The key to an understanding of the importance of the libretto lies in
the term Wagner used to describe the art-work of the future; he called
this a "music-drama." The exclusive lover of music is tempted to look
down on opera because its music is contaminated with drama; and for a
similar reason, the exclusive lover of the drama is not attracted to
opera because the drama is there more or less sacrificed to the music.
But there are many opera-goers who best relish music and the drama when
they are presented in conjunction. In a music-drama of the highest type,
in Wagner's 'Tannhaueser,' for example, the music and the drama are
Siamese twins; they were brought forth at a single birth. Each helps the
other, and neither calls upon the other for any undue sacrifice. They
can be enjoyed together better than they can be enjoyed apart, since
each depends upon the other; and united they stand or fall.
Mr. H. T. Finck was not overstating the case when he insisted that the
ideal opera is one in which the book and the score are each of them of
absorbing interest, "and yet make a doubly deep impression when heard
together." The stories of 'Faust' and of 'Carmen' and of 'Lohengrin' are
delightful in themselves, merely to read; and a musical expert can find
pleasure in playing the music from them on the piano. "Yet how much more
effective they are when we hear and see music and play together on the
stage." And then the same writer goes on to point out that the best
"libretto is one which tells its story to the eye," as in the case of
'Carmen,' for example. "No one with eyes to see can fail, for instance,
to follow the career of 'Carmen,' from her flirtation with the young
officer to the scene before the bullring where he stabs her."
It was an acute French dramatic critic who once asserted that "the
skeleton of every good play is a pantomime," and the assertion is more
emphatically true when applied to the skeleton of a libretto. Indeed, as
the words are rarely heard distinctly, and as they are often in a
foreign language, there is double need of a story so clear and so
straightforward that it can be caught by the eye alone from the actions
and gestures and facial expressions of the performers without the aid of
the actual words. But the inventing and the constructing of a plot of
this seemingly simple effectiveness is a task of extraordinary
difficulty--if we may judge by the infrequency of its achievement. And
undoubtedly it is this difficulty which has led so many musicians to
compose their scores to books only slightly altered from plays which had
already an attested popularity in the theater. By so doing it has seemed
to them that they were minimizing the risk of finding their music
handicapped by an ineffective story. The danger in this case lies in the
temptation to set to music any play which may chance to be successful
without considering sufficiently whether it is really worthy of the
composer's labor.
There is another disadvantage also in this snatching at successful plays
to serve as opera-librettos. Most successful plays nowadays deal with
modern life, and they may owe much of their success to the skill with
which the dramatist has been able to seize the external aspects of
reality. Now, it is an interesting question whether a realistic piece of
this sort can ever supply an entirely satisfactory book for an opera,
since music is emotional and idealizing. To many persons the opera seems
singularly unreal, strangely remote from actual life. Such persons are
shocked that Tristan, for instance, should sing for half an hour when he
is dying from physical weakness. Tolstoy sided with those who take this
attitude, and he had no difficulty in showing up the absurd unreality of
an operatic performance, if one insists upon applying to it the standard
of our ordinary existence, since we do not burst into song ordinarily to
express our every-day desires. Of course, there would be no great
difficulty in showing up the absurd unreality of every other art, if the
same standard is insisted upon. No art can justify itself for a moment
unless we are willing to admit the essential conventions which alone
permit it to exist.
Tolstoy might as well have pointed out that sculpture is ridiculous,
since no human being is ever all of one color, body and clothes, as a
statue must be, whether it is made of marble or of bronze. He could have
declared that painting is equally untrue to the mere facts of life,
since it represents nature absolutely without motion, as when it depicts
a field of waving corn which does not really wave but stands fixed
forever. If Tolstoy or any one else refuses to accept the conventions of
any art, there is no possible reply, except to make it clear to him that
he is thereby depriving himself of the delight which that art can give.
A departure from the mere fact underlies every art; and it is only
because of that departure that the art exists. By convention, that is to
say, by tacit agreement between the artist and the public, the artist is
allowed to deny certain of the facts of life in order to provide the
public with the specific pleasure which only his art can afford.
In the Shaksperian drama the underlying convention is that the persons
of the play belong to a race of people who always express themselves
poetically in English blank verse. In opera this necessary agreement
requires us to concede the existence of men and women to whom song is
the natural means of communicating all their sentiments and all their
thoughts. If we are willing to accept this implied contract, then there
is no absurdity in Tristan's singing with his dying breath, since he
belongs to a race of creatures who have no other method of speech. If we
are unwilling to be parties to this agreement, if we deny the existence
of any such creatures, then there is nothing for us to do but to keep
out of the opera-house. It was this convention which Tolstoy rejected,
and by this rejection he refused the enjoyment which the opera can give
to those who are satisfied to accept its conditions.