About my Opera Stories in Verse……….

Peruse my List: "Stories from Opera":

Note: "Rienzi* is still in preparation as I write this.

About my Opera Stories in Verse……….

With the completion of my Verse-Epic “Rienzi” I will have covered all eleven of Richard Wagner’s major operas and music-dramas. His earlier works: “Die Feen”; “Das Liebesverbot” and even “Rienzi” are seldom performed since his death, whereas “The Flying Dutchman”; “Tannhauser”; “Lohengrin”; “Tristan and Isolde”; “The Mastersingers of Nurnberg”; “The Rhinegold”; “The Valkyrie”; “Siegfried”; “The Twilight of the Gods” and “Parsifal” are still performed at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival Theatre and in the greater opera houses around the world, while overtures, preludes and other excerpts from them feature frequently in concert programmes almost everywhere – even in TV commercials!.

My purpose in writing these verse-epics has been, as with all my opera stories, to present in what I hoped to be a practically helpful way, the time-honoured legends and fables which Wagner and other major composers used as the bases for their stage works. Most performances or recordings of these complete operas tend to be sung in the German, French, Italian, Russian or other languages in which their libretti were written and much of the ‘plot’ detail is lost or even misconstrued in attempts to translate them into English. Therefore, although the beauty of melody, harmony, orchestral and vocal sound in these highest accomplishments of musical art is evident, much of the story is lost to or incompletely understood by many English listeners – even ardent opera lovers.

As most of the operas I have covered are available, in Compact Disc form, for hire from Public Libraries, it is my hope that readers of my Opera Stories will be induced by them to borrow and listen to recorded performances or, better still, to attend stage presentations of the complete works wherever possible.

In creating and presenting these Verse-Epics in English, I have adopted the ancient form of the Medieval Ballad which dates back to the times of minnesingers or minstrels, being composed (usually) in four-line stanzas of which the first and third (unrhymed) lines of four iambs alternate with the second and third rhyming lines of three iambs, as in the following (anonymous) example:

“Although he left with joyful step
to fight his country’s war,
my dearest love was cruelly slain
who I shall see no more.”

To save page-space, I have condensed this form into heroic, rhyming couplets of seven iambs per line, as follows:

“Although he left with joyful step to fight his country’s war,
my dearest love was cruelly slain who I shall see no more.”

If anyone has questions or suggestions, please email me h.wyles@clear.net.nz
Otherwise, I hope you enjoy reading them, understanding the stories behind these great operas and marvelling at the music which they have inspired.

Hugh Wyles, March 21st.2008.