"Libretto" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... permanent 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, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... author when it was new, Attic 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, ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... receives a buttonhole, but no one sings him a song. In the opera he is not on the stage during the bridesmaids' chorus. I have not been able to find out whether the quaint pretty verses are by Friedrich Kind, who founded the libretto of the opera on a story by August Apel, or whether he borrowed them from an older source. German brides wore myrtle and their friends wove a wedding wreath for them long before 1820, when Der ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... alone of his life, but of his thought. How he castigates Donizetti's love of money and his sloth! 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 healing of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... in his youth, gives a vivid picture of this pageant, 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 ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... getting-up, a sum far more formidable in the days of exclusively hard money than in these of paper currency. Scott has described, for the benefit of the general reader, one such pageant among the "princely pleasures of Kenilworth"; while Milton, in his "Masque performed at Ludlow Castle," presents the libretto of another, of the simpler and less expensive sort. During the reign of James, the passion for masques kindled into a mania. The days and nights of Inigo Jones were spent in inventing machinery and contriving stage-effects. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... dramatic performance, having cast from out our minds the recollection of all that we have ever heard, read or thought about the character—more than this, forgetting our native English and knowing Shakespeare only through the libretto in our hands (of which, however, we must forbear to speak slightingly, for from it, we are told, Salvini himself has gained his knowledge of the part),—putting ourselves in this mental attitude, the performance may safely be said to defy criticism, or rather to be above it, except ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... 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
... with which he had thoughtfully provided himself. To gratify my curiosity he read me the tale of Susanna and the Elders. Being young, my first notion was that I had chanced on a capital subject for an opera; and I actually thought for ten minutes of commencing at once on a libretto. Later I remembered the censor, and realised for the first time that in England, when a subject is unfit for a drama, it is treated as an oratorio. As soon as possible I bought Handel's "Susanna" instead, and found that Handel curiously—or perhaps not curiously—had also been before me in ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... Mark's was Heinrich Schuetz, a great revolutionist in German music, whose chief work, and the first German opera, was "Dafne," written to a libretto by Rinuccini, possibly the same one used by Peri. When he was thirty-four, he married on June 1, 1619, a girl named Magdalena, who is described as "Christian Wildeck of Saxony's land steward's bookkeeper's daughter," which description Hawkins ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... 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 of the text of the actual opera. I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... dance in those characters. Tragedy proper had been replaced on the Roman stage by the saltica fabula, in which the pantomimus executed a mimetic dance illustrating a libretto ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... heavy pine whipsticks bent like bulrushes in the drivers' skilful hands, while a spray of dissevered hair, and sometimes a line of springing blood, followed each detonation—the libretto being in keeping. A few yards forward still, while both off wheels rose to the surface, and both near wheels sank till the naves burrowed in the ground; then the wagon swung heavily over ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... propose to Weber to compose an opera expressly for Covent Garden. The proposal met with ready acceptance, and the chivalric fairy tale of Wieland's "Oberon" was selected for the subject, and was very gracefully and poetically treated by Mr. Planche, to whom the literary part of the work—the libretto—was confided, and who certainly bestowed as much pains on the versification of his lyrical drama as if it was not destined to be a completely secondary object to the music in the public estimation. Weber himself, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... accident happened, 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 in ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... stood waiting in the lobby for the arrival of the hero of the fte. He came at last in regal state, carriages and outriders at full gallop; himself, staff and suite, in splendid uniform. As he entered, Seor Roca presented him with a libretto of the opera, bound in red and gold. We met the great man en face, and he stopped, and gave us a cordial recognition. Two years have made little change in him in appearance. He retains the same interesting, resigned, and rather melancholy expression; the same quiet voice, and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... with its delicious melodies; but it only appeals to our senses, and nobler thoughts are altogether {4} wanting. Nevertheless the opera finds favor by reason of these advantages, which are supplemented by an interesting, though rather improbable libretto. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.' That's what the man said who wrote the libretto for the last set of Latin Verses we had to do. I ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... talking about music, 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
... Avenue house on her way down-town to get her little portable typewriter and carry it out to Ravinia with her. In the odd hours of the next few days she copied March's libretto in English, triple spaced, out of his score and this, with a lead pencil, she took to carrying around with her to Paula's rehearsals, to her dressing-room, everywhere. A phrase at a time, syllable by syllable, she began ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... 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 his soft and dreamy playing would have been ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... that exists between various editions of the 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 1774. Its enthusiastic ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... themselves far too many airs. Perhaps serious is not 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 ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... the libretto, humming down into it between acts and leaping ahead to verify her memory ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... subject nor the time. One doesn't write operas after lunch in hotel parlours; and as for a good libretto—well, outside Wagner, there's only one opera in the world with a good libretto, and ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... that some disciple of Richard 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
