Elihu L. Sussman writes:

>Personally I strongly disagree with him. I think the aural aspect is
>central and can be easily demonstrated by taking opera removing the
>music and looking at the residue theatrically and seeing how it stands
>up. The answer in my mind is not very well.

That's saying little.  Of course very few opera libretti stand up without
the music.  They are not meant to, and it would be very strange if they
did.

>Sardou"s Tosca  without music is hammy.

The libretto might be.  Do you know the play?  It is a very different
matter.  Personally I rather prefer it to Puccini's "shabby little
shocker" which drains Sardou of rhetorical and historical grandeur
and verbal subtlety, replacing it with tabloid musical banners.

>Beaumarchais's Marriage of Figaro is boring.

You must have seen a very poor production indeed. I don't think "boring"
is an illuminating comment as to why this great play failed to tickle
your mental fancy when you saw it.

>Who reads Walter Scott's  Lucy of the Lammermoors?

Now you are treading very dangerous ground: "The Bride of Lammermoor"
(sic.) happens to be amongst my favourite novels!  No shots at Donizetti,
but a libretto which takes out Edgar's servant Caleb Balderstone, reduces
the fine comic creation of Arthur Bucklaw to a couple of lines, and
completely removes the historical tensions between the old (catholic)
order and the new (protestant) one in a Scotland emerging into the modern
era reduces Scott's masterpiece to ...  well, to mere Italian Opera.

>In other words these pieces are of their time but do not reach out
>across the centuries as great works of art without the music.

I could not disagree more strongly - provided we're prepared to read
carefully and exercise our imaginations.  I urge you to (re)read Scott's
novel, at least, before condemning it.  Your theory is trying to compare
chalk (the originals) with cheese (Italian libretti).  Mr Rockwell is
quite right to blame home easy-half-listening for the decline in theatrical
sophistication of some opera audiences.

Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK
http://www.zarzuela.net
"ZARZUELA!" The Spanish Music Site