Open Course by Paulo Ferreira de Castro (CTC)

This series of three sessions (6, 7 and 8 October) offers an introduction to the opera libretto as a distinct literary genre, tracing some of its key historical and aesthetic developments. Starting with the evolution of the genre, the sessions will address issues of metre and versification, as well as the gradual shift from poetry to prose and the various ways in which words and music are interwoven. The analysis will also focus on the relationship between writing and singing – between the written text and its vocal realisation – and on the way in which the libretto contributes to the construction of theatricality and dramaturgy in opera and related genres.

Over the course of the three sessions, specific examples will be analysed, allowing for an examination of different formal and dramaturgical approaches, including adaptations – in the form of librettos – of pre-existing theatrical and literary texts. Attention will also be focused on the processes of collaboration, negotiation and conflict between composers and librettists: who writes, who decides, how a text is transformed when it encounters music, and what tensions may arise between literary autonomy and musical and scenic demands.

Finally, we shall discuss some of the challenges facing libretto writing today, in a context where opera is exploring new relationships between languages, forms of vocal expression, dramaturgy and modes of collective creation. The sessions will therefore seek to understand the libretto not merely as a verbal accompaniment to the music, but as a specific space for invention, mediation and tension between literature, composition and theatre.

Admission to the course is free, subject to registration.

6.00 pm–7.15 pm | Auditorium of the National Library of Portugal

Paulo Ferreira de Castro (Research Group for the Study of Music, Critical Theory and Communication)

Produced by: Ópera do Castelo