Opera - Words or Music?

[vandermolen]

Music for me.

[foxandpeng]

Music. Words, for me, are broadly unimportant. Same with non-classical music. There are songs I've loved for many years and I have not a clue what they are singing about.

[Lisztianwagner]

Both words and music, they're equally important in opera; as it has already been said, it's Gesamtkunstwerk!

[Karl Henning]

Which is not an opera. 

No, but the question of words V. music is exactly the same.

[arpeggio]

Music for me.

I always like Wagner's Tristan and Isoldi

Then I saw production.  What a silly mess.  Twenty minutes of "Oh rapture, I love you. Oh rapture" was too much for me.    I kept thinking OK I get it.  You have the hots for her.  So shut up and screw her.

I still get the music.

[(poco) Sforzando]

The simplest proof of the importance of the libretto is that composers have always taken great pains to find suitable texts for which to respond musically, and they often work closely with their librettists down to shaping the words for individual arias. The best articulation of this relationhip I know is found in Joseph Kerman's book "Opera as Drama" from 1956 which I recommend you all read. While the book is perhaps best-known for its snide one-liner describing "Tosca" as a "shabby little shocker," its real thesis is that in opera the composer is the dramatist, and the music of a great opera serves a similar function to the poetry in great spoken drama. In great opera - and Kerman chooses his examples primarily from Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Debussy, Mussorgsky, Berg, and Stravinsky among not many others - the composer takes the libretto as a starting point for his imagination, creating characterizations, developing a musical "world," and shaping the dramatic action. Conversely there are some very great composers whose talents were not suited for operatic composition at all - such as Bach, Schubert, Brahms, and closer to our time Elliott Carter, whose one opera in my opinion is dramatically speaking a total mess. Leaving aside Kerman's excessive disdain for composers like Puccini and Strauss, there is no doubt in my mind that the greatest operas depend significantly on a well-crafted libretto, but the final success of the opera depends on the dramatic genius of the composer.

[Karl Henning]

Music for me.

I always like Wagner's Tristan and Isoldi

Then I saw production.  What a silly mess.  Twenty minutes of "Oh rapture, I love you. Oh rapture" was too much for me.    I kept thinking OK I get it.  You have the hots for her.  So shut up and screw her.

I still get the music.

But why screw when the two of yez can die together?...

[(poco) Sforzando]

Twenty minutes of "Oh rapture, I love you. Oh rapture" was too much for me.    I kept thinking OK I get it.  You have the hots for her.  So shut up and screw her.

Foreplay, my dear arpeggio. Tristan can never be accused of premature ejaculation.

[Madiel]

Music. Words, for me, are broadly unimportant. Same with non-classical music. There are songs I've loved for many years and I have not a clue what they are singing about.

Just so long as you don't choose a song for your wedding without considering the text. There have been some cases over the years where a nice sounding, even romantic sounding song has become popular for weddings when it's completely inappropriate.

My favourite example is "Lips of an Angel" by Hinder, which is all about desiring somebody OTHER than the person you're in a relationship with. Clearly a lot of people did not have a clue what they were singing about beyond thinking the title was the kind of schmaltz you want at a wedding.

[foxandpeng]

Just so long as you don't choose a song for your wedding without considering the text. There have been some cases over the years where a nice sounding, even romantic sounding song has become popular for weddings when it's completely inappropriate.

My favourite example is "Lips of an Angel" by Hinder, which is all about desiring somebody OTHER than the person you're in a relationship with. Clearly a lot of people did not have a clue what they were singing about beyond thinking the title was the kind of schmaltz you want at a wedding.

Now that's funny.

My wife, of course, knows the words to everything. Very annoying.

[steve ridgway]

I got into a few operas by finding the texts interesting although I prefer religious music in Latin and just let the music wash over me without comprehension.

[Florestan]

there is no doubt in my mind that the greatest operas depend significantly on a well-crafted libretto, but the final success of the opera depends on the dramatic genius of the composer.

Which is another way to say that, when all is said and done, it's the composer who ensures the success of an opera --- ie, the music. 

Again: how many people who delight in operas would care about seeing the libretto staged strictly as a play, without any music whatsoever?

[Florestan]

Foreplay, my dear arpeggio. Tristan can never be accused of premature ejaculation.

Tristan can never be accused of ejaculation, period. 

[Florestan]

Just so long as you don't choose a song for your wedding without considering the text. There have been some cases over the years where a nice sounding, even romantic sounding song has become popular for weddings when it's completely inappropriate.

My favourite example is "Lips of an Angel" by Hinder, which is all about desiring somebody OTHER than the person you're in a relationship with. Clearly a lot of people did not have a clue what they were singing about beyond thinking the title was the kind of schmaltz you want at a wedding.

I wonder how many people at a wedding party concern themselves with the text of the songs that are played. 

[Jo498]

I generally agree although some examples in the first post are badly chosen: The Schiller and Goethe plays are probably staged more frequently in German speaking areas than Gounod's or Verdi's early operas based on them and Werther is obligatory school reading in Germany (or was 30 years ago) and I think it's similar with Pushkin in Russia.

And there is of course the phenomenon that some operas were (like a lot of baroque seria until the 1970s/80s) or still are (like Schubert's operas or Weber's "Euryanthe") considered so boring/bad because of the texts or maybe more precisely the pacing, coherence and drama of their plots that even great music could not overcome these faults.

[Elgarian Redux]

Both, it's a Gesamtkunstwerk after all. At least, to me.

This seems to be the key point, to me. Opera is essentially a composite art form. That's not to say it can't be listened to purely for the music (just as William Blake's poetry can be read as pure text, instead of in the illuminated forms he created for them), but there's a loss. For the individual, that loss may not be important, but it's still a loss.

Like everybody, I often listen to bleeding chunks of Puccini without worrying about what the words are, but I'm aware that an important context is missing when I do it.  That's OK - we all listen in any way we like. But I also know that if I'm watching the opera, and attending to the words, I'm enjoying a richer experience.

[Madiel]

I wonder how many people at a wedding party concern themselves with the text of the songs that are played. 

Well, the only reason I even know about this is because various people at various weddings heard the song and thought "what the hell", and commented in some way about it, and it became a news story. Possibly it was wedding celebrants commenting on bad music choices that they heard, but I'm not certain.

Plus, if the song is playing and wedding guests have nothing to do other than stand around while the couple dance or while the couple sign the official marriage register... that is the PERFECT setting for actually listening to the words for the first time.

[hopefullytrusting]

Personally, I don't care as long as it all sounds good together.

I will say I've never read a libretto (either translated or not), nor am I concerned with the story the opera is trying to tell.

Honestly, all opera could be nonsense, and I'd still listen to it, as long as it all sounded good together.

[ritter]

Again: how many people who delight in operas would care about seeing the libretto staged strictly as a play, without any music whatsoever?

Well, then there's some of us that consider, e.g., the "Ring without Words" orchestral CDs an absolute aberration (much as we like Wagner). So yes, listening to the music without the words is, for many of us, as silly as seeing the libretto staged without the music (which, incidentally, has been done on occasion -- Hay gente pa tó  )...

[ChamberNut]

Well, then there's some of us that consider, e.g., the "Ring without Words" orchestral CDs an absolute aberration (much as we like Wagner). So yes, listening to the music without the words is, for many of us, as silly as seeing the libretto staged without the music (which, incidentally, has been done on occasion -- Hay gente pa tó  )...

Make all vocal music transcribed to "Without Words" and I would be as happy as a clam!