The libretto was mainly written in early 1927 and the music was finished in the spring of 1929, although both text and music were partly revised by the authors later.

The libretto, a version of Pierre Beaumarchais ' stage play Le Barbier de Séville, was newly written by Cesare Sterbini and not the same as that already used by Giovanni Paisiello in his own Barbiere, an opera which had enjoyed European popularity for more than a quarter of a century.

Otello, based on William Shakespeare's play, with a libretto written by the younger composer of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito, premiered in Milan in 1887.

Gilbert already had available the libretto he had written for Rosa, and Carte suggested that Sullivan write the score.

Gilbert had written a blank verse farce based on the same material in 1870, called The Princess, and he reused a good deal of the dialogue from his earlier play in the libretto of Princess Ida.

Sullivan had been satisfied with the libretto, but two months after Ida opened, Sullivan told Carte that " it is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself.

It was written to a libretto furnished by Nahum Tate, and performed in 1689 in cooperation with Josias Priest, a dancing master and the choreographer for the Dorset Garden Theatre.

The libretto was written for the adaptation by the children's novelist John Emlyn Edwards.

Contrary to the popular myth, the libretto was approved by the Emperor, Joseph II, before any music was written by Mozart.

Aida (), sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette.

The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée.

The libretto for The Magic Flute, written by Schikaneder, shares much of its plot and many of its characters with the Singspiel Oberon, written by Karl Ludwig Giesecke for the Schikaneder troupe two years earlier ( and set to music by Paul Wranitzky ) as a re-adaptation of Sophie Seyler's Singspiel Hüon und Amande, ultimately based on the poem Oberon by Wieland.

The libretto for Edipo Re was written by Giovacchino Forzano, who also wrote Il piccolo Marat for Pietro Mascagni and two of the one-act operas for Puccini's Il trittico.

The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte.

It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.

The Russian-language libretto was written by the composer, and is based on the " dramatic chronicle " Boris Godunov by Aleksandr Pushkin, and, in the Revised Version of 1872, on Nikolay Karamzin's History of the Russian State.

He remembered a libretto for a one-act comic opera that W. S. Gilbert had written and shown to him in 1873, called Trial by Jury.

" had composed a brilliant new score ( his most subtle yet ) to a scintillating libretto .... Iolanthe is the work in which Sullivan's operetta style takes a definite step forward, and metamorphosis of musical themes is its characteristic new feature .... By recurrence and metamorphosis of themes Sullivan made the score more fluid ...." Much of Sullivan's " fairy " music pays deliberate homage to the incidental music written by Felix Mendelssohn for a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The libretto is not always written before the music.

Sometimes the libretto is written in close collaboration with the composer ; this can involve adaptation, as was the case with Rimsky-Korsakov and his librettist Bel ' sky, or an entirely original work.

The libretto of a musical, on the other hand, is almost always written in prose ( except for the song lyrics ).

The Byron play served as the basis for the libretto written by Francesco Maria Piave for Giuseppe Verdi's opera I due Foscari, which premiered on 3 November 1844 in Rome.

* Italian — Menotti, Gian Carlo: The Death of Pierrot ( 1923 ; written by Menotti, including libretto, when he was age 11, in the same year he entered the Milan Conservatory for formal training ).

The libretto was written for a dramma per musica in three acts by Francesco Gasparini, performed that same year in the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice, but the same libretto was put in music also by Nicola Porpora ( 1711, in Neaples, as Il trionfo di Flavio Anicio Olibrio ) and Leonardo Vinci ( Naples, 1728, as Ricimero ), and Andrea Bernasconi ( 1737, Wien, as Flavio Anicio Olibrio o La tirannide debellata ).

It was paired with a Darius Milhaud opera, `` The Poor Sailor '', set to a libretto by Jean Cocteau, a kind of Grand Guignol by the sea, a sailor returns, unrecognized, and gets done in by his wife.

