Italian Librettists

Major Italian Librettists

Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782) – Librettist and poet. Considered the greatest librettist of all time and the most important writer of opera seria libretti.

Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) – Playwright and librettist. Regarded as the greatest Italian playwright and the most important librettist of the opera buffa genre.

Ranieri de' Calzabigi (1714-1795) – Poet and librettist. Most famous for his collaboration with Gluck, for whom he wrote the libretti for Don Juan (1761), Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), Alceste (1767) and Paride ed Elena (1770).

Felice Romani (1788-1865) – Poet, librettist and music critic. The Considered the finest Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito. He wrote many librettos for Donizetti, Bellini, Rossini and Pacini.

Salvadore Cammarano (1801-1852) – Librettist and playwright. Best known for writing the text of Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) for Donizetti. For Donizetti he also wrote the libretti for L'assedio di Calais (1836), Belisario (1836), Pia de' Tolomei (1837), Roberto Devereux (1837), Maria de Rudenz (1838), Poliuto (1838) and Maria di Rohan (1843). For Verdi he wrote Alzira (1845), La battaglia di Legnano (1849), Luisa Miller (1849) and Il trovatore (1853).

Francesco Maria Piave (1810-1876) – Best known as Giuseppe Verdi's librettist, for whom he wrote 10 librettos, the most well-known being those for Macbeth (1847), Rigoletto (1851) and La traviata (1853).

Arrigo Boito (1842-1918) – Poet, journalist, novelist, librettist and composer. Regarded as one of the greatest librettists of all time. Best known for his libretti for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893), Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda (1876), and his own opera Mefistofele (1868).

Giuseppe Giacosa (1847-1906) – Poet, playwright and librettist. Best known for writing the libretti for Puccini's three operas La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904), in conjunction with Luigi Illica, and for writing the final version of the libretto for Puccini's Manon Lescaut (1893).

Luigi Illica (1857-1919) – His most famous libretti are those for Puccini's La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904), in conjunction with Giuseppe Giacosa, as well as Antonio Smareglia's Nozze istriane (1895) and Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier (1896).

Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919) – Composer and librettist. He wrote the libretto for his own opera Pagliacci (1892).

Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938) – Although best known today for his poetry and military exploits, he also wrote libretti, including Le Martyre de saint Sébastien (1911) for Debussy and Parisina (1913) for Pietro Mascagni.

Gian Carlo Menotti (1911-2007) – Composer and librettist. He wrote his own libretti for over two dozen operas, including the classic Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951), the first opera ever written for television in the United States. His other major works include The Consul (1950) and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1955), for which he won two prizes.


Minor Italian Librettists

Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621) - Poet, courtier and the world's first librettist. He wrote the libretto for Jacopo Peri's Dafne (1597), the first opera.

Alessandro Striggio (1573-1630) – He wrote the libretto for Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607).

Giovanni Francesco Busenello (1598-1659) – Best remembered for his five opera libretti for Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Cavalli, the most important being the libretto for L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643).

Apostolo Zeno (1668-1750) – Poet, librettist, journalist, and man of letters. He composed 36 libretti for operas.

Domenico Lalli (1679-1741) – Poet and librettist. Among the many libretti he produced were those for Vivaldi's Ottone in villa (1713) and Alessandro Scarlatti's Tigrane (1715).

Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca (c. 1718 - c. 1795) – Poet and librettist. His most successful work was the libretto for the opera Solimano (1753), first set by Johann Adolph Hasse and subsequently set by 18 other composers in the course of the next 50 years.

Marco Coltellini (1719-1777) – He provided libretti for Gluck, Hasse and Salieri, and revised Carlo Goldoni's La finta semplice (1768) so it could be set by Mozart. He also wrote the libretto for Giuseppe Scarlatti's Dove è amore è gelosiae (1768).

Giambattista Varesco (1735-1805) – Priest, musician, poet and librettist. His most notable work is the libretto to Mozart's Idomeneo (1781). He also edited Metastasio's libretto for Mozart's Il re pastore (1775).

Giovanni de Gamerra (1743-1803) – Priest, playwright, poet and librettist. Operas based on his libretti include Giuseppe Sarti's Medonte, re di Epiro (1777), Josef Myslivecek's Il Medonte (1780), Paisiello's Pirro (1787), Mozart's Lucio Silla (1772) and several operas by Antonio Salieri.

Angelo Anelli (1761-1820) – Poet and librettist. His opera libretti includes those for Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri (1813), Paer's I fuorusciti di Firenze (1802), Usiglio's La secchia rapita (1872), and Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio (1810) which later formed the basis for Donizetti's Don Pasquale (1843).

Gaetano Rossi (1774-1855) – He wrote libretti for several of the bel canto composers including Rossini, Donizetti, Saverio Mercadante and Giacomo Meyerbeer. His most important libretto was for Rossini's Tancredi (1813) and Semiramide (1823).

Cesare Sterbini (1784–1831) – Writer and librettist. Best known as the librettist for two operas by Rossini: Torvaldo e Dorliska (1815) and The Barber of Seville (1816).

