Editing Libretto (section)

==Relationship of composer and librettist==
[[File:Mascagni and Librettists.jpg|thumb|The composer of ''[[Cavalleria rusticana]]'', [[Pietro Mascagni]], flanked by his librettists, [[Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti]] and [[Guido Menasci]]]]

Libretti for operas, [[oratorio]]s and [[cantata]]s in the 17th and 18th centuries were generally written by someone other than the composer, often a well-known poet.

[[Pietro Metastasio|Pietro Trapassi]], known as Metastasio (1698–1782) was one of the most highly regarded librettists in Europe. His libretti were set many times by many different composers. Another noted 18th-century librettist was [[Lorenzo Da Ponte]]. He wrote the libretti for three of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]]'s greatest operas, and for many other composers as well. [[Eugène Scribe]] was one of the most prolific librettists of the 19th century, providing the words for works by [[Giacomo Meyerbeer|Meyerbeer]] (with whom he had a lasting collaboration), [[Daniel Auber|Auber]], [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]], [[Gioachino Rossini|Rossini]] and [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]]. The French writers' duo [[Henri Meilhac]] and [[Ludovic Halévy]] wrote many [[opera]] and [[operetta]] libretti for the likes of [[Jacques Offenbach]], [[Jules Massenet]] and [[Georges Bizet]]. [[Arrigo Boito]], who wrote libretti for, among others, [[Giuseppe Verdi]] and [[Amilcare Ponchielli]], also composed two operas of his own.

The libretto is not always written before the music. Some composers, such as [[Mikhail Glinka]], [[Alexander Serov]], [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov|Rimsky-Korsakov]], [[Giacomo Puccini|Puccini]] and [[Pietro Mascagni|Mascagni]] wrote passages of music without text and subsequently had the librettist add words to the vocal melody lines (this has often been the case with American popular song and musicals in the 20th century, as with [[Richard Rodgers]] and [[Lorenz Hart]]'s collaboration, although with the later team of [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]] the [[lyrics]] were generally written first, which was Rodgers' preferred modus operandi).

Some composers wrote their own libretti. [[Richard Wagner]] is perhaps most famous in this regard, with his transformations of Germanic legends and events into epic subjects for his operas and music dramas. [[Hector Berlioz]], too, wrote the libretti for two of his best-known works, ''[[La damnation de Faust]]'' and ''[[Les Troyens]]''. [[Alban Berg]] adapted [[Georg Büchner]]'s play ''[[Woyzeck]]'' for the libretto of ''[[Wozzeck]]''.

[[File:Ernani Libretto 1859.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Pages from an 1859 libretto for ''[[Ernani]]'', with the original Italian lyrics, English translation and musical notation for one of the arias]]
Sometimes the libretto is written in close collaboration with the composer; this can involve adaptation, as was the case with [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov|Rimsky-Korsakov]] and his librettist [[Vladimir Belsky]], or an entirely original work. In the case of musicals, the music, the lyrics and the "book" (i.e., the spoken dialogue and the stage directions) may each have its own author. Thus, a musical such as ''[[Fiddler on the Roof]]'' has a composer ([[Jerry Bock]]), a lyricist ([[Sheldon Harnick]]) and the writer of the "book" ([[Joseph Stein]]). In rare cases, the composer writes everything except the dance arrangements – music, lyrics and libretto, as [[Lionel Bart]] did for ''[[Oliver!]]''.

Other matters in the process of developing a libretto parallel those of spoken [[drama]]s for stage or screen. There are the preliminary steps of selecting or suggesting a subject and developing a sketch of the action in the form of a [[scenario]], as well as revisions that might come about when the work is in production, as with out-of-town tryouts for [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] musicals, or changes made for a specific local audience. A famous case of the latter is Wagner's 1861 revision of the original 1845 [[Semperoper|Dresden]] version of his opera ''[[Tannhäuser (opera)|Tannhäuser]]'' for Paris.