The Walter Scott Operas

Book excerpt: The Walter Scott Operas is a study of the approximately 50 operas that are based on the works of Sir Walter Scott, who, except for Shakespeare, inspired more operas than any other writer. Professor Mitchell's scholarly method is literary-historical (rather than "critical") and unabashedly antiquarian. He shows what happened to a Scott novel when it was turned into an opera and how that opera compared and contrasted with others based on the same novel -- all this leading to a fresh slant on Scott's characters and the structure of his novels. The Scott operas are all products of the nineteenth century, and indeed span the century from Rossini's La Donna del Lago (1819) to several done in the 1890s. The operas vary in style from typical early nineteenth-century romantic opera and opera comique to the Wagner-influenced works of the latter part of the century. Each discussion of an opera begins with a brief account of its performance history, but the major part of the discussion is concerned with what "happened" to the novel (poem, novella, or historical work) when it was transformed into an opera. What did the librettist do to the original story -- how did he reshape it -- to make it something the operatic composer could felicitously handle? The concluding chapter brings together for final discussion the elements in Scott's works that are conducive to good opera -- the pictorial element; the theme of "opposing fanaticism," often brought vividly to life in one or more major scenes of drama; the well-drawn characters, from both high and low life; the theatrical direct discourse, including soliloquies. In addition, the concluding chapter tries to determine what influence the Scott operas have had on others now in the standard repertoire. Many parallels can be observed because of the use of certain operatic conventions that are part of the common stock of virtually all librettists and composers. Other parallels, however, are directly traceable to the Scott operas. - Jacket flap.