Jacopo Ferretti (1784–1852) – Writer, poet and librettist. He is famous for writing the libretti for five operas by Donizetti and two operas by Rossini, the most important being La Cenerentola (1817).

Andrea Maffei (1798-1885) – Poet, translator and librettist. His most notable libretti are those for Verdi's Macbeth (1847) and I masnadieri (1847).

Andrea Leone Tottola (c. 1750 - 1831) – His best known libretti are those for Donizetti's La zingara (1822), Alfredo il grande (1823), Il castello di Kenilworth (1829) and Imelda de' Lambertazzi (1830), and for Rossini's Mosè in Egitto (1818), Ermione (1819), La donna del lago (1819) and Zelmira (1822).

Temistocle Solera (1815-1878) – Composer and librettist. He wrote the libretti for Verdi's Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio (1839), Nabucco (1842), I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843), Giovanna d'Arco (1845) and Attila (1846).

Antonio Ghislanzoni (1824-1893) – Journalist, novelist, poet and librettist. His bes known libretti are those for Verdi's Aida (1871) the revised version of La forza del destino (1869).

Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti (1863-1934) – Best known for his collaboration with the composer Pietro Mascagni. His most famous libretto is for Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana (1890), co-written with Guido Menasci.

Guido Menasci (1867-1925) – His best-known work is Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana (1890), co-written with Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti.

Giuseppe Adami (1878-1946) – Librettist, playwright and music critic. Best known for his collaboration with Puccini on the operas La rondine (1917), Il tabarro (1918) and Turandot (1926).

Cicero on the Superiority of the Latins Over the Greeks

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.), better known as Cicero, was a famous Roman statesman, orator, lawyer, consul, philosopher, political theorist and scholar.

Cicero is universally celebrated as Rome's greatest orator and prose stylist. Among other things, he is also noted for his strong patriotic sentiments. In Book I of his Tusculanae disputationes, he compares the Latins and the Greeks and extrapolates upon why he believes the Latins to be superior in virtue, wisdom, customs, military, discipline, law, oratory and other matters:

“And now since the principles and rules of all arts which relate to living well depend on the study of wisdom, which is called philosophy, I have thought it an employment worthy of me to illustrate them in the Latin tongue: not because philosophy could not be understood in the Greek language, or by the teaching of Greek masters; but it has always been my opinion, that our countrymen have, in some instances, made wiser discoveries than the Greeks, with reference to those subjects which they have considered worthy of devoting their attention to, and in others have improved upon their discoveries, so that in one way or other we surpass them on every point: for, with regard to the manners and habits of private life, and family and domestic affairs, we certainly manage them with more elegance, and better than they did; and as to our republic, that our ancestors have, beyond all dispute, formed on better customs and laws. 

What shall I say of our military affairs; in which our ancestors have been most eminent in valour, and still more so in discipline? As to those things which are attained not by study, but nature, neither Greece, nor any nation, is comparable to us: for what people has displayed such gravity, such steadiness, such greatness of soul, probity, faith — such distinguished virtue of every kind, as to be equal to our ancestors. 

In learning, indeed, and all kinds of literature, Greece did excel us, and it was easy to do so where there was no competition; for while amongst the Greeks the poets were the most ancient species of learned men — since Homer and Hesiod lived before the foundation of Rome, and Archilochus was a contemporary of Romulus — we received poetry much later. For it was about five hundred and ten years after the building of Rome before Livius published a play in the consulship of C. Claudius, the son of Cæcus, and M. Tuditanus, a year before the birth of Ennius, who was older than Plautus and Nævius. 

It was, therefore, late before poets were either known or received amongst us; though we find in Cato de Originibus that the guests used, at their entertainments, to sing the praises of famous men to the sound of the flute; but a speech of Cato’s shows this kind of poetry to have been in no great esteem, as he censures Marcus Nobilior, for carrying poets with him into his province: for that consul, as we know, carried Ennius with him into Ætolia. 

Therefore the less esteem poets were in, the less were those studies pursued: though even then those who did display the greatest abilities that way, were not very inferior to the Greeks. Do we imagine that if it had been considered commendable in Fabius, a man of the highest rank, to paint, we should not have had many Polycleti and Parrbasii. Honour nourishes art, and glory is the spur with all to studies; while those studies are always neglected in every nation, which are looked upon disparagingly. 

The Greeks held skill in vocal and instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and therefore it is recorded of Epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the greatest man amongst the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute; and Themistocles some years before was deemed ignorant because at an entertainment he declined the lyre when it was offered to him. For this reason musicians flourished in Greece; music was a general study; and whoever was unacquainted with it, was not considered as fully instructed in learning. Geometry was in high esteem with them, therefore none were more honourable than mathematicians; but we have confined this art to bare measuring and calculating. 

But on the contrary, we early entertained an esteem for the orator; though he was not at first a man of learning, but only quick at speaking; in subsequent times he became learned; for it is reported that Galba, Africanus, and Lælius, were men of learning; and that even Cato, who preceded them in point of time, was a studious man: then succeeded the Lepidi, Carbo, and Gracchi, and so many great orators after them, down to our own times, that we were very little, if at all, inferior to the Greeks.”

References:
• Cicero (Tusculanae disputationes)