... wanted more from Haydn than a tempest on the keyboard. He had written the libretto of an opera, "Der Neue Krumme Teufel," and desired that Haydn should set it to music. The chance was too good to be thrown away, and Haydn proceeded to execute the commission with alacrity, not a little stimulated, doubtless, ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... almost impossible to reproduce them in the forms of our poetry. Nor perhaps when they are strictly analysed will much be found, in many of them at least, of the material whereof modern poetry is made. They are, in fact, the libretto of a chant accompanied by dancing, and must have owed much to the melody and movement. In attempting to render the grand choric odes of the "Agamemnon," moreover, the translator is perplexed by corruptions of the text and by the various interpretations of commentators, who, ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... said. "Amore 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
... when Cromwell appeared, to 1843, when the epic in drama Les Burgraves failed, Hugo was a writer for the stage, diverting tragedy from its true direction towards lyrical melodrama.[1] In the operatic libretto La Esmeralda (1836) his lyrical virtuosity was free to display itself in an appropriate dramatic form. The libretto was founded on his own romance Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), an evocation, more imaginative than historical, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... 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
... Flying Dutchman' Liszt, Spontini, Marschner, etc. 'Tannhauser' Franck, Schumann, Semper, Gutzkow, Auerbach 'Lohengrin' (Libretto) Ninth Symphony Spohr, Gluck, Hiller, Devrient Official Position. Studies in Historical Literature 'Rienzi' at Berlin Relations with the Management, Mother's Death, etc. Growing Sympathy with Political Events, Bakunin The May Insurrection ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... our right a man and a woman who had not taken off their masks. Those two persons kept their eyes constantly fixed upon us, but my young friend did not remark it as her back was turned towards them. During the ballet, C—— C—— having left the libretto of the opera on the ledge of the box, the man with the mask stretched forth his hand and took it. That proved to me that we were known to him, and I said so to my companion, who turned round and recognized her brother. The lady who was with him could be no other than Madame ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... 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 ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... malcxasta. Lexicon leksikono. Liable responda. Liability respondeco. Liar mensogulo. Libation oferversxo. Libel kalumnii. Liberal (generous) malavara. Liberate liberigi. Libertine malcxastulo. Liberty libereco. Librarian bibliotekisto. Library biblioteko. Libretto libreto. License permeso. Licentiate licencato. Licentious malbonmora. Lichen likeno. Lick (lap) leki. Lie (rest on) kusxi. Lie down kusxigxi. Lie mensogo. Lien garantiajxo. Lieu (in lieu of) anstataux. Lieutenant leuxtenanto. Life vivo. Lifeguard ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... peculiar and extraordinary kind. Education he had none: he was unable to write the commonest letter, and did not know a note of music; yet he would give his composers the most valuable hints, and dictate with admirable skill the plan of a libretto. His own voice was of the harshest and most inharmonious texture; but by his advice and instructions he formed some of the first singers in Italy. His language was a Milanese patois; but he found means to make himself excellently understood by the kings and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... with Prince de Metternich, then Austrian ambassador at the court of the Tuileries, and an amateur musician of no mean order, he had written the libretto of a ballet called "Le Roi d'Yvetot." This was given on the professional stage, but met with little success, if exception is made of the "first night," when again "all Paris" turned out to see the prince lead the orchestra, and to applaud the brilliant young ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... divested of the heroic husks, are almost indistinguishable from Mdme. Bovary!—just as one can conceive conversely, of Flaubert's being well able to transform all his heroines into Scandinavian or Carthaginian women, and then to offer them to Wagner in this mythologised form as a libretto. Indeed, generally speaking, Wagner does not seem to have become interested in any other problems than those which engross the little Parisian decadents of to-day. Always five paces away from the hospital! All very modern problems, all problems which are at home in big cities! ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... 1781, to his father. He is writing about the libretto of "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail," by Stephanie. The trumpeters at the time still made use of certain flourishes which had been traditionally ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... were like a daughter to him, I know it, he told me. I was his adopted son. I tried to repay him for his interest in a young, unknown poet and composer—well, I compose a bit, you know—and I feel that I pleased him in my libretto of 'The Iron Virgin.' You remember the summer I spent at Nuremberg digging up the old legend, and the numberless times I visited the torture chamber where stands the real Iron Virgin, her interior studded with horrid spikes that cruelly ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... This opera, 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 ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, liking the witty libretto as much as the bright, tuneful melodies. For the work of Caesar Franck, a gifted Belgian musician who died on the threshold of manhood, he had profound admiration, and was of opinion that had he lived Franck would have taken rank ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... Rowena 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
