Literaturoper

Literaturoper (literature opera, plural Literaturopern) is opera with music composed for a pre-existing text, as opposed to an opera with a libretto written specifically for the work.

Although the term is German, the term can be used for any kind of opera, irrespective of style or language. (In that sense it can be regarded as a term rather than a genre as such.)

Some Literaturopern based on plays

• Claude Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande after Maurice Maeterlinck, 1902
• Richard Strauss:
  • Salome after Oscar Wilde, 1905
  • Elektra after Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 1909
• Alexander von Zemlinsky: Eine florentinische Tragödie after Oscar Wilde, 1917
• Alban Berg:
  • Wozzeck after Georg Büchner's Woyzeck, 1925
  • Lulu after Frank Wedekind, 1937
• Francis Poulenc: Les mamelles de Tirésias after Guillaume Apollinaire, 1941
• Carl Orff: Antigonae after Friedrich Hölderlin, 1949
• Benjamin Britten: A Midsummer Night's Dream after William Shakespeare, 1960
• Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Die Soldaten after Jakob Lenz, 1965
• Gottfried von Einem: Der Besuch der alten Dame after Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 1971
• Aribert Reimann: Lear after Shakespeare's King Lear, 1978

Some Literaturopern based on novels

• Frederick Delius: A Village Romeo and Juliet after Gottfried Keller's Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, 1907
• Leoš Janáček:
  • Káťa Kabanová after Alexander Ostrovsky, 1921
  • From the House of the Dead (Z mrtvého domu) after Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1930
• Dmitri Shostakovich:
  • The Nose (Nos) after Nikolai Gogol
  • Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk after Nikolai Leskov's Ledy Macbeth Mtsenskovo uyezda, 1934
• Benjamin Britten:
  • Billy Budd after Herman Melville, 1951
  • Death in Venice after Thomas Mann's Tod in Venedig, 1973
• Hans Werner Henze:
  • The Bassarids after Euripides, 1966
  • Das verratene Meer, after Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, 1986–89

Sources

• Literaturoper by Julian Budden, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7