Word: librettist
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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After a dozen more campus and concerthall audiences in the U.S. and Canada, Composer Britten and Tenor Pears will fly back to England. There Britten will plunge into an enthusiasm of his own: his seventh opera, his first with Novelist E. M. (A Passage to India) Forster as librettist...
Felix's librettist had taken a theme somewhat appropriate to the time. The beloved son has been away "fighting the good fight" for seven years (Felix had actually been on a six-month trip to England and Scotland); finally, after an imposter (the stranger) tries to pass himself off as the returned prodigal, the real son returns to his parents amid great rejoicing. But in the Lemonade Opera's church-basement opera house, even John (Man in the Moon) Gutman's fine translation and adaptation failed to give the action much charm or excitement...
...story was familiar, at least in outline: Librettist Eric (Let's Make an Opera) Crozier had freely adapted his comic libretto from Guy de Maupassant's Le Rosier de Madame Husson. A bumpkin is chosen King of the May because in the village there is no girl virtuous enough to be Queen, eventually winds up on a roaring toot. To this, Composer Britten hitched a witty, somewhat Peter and the Wolf-ish score, in which each instrument seemed to portray (or mock) a character on stage. There were other Britten trademarks: well-fitting songs and exciting ensembles. Even...
Down in the Valley, a one-act "folk opera" by Composer Kurt Weill and Librettist Arnold Sundgaard, had become a sensational hit on the campus theater circuit all over the U.S. Written a year ago, it had already had some 80 separate productions. Last week its latest one was the biggest hit in the three-year history of Manhattan's zestful Lemonade Opera company...
...royalties from the piece: "There are little opera companies all over the country which are crying for just this sort of thing ... If I had three of these one-act operas to make a full evening's entertainment, they would make a living for both composer and librettist...