... on in a sort of unconsciousness. She only knew that they were all acting an inevitable part, written for them in the great libretto of life. She never noticed that Steinmetz had left her side, that she was walking across ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... defect in the original, the plots invented by Wagner have won for themselves an acceptance that may be called world-wide. And whatever be the verdict on his own plots, there can be no question as to the superiority of the average libretto since his day. No composer dare face the public of the present day with one of the pointless, vapid sets of rhymes, strung together with intervals of bald recitative, that pleased our forefathers, and equally inconceivable is the re-setting of libretti that have served before, in ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... dancer dance the dance with entire chorus. It is a great building number, you understand. It is enough to make the success of any musical play, but can I get a hearing? No! If I ask managers to listen to my music, they are busy! If I beg them to give me a libretto to set, they laugh—ha! ha!" Mr Saltzburg gave a spirited and lifelike representation of a manager laughing ha-ha when begged to disgorge a libretto. "Now I play ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... devoutly thankful that 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, she had read ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... the platform; beyond, the delightful back scene, with its operatic gamut of colouring; in the middle the scarlet-sashed barcaiuoli, grouped like a chorus, hat in hand, awaiting the conductor's signal. It was better even than being in a novel- -this being, this fairly wallowing, in a libretto. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... 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 Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... of articles disparaging a club of his originating, known as the "British and Foreign Institute." A Jew clothes-man, named Hart, obtained a small sum as damages from "Punch." But Alfred Bunn, lessee of Drury Lane Theater, libretto-scribbler, and author of certain trashy theatrical books, though most vehemently "pitched into," resorted to other modes than legal redress. He produced a pamphlet of a shape and appearance closely resembling his tormentor, filled not only with quizzical, satirical, and rhyming articles directed ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... 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
... you children fell into my trap," he 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 our ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... its normal fashion 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 ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... being aided by panoramic scenery; scenery that acted in company with toads, dragons, horses, snakes, crazy valkyrs, mermaids, half-mad humans, gods, demons, dwarfs, and giants. What else is all this but old-fashioned Italian opera with a new name? What else but an inartistic mixture of Scribe libretto and Northern mythology? Music-drama—fudge! Making music that one can see is a death-blow to a lofty idealization of ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... 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
... even as a basis for 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
... Loup Garou" made a marked public success. Her "Faust," a later 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 from ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... that they advanced. How long they would have put up with this from a plain girl I do not know, but Lanty's short upper lip seemed framed for indolent and fascinating scorn, and her dreamy eyes usually looked beyond the questioner, or blunted his bolder glances in their velvety surfaces. The libretto of these ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... 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. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... kinds, and one supplements the other. The human voice supplies the libretto, while the accompaniment is provided by a syncopated and tympanum-piercing ping-ping, suggestive of a giant mosquito singing ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... beneath the murmuring trees where the yellow moonlight stole in and out between the trunks. It was not cheerful. For when Nature joins her sadness to the sad libretto of life she usually breaks a heart or two. Fortunately for us we mostly act our tragedies in the wrong scenery—the scenery that ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... "But, after all, it's your steamin' gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours, that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a runnin' bulgine till the nineteenth prox. Now look at him Only look ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... than the "Ode to Blue-Eyed Ann," probably Mrs. Smollett. But the courageous author of "The Tears of Scotland," had manifestly broken with patrons. He also broke with Rich, the manager at Covent Garden, for whom he had written an opera libretto. He had failed as doctor, and as dramatist; nor, as satirist, had he succeeded. Yet he managed to wear wig and sword, and to be seen in good men's company. Perhaps his wife's little fortune supported him, till, in 1748, he produced "Roderick Random." It is certain that we never find Smollett ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... of the libretto of Tempesta, just brought out in London, at the age of eighteen years, was placed under the care of M. Dupin, now the President of the French Legislative Assembly, to study the Roman law. Shortly after reaching his majority he began his dramatic career ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... was faint, the leader of the orchestra stole up to Mozart, who was conducting, and kissed his hand; and Mozart stroked him on the head. We may guess that the leader knew what the music meant and that Mozart knew that he knew. Neither could put it into words and it is not put into words in the libretto. But the libretto need not be an obstruction to the meaning of the music if only the audience will not ask themselves what the libretto means. After Mozart's death the opera was successful, no doubt because the audience had ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... and musical emphasis. She had the advantage of having been trained in a musical language, and came of a race with whom catarrhs and sore throats were rare. So that in a few brief phrases she sang the Senator into acquiescence as she imparted the plain libretto of her business,—namely, a "desire to see ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... Book. — N. booklet; writing, work, volume, tome, opuscule[obs3]; tract, tractate[obs3]; livret[obs3]; brochure, libretto, handbook, codex, manual, pamphlet, enchiridion[obs3], circular, publication; chap book. part, issue, number livraison[Fr]; album, portfolio; periodical, serial, magazine, ephemeris, annual, journal. paper, bill, sheet, broadsheet[obs3]; leaf, leaflet; fly leaf, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... were doing," said one of the men, soothingly; "you weren't in it, as you say. Return to the libretto." ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... fought between Moore of Moore-Hall and the Dragon of Wantley," this ballad forms (in the 12th edition) the Argument of 'The Dragon of Wantley, a Burlesque Opera', performed at Covent Garden, the libretto of which is by Sig. Carini, 'i.e.' ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Englishman is stirred by the 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 ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... a large flat stone, with a tree for Joy to lean against. They sat down on it, and Clarence pulled the libretto book out of his pocket, and they went ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... This is clearly the Mandingo kunke "farm." The Indian word for "golo," according to the Journal entry for January 13, 1493, is caona. It is found also in the name of Cacique Caonabo, called in the Journal of the Second Voyage "master of mines,"—the name being explained in the Libretto as "lord of the house of gold." Now the words for "gold" in the Negro languages are mostly derived from Arabic din[a]r, which, through Hausa zinaria, and Pul kanyera, reaches Vei as kani. Evidently canoa, written ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... this purposeless lullaby is satirised in the orthodox libretto of Punch's Opera or the Dominion of Fancy, for Punch, having sung it, throws the child out ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... 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 superstitious means of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... notion to whistle. But in the sanctity of our homes, around our firesides, in the front-parlor, where the melodeon or the newly hired piano has been set up, it is there that Herr Wagner's name will be revered, and his masterpiece repeated o'er and o'er. The libretto is not above criticism; it strikes us that there is not enough of it. The probability is that Herr Wagner ran out of libretto before he had got through with his music, and therefore had to spread out comparatively few words over a vast expanse of music. The result is ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... young 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 ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... the striking situation which Thackeray used with so much skill in his novel had already been utilized in the stirring romance of Durras and in the pathetic libretto of Royer, Vaez, and Scribe. Did Thackeray borrow it from the romance or from the libretto? Or did he reinvent it for himself, forgetting that it had already served? He was in Paris when Donizetti's tuneful music was first heard; and he was going to the opera as often as ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... than follow MURGER'S novel step by step, the authors of the present libretto, both for reasons of musical and dramatic effect, have sought to derive inspiration from the French ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... 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 away from the castle to see the world. She took some gold with her, but it ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... several manuscripts printed in the Middle Kingdom, although the art of block-printing had been practised in Japan since the close of the eighth century. A composition which had its origin at this epoch was the yokyoku, a special kind of libretto for mimetic dances. Books on art also were inspired by the Higashiyama craze for choice specimens of painting, porcelain, and lacquer. Commentaries, too, made their appearance, as did ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... English, they are no longer italicized. Among such words are: rationale, aide-de-camp, quartette, naive, libretto. It is often a matter of discretion to say whether a word is so far naturalized that it should be ...
— "Stops" - Or How to Punctuate. A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students • Paul Allardyce
... must unite in himself the qualities of both the 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 ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... 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 duel ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... The libretto of "I Puritani" is one of the poorest ever furnished to Bellini, but the music is some of his best. It is replete with melodies, which are not only fascinating in their original setting, but have long been favorites ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... at the Casino Theatre, N.Y., the following musical comedies: "The Girl and the Wizard," starring Sam Bernard; "Havana," with James T. Powers (made the American version of this libretto); "The Prince of Bohemia," with Andrew Mack, and ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... Lucca from the music.' 'But,' I answered rather hotly, for I was nettled by Miranda's argument ad hominem, 'But it is not possible in an opera to divide the music from the words, the scenery, the play, the actor. Mozart, when he wrote the score to Da Ponte's libretto, was excited to production by the situations. He did not conceive his melodies out of connection with a certain cast of characters, a given ethical environment.' 'I do not know, my dear young friend,' responded the professor, 'whether you have read Mozart's Life ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... agreeable, and indicative of a high order of talent is a new opera by Franz Schreker, Das 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 of Debussy ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the Punch and Judy," shouted Barbara Gordon hoarsely through a megaphone. "Give the children a season of refined and educating amusement. Libretto by our most talented satirist. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... he 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 Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... 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 on the ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... Beaumarchais reached its climax with the production of the second of the Figaro plays. Afterward he wrote the libretto for an opera, 'Tarare,' produced with Salieri's music in 1787; the year before he had married for the third time. In a heavy play called 'The Guilty Mother,' acted with slight success in 1790, he brought in Figaro yet once more. During the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner |
