Dave Lampson wrote:

>[...  As texts to be set to music, many librettos are brilliant.  But
>if we are to dissect the political correctness and/or storyline of most
>librettos, they become ridiculous.  -Dave]

I'm not sure what the point of that comment is.  There is no reason to
present an opera libretto minus the music.  It's designed from the start to
combine with the music--Wagner didn't invent the Gesamtkunstwerk as much as
redesign it to justify his own perhaps questionable aesthetic ends.

I read somewhere that weak or even silly poetry most often makes for better
lieder settings than does great poetry.  That's not universially true of
course--take Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings as an example.

Chris Bonds

 [Come on, Chris.  You need to try and keep up...  :-)

 Certain listmembers were engaged in a "why is the libretto to opera X
 silly?" debate, and I suggested that they save them selves some time
 and start with a list of opera librettos that weren't silly - it would
 be a much shorter list.  Other listmembers were trying to deconstruct
 200-year-old librettos applying late 20th-century political correctness.
 Both discussions were trying to analyze the librettos minus the music.
 As you point out, there is little reason for this.  -Dave]