UTOPIA
Even more adjustment became necessary when the object of “librettization” was a narrative rather than a dramatic work. As novels became increasingly popular, they furnished an ever greater proportion of operatic plots, which then had to be turned into scenarios, and finally into poetry for singing, with all the exacting formal and metrical requirements that implied. One of the most successful early nineteenth-century novel-operas was Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (“Lucy of Lammermoor,” 1835), to a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, a staff poet and stage director at the royal theaters of Naples with whom many composers collaborated. Their opera was in fact the sixth one to be based on The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) by Sir Walter Scott, then the most popular writer in all of Europe, whose novels and poems were the source for more than fifty operas. But there would never be a seventh. In its way, Lucia was the romantic opera to end all romantic operas.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 1 Real Worlds, and Better Ones." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 7 May. 2021. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-001008.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 1 Real Worlds, and Better Ones. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Nineteenth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 7 May. 2021, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-001008.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 1 Real Worlds, and Better Ones." In Music in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 7 May. 2021, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-001008.xml