Handel's 1709 opera, Agrippina with a libretto by Vincenzo Grimani.

Salieri's first full opera was composed during the winter and carnival season of 1770 ; Le donne letterate and was based on Molière's Les Femmes Savantes ( The Learned Ladies ) with a libretto by Giovanni Gastone Boccherini a dancer in the court ballet, and a brother of the famous composer.

The libretto to Armida was by Marco Coltellini the house poet for the imperial theaters.

Again a classic of Renaissance literature was the basis of the libretto by Boccherini, in this case a comic mock-epic by Tassoni, in which a war between Modena and Bologna ensues over a stolen bucket.

This uneven work was followed by another popular comedic success La locandiera ( Mine Hostess ), an adaptation of the classic and popular spoken stage comedy La locandiera by Carlo Goldoni, the libretto was prepared by Domenico Poggi.

However the failure of this work was more than made up for with his next Parisian opera Tarare with a libretto by Beaumarchais.

His last opera was a German language singspiel Die Neger, ( The Negroes ), a melodrama set in colonial Virginia with a text by Georg Friedrich Treitschke ( the author of the libretto for Beethoven's Fidelio ) performed in 1804 and was a complete failure.

Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny () is a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht.

The libretto was performed in an original translation by Michael Feingold ; the production was directed by Alvin Epstein.

The first, most important and successful was The Beggar's Opera of 1728, with a libretto by John Gay and music arranged by John Christopher Pepusch, both of whom probably influenced by Parisian vaudeville and the burlesques and musical plays of Thomas D ' Urfey ( 1653 – 1723 ), a number of whose collected ballads they used in their work.

* Falstaff ( 1893 ), Giuseppe Verdi's last opera, with a libretto by Arrigo Boito.

* Falstaff ( 1799 ), Antonio Salieri's opera, with a libretto by Carlo Prospero Defranceschi, which is also based upon The Merry Wives of Windsor.

* How Is This Going to Continue ?, a novel by James Chapman, presents itself as the libretto to a musical work by a composer whose ( fictional ) entry in The Grove Dictionary of Music is quoted at length.

* A Great Auk appears as a prized possession of Baba the Turk in Igor Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress ( libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman ).

W. S. Gilbert, writing in Fun magazine, pronounced the score superior to F. C. Burnand's libretto.

The Pirates of Penzance ; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

The Mikado ; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations.

Iolanthe ; or, The Peer and the Peri () is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

Ruddigore ; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

Pinafore ; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

An opera of the same title was composed by Nicolas Nabokov, with a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman.

The Bassarids ( composed 1964-65, premiere 1966 ), to a libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is the most famous opera composed by Hans Werner Henze.

The libretto was by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman.

Igor Stravinsky's 1951 opera The Rake's Progress, with libretto by W. H. Auden, was less literally inspired by the same series.

The Yeomen of the Guard ; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

* September 11 – The Rake's Progress, an opera by Igor Stravinsky with libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, premieres in Venice, conducted by the composer.

Utopia, Limited ; or, The Flowers of Progress, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan.

Princess Ida ; or, Castle Adamant is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

In 1976 Wuorinen completed his Percussion Symphony a five movement work for 24 players including two pianos for the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble and his longtime colleague Raymond DesRoches, as well as his opera subtitled " a baroque burlesque ", The W. of Babylon with an original libretto by Renaud Charles Bruce.

* The Pirates of Penzance – music by Arthur Sullivan, libretto by W. S. Gilbert

* A cantata by Henry Hadley, an American composer and conductor, ( Somerville, Massachusetts, 1871-New York, 1937 ) The Nightingale and the Rose, ( libretto E. W.

W. S. Gilbert used the term in 1882 when he wrote the libretto of the comic opera Iolanthe.

Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

Examples of his operas are Boulevard Solitude, The Bassarids ( to a libretto by W. H. Auden ) and Das verratene Meer.

( The title page of the libretto ascribes it only to " J. A. W .".