Public-domain opera libretti: where to find free texts and what copyright allows

A libretto you can read for free is a libretto you can mark up, transcribe and rehearse from. The standard repertory is largely free to use, but the details depend on the source and the date. This guide is part of the libretti section.

Free sources at a glance

Wikisource

The Wikisource opera portal lists public-domain libretti of operas, operettas, oratorios and similar works¹. Its external links include a collection of 400 librettos of the most famous operas¹.

A single work shows how it is organized. The Wikisource page for Dido and Aeneas lists versions of the libretto by Nahum Tate, composed by Henry Purcell². One version is the 1689 edition with libretto only². Text on Wikisource is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License²; on the portal, additional terms may apply¹. The portal’s list includes The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe, Princess Ida and individual selections from The Mikado¹.

IMSLP

IMSLP’s librettos category holds publications of the text of operatic and vocal works that omit the music⁶. At the time of the listing it contained 193 pages⁶. The list can be sorted by work type, instrumentation, composer and more⁶. Use it when you want a text without the piano score behind it.

librettidopera.it

For Italian opera, librettidopera.it is dedicated to Italian-language opera libretti⁷. The site says each libretto was searched, copied and laid out with care by hand⁷. Its title index gives, for example, Il barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino Rossini with Cesare Sterbini as librettist and a premiere date of 20 February 1816⁷. The same index gives Aida by Giuseppe Verdi with Antonio Ghislanzoni as librettist and 24 December 1871⁷, and Alceste by Christoph Willibald Gluck with Ranieri de’ Calzabigi as librettist and 26 December 1767⁷.

Library of Congress catalogue

The Library of Congress published a catalogue of opera librettos printed before 1800 in Washington in 1914⁵. The scan notes no visible notice of copyright, with a stated date of 1914⁵. It has a title catalogue and a separate author list, composer list and aria index⁵. It was prepared by Oscar George Theodore Sonneck, Chief of the Division of Music⁵. The Library of Congress purchased the Albert Schatz collection, and the plan for the catalogue followed immediately⁵. That collection held, in round figures, 12,240 librettos, not counting duplicates⁵.

Use a catalogue like this to identify which libretti exist for a composer or title before you look for the text itself.

What copyright still limits

In 2000, a University of Delaware librarian wrote that copyright law applies to libretti and forms the most significant limitation to their availability on the Internet³. While the vast majority of standard operatic repertory has reverted to the public domain, many titles, especially of recent vintage, cannot be included without permission of the copyright holder³. Copyright is also tied in with the availability of translations³.

In many countries the copyright term is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years⁴. Berne Convention terms establish minimums that apply only to signatory countries, which may grant longer ones⁴. Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions⁴. Works published in the United States before January 1, 1931 are in the public domain⁸, and copyright protection generally lasts for 70 years after the death of the author⁸. Because rights vary by country, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another¹⁰.

On translations, the 2000 paper adds that public-domain translations for much of the standard repertory could be put online, but they often contain out-of-date language, or, if meant to be sung, do not render the meaning as accurately as a reading translation³. It describes the vast majority of the standard repertory as reverted to the public domain, which can satisfy most needs regarding the established texts³.

Terms differ by country and by date, so check the librettist’s death date and the rule where you will use the text; this page is not legal advice.

Before you reuse a text

• Identify the librettist and the edition, not only the opera. The librettidopera.it index lists both the composer and the librettist beside each title⁷.
• Look at the license on the page. Wikisource texts carry a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License².
• Treat translations separately from the original text, because copyright is tied in with the availability of translations³.

A short history of the free-text web

Lyle Neff, writing in 2000, began a web page titled Public Domain Opera Libretti and Other Vocal Texts in 1995, relying on voluntary contributions of vocal texts and related information³. He wrote that there was a lack of anything comparable to the e-text repositories for opera libretti, oratorio texts and art song lyrics³. In a revision dated December 31, 2002, he noted that his own site at Indiana University had been defunct since October 2002 and pointed readers to Rick Bogart’s OperaGlass³. A lost URL meant lost access to an entire opera libretto, so he saw the need for at least an offline archive of the texts³. OperaGlass at Stanford offered libretti, source texts, performance histories, synopses and discographies for many operas⁹.

Using the texts

A free text is a starting point. To read it as a singer reads it, see how to read a libretto. For an annotated edition with IPA, see Nico Castel’s libretti, and for the symbols see IPA for singers.