren't many guns to be used and since the soldiers were nearer to the props-box, Counts men got all the guns, leaving the gypsies unarmed. So, thats' how the scene went: Count and his soldiers (carrying guns) go to a convent to stop Leonora, his loved one, from taking the vows of a nun. As Count is grabbing the arm of Leonora, out jumps Manrico, everyone goes "Aaaaah!" (actually, everyone goes "Aaaaah!", before they even see Manrico), after which the named characters express different kind of emotions, the Count being of course angry, because Manrico is his rival. The soldiers sing that Count should give up, since things aren't certainly looking good for him. (Yes, the enemy leader is in the center of a bunch of armed soldiers, and could technically be shot at any moment, but the Count should give up) Then, bam!, out jump a bunch of unarmed gypsies, shout "Urgel viva!", and run and take away the Counts sword, push him down on the ground while the soldiers (with guns) just watch as it happens and sing: "Sir, what are we to do now?" and after that "You must retreat, sir, since it is clear that you cannot win".
After about four rehearsals of the scene the director understood that it is a bit unrealistic that a bunch of gypsies should scare the hell out of soldiers who have superior numbers, training and arms. He gave the gypsies some knives.
Two rehearsals of the scene after we lost our guns, alas! making the performances a bit less absurd. But hey, if a Chinese plays the long-lost brother of an European, whats wrong with a bunch of soldiers armed with guns being afraid of the shout "Urgel viva!" Perhaps, as we theorized, they were carrying bomb-belts or we were out of bullets or "Urgel viva" just being a really scary thing to say, you know, like "Ni!"

[stlukesguild]

I've never heard Pelleas et Melisande but I certainly agree with Antiquarian that he was a marvelous composer. I am especially fond of his works for solo keyboard, his chanson or "art songs" and of course his lovely Impressionistic orchestral pieces such as La Mer.

[byquist]

I'd have to say no, because I could really go for a Verdi opera and not know what the heck they are saying. Songs (opera) may have lyrics, but its the musicality that makes them soar.