From Fiction to Libretto - Irving, Hawthorne, and James as Opera

This study introduces the reader to the mostly unknown world of libretto adaptations of nineteenth-century American fiction. The analysis of stage works based on Washington Irving’s «Rip Van Winkle», Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Henry James’s Washington Square explores a largely unexamined area of the reception history of these authors and narratives. As opera and drama have been interlinked throughout American theater history, the discussion of adaptations will include multiple types of spoken and musical theater. Appendices documenting the existence of over 350 stage works based on nineteenth-century American fiction further illustrate how librettists, composers, and playwrights have participated in the endeavor to understand and contextualize literary texts within cultural history.