- Literaturoper
Literaturoper ("literature opera", plural Literaturopern) is
opera with music composed for a pre-existing text, as opposed to an opera with alibretto written specifically for the work.Although the term is German, the term can be used for any kind of opera, irrespective of style or language. (In that sense it can be regarded as a term rather than a genre as such.)
Some Literaturopern based on plays
*
Pietro Mascagni :Guglielmo Ratcliff afterHeinrich Heine 's "William Ratcliff", 1895
*Claude Debussy : Pelléas et Mélisande afterMaurice Maeterlinck , 1902
*Richard Strauss :
** Salome afterOscar Wilde , 1905
** Elektra afterHugo von Hofmannsthal , 1909
*Alexander von Zemlinsky : "Eine florentinische Tragödie " after Oscar Wilde, 1917
*Alban Berg :
** "Wozzeck " afterGeorg Büchner 's "Woyzeck ", 1925
** "Lulu" afterFrank Wedekind , 1937
*Francis Poulenc : "Les mamelles de Tirésias " afterGuillaume Apollinaire , 1941
*Carl Orff : "Antigonae " afterFriedrich Hölderlin , 1949
*Benjamin Britten : "A Midsummer Night's Dream" afterWilliam Shakespeare , 1960
*Bernd Alois Zimmermann : "Die Soldaten " after Jakob Lenz, 1965
*Gottfried von Einem : "Der Besuch der alten Dame " afterFriedrich Dürrenmatt , 1971
*Aribert Reimann : "Lear" after Shakespeare's "King Lear ", 1978Some Literaturopern based on novels
*
Frederick Delius : "A Village Romeo and Juliet " afterGottfried Keller 's "Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe", 1907
*Leoš Janáček :
** "Káťa Kabanová " afterAlexander Ostrovsky , 1921
** "From the House of the Dead " ("Z mrtvého domu") afterFyodor Dostoevsky , 1930
*Dmitri Shostakovich :
** "The Nose" ("Nos") afterNikolai Gogol
** "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" afterNikolai Leskov 's "Ledy Macbeth Mtsenskovo uyezda", 1934
*Benjamin Britten :
** "Billy Budd" afterHerman Melville , 1951
** "Death in Venice" afterThomas Mann 's "Tod in Venedig ", 1973
*Hans Werner Henze :
** "The Bassarids " afterEuripides , 1966
** "Das verratene Meer ", afterYukio Mishima 's "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea ", 1986-89ources
"Literaturoper" by
Julian Budden , in 'TheNew Grove Dictionary of Opera ', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7ee also
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