What is Libretto?
[[Image:Pietro Metastasio.jpg|thumb|250px|Pietro Metastasio]] A '''libretto''' is the text (the words) which are set to music to make an [[opera]]. A libretto can also be the words for an [[oratorio]], [[cantata]], [[Mass (music)|mass]] or a [[music theatre|musical]]. The person who writes the libretto is called a '''librettist'''. The word “libretto” (plural: “libretti” or “librettos”) is an [[Italian language|Italian]] word which means “little book”. Sometimes a [[composer]] writes his own libretti, but usually a composer likes to have a librettist who can write the words for him so that he can set them to music. Some libretti are original stories by the librettist, but very often they are based on a book by another writer. In the 18th century [[Metastasio]] was a very famous librettist. Many of his libretti were set several times by different composers. Another [[18th century]] librettist was [[Lorenzo da Ponte]], who wrote the libretti for three of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart's]] greatest operas, as well as for many other composers. In the [[19th century]] [[Eugène Scribe]] wrote a very large number of libretti that were set to music by composers such as [[Giacomo Meyerbeer|Meyerbeer]], [[Daniel Auber|Auber]], [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]], [[Rossini]] and [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]]. Two French writers called [[Henri Meilhac]] and [[Ludovic Halévy]] wrote many [[opera]] and [[operetta]] libretti for the composers [[Jacques Offenbach]], [[Jules Massenet]] and [[Georges Bizet]]. [[Arrigo Boito]], who wrote libretti for, among others, [[Giuseppe Verdi]] and [[Amilcare Ponchielli]], composed two operas of his own. [[Hugo von Hoffmansthal]] wrote libretti for [[Richard Strauss]]. [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]] and [[Michael Tippett|Tippett]] are two composers who wrote their own libretti. Usually a libretto is written before the music, but sometimes composers wrote some of the music first and then looked for words to go with it. Composers, such as [[Mikhail Glinka]], [[Alex