Librettology
The Librettology is a relatively young literary research discipline. She deals with the libretto (i.e. with texts from operas , oratorios , cantatas, etc.) not from a musicological , but from a literary perspective. The text (unless it is a canonical text set to music, for example the liturgy ) is no longer seen as a pure carrier of music and action, as a "music-obedient daughter", as Mozart called it, but as a separate literary genre in the field of tension between literary ones , dramaturgical and musical requirements.
Since questions of intermediality play an important role for librettology, this - in the system of comparative studies - is to be assigned to comparative literary studies.
Since the libretto is a functional genre at the interface between literature and music, for a long time neither music nor literary studies felt really responsible. This changed since the mid-1980s when a literary-based librettology began to develop. Pioneering were publications by the American Patrick J. Smith ( The Tenth Muse , 1971) and the German Romanist Albert Gier ( opera as text: Romanistic contributions to libretto research , 1986; The libretto. Theory and history of a music literary genre , 1998). This and subsequent research, however, relates exclusively to the opera libretto; Systematic studies of other librettos are not yet available.
The literary librettology has achieved that the libretto is now regarded as a literary genre, although it is subject to different poetic and structural laws than autonomous literary genres.
literature
- Albert Gier (Ed.): Opera as text. Romance contributions to libretto research (= Studia Romanica. Vol. 63). Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1986, ISBN 3-533-03728-2 .
- Albert Gier, Gerold W. Gruber (Ed.): Music and literature. Comparative studies on structural affinity (= European university publications. Vol. 127). Peter Lang, Frankfurt am et al. 1997, ISBN 3-631-46879-2 .
- Albert Gier: The libretto. Theory and history of a music literary genre , Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1998, 338 pages, ISBN 3-534-12368-9 ; Paperback edition: Frankfurt am Main, Insel 2000 (= insel TB, 2666), 503 pages, ISBN 3-458-34366-0 .
- Jörg Krämer: "The truest of all forms" - music theater as a challenge for literary studies ( = microcosm. Vol. 84), Berlin, Peter Lang Verlag 2019, 422 pages, ISBN 978-3-631-78964-3 .
- Hans Joachim Kreutzer : Overtones. Literature and music. Nine Treatises on the Interplay of the Arts. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1994, ISBN 3-88479-878-2 .
- Alexander Rudolph: Pros and Cons of Librettology - On the History and Criticism of Libretto Research in Singing Theater. Bayreuth, University of Bayreuth, Diss., 2015.
- Steven Paul Scher (Ed.): Literature and Music. A handbook on the theory and practice of a comparative border area. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1984, ISBN 3-503-01650-3 .
- Bernd Zegowitz: The poet and the composer. Studies on the requirements and forms of realization of libretto production in the German opera industry in the first half of the 19th century . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8260-4689-6 .
- Peter V. Zima (Ed.): Literature intermedial. Music - painting - photography - film. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1995, ISBN 3-534-12315-8 .