Concept in Definition ABC
Miscellanea / / July 04, 2021
By Cecilia Bembibre, in Ago. 2010
We understand by libretto that written work that is used as guide for actors in a movie or play. The libretto is normally composed of the dialogue that such actors have to repeat and interpret and, in addition, indications about positions in the space in which it is performed (sitting in a chair), movements (enters the room) or information about the stage, environment and else. These indications that are not part of the dialogue are not read or interpreted, they simply serve to facilitate the creation of the scene.
The librettos arose historically with the first theatrical representations, those that emerged in Ancient Greece (although for some, they already exist since the civilization Egyptian). The librettos, or these primitive forms of what we now know as librettos, were written for guide the actors in the dialogues and were probably much simpler than the scripts are in the present. The existence of librettos can be found both in the Middle Ages as, later, in the Modern Era in which William Shakespeare was undoubtedly one of the greatest representatives of librettos for works by
theater.The librettos have a more or less similar form or structure in all cases. They are divided into acts or scenes in which a set of related acts or dialogues take place. In each scene, the location of each character, the environment in which they are found, and other information are clarified, as far as possible, and then proceed to the proper dialogue between the different characters of the work. This dialogue is written clarifying the name of each person who speaks or interacts with the others. In the librettos both the words and the sounds and even the silences should be marked so that the actors can know when to speak and when to remain silent.
Topics in Booklet