Richard John Torrens Opera libretti
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Opera Libretti

A www search for libretti will reveal many sources but what these all seem to lack is a way of printing out in booklet form suitable to accompany the CDs concerned. Several of the operas I have did not have accompanying libretti so I used various www sources to make a suitable booklet from which I could follow the opera. These are the results.

As they are for printing out in A5 booklet form you will need to get the appropriate software: this is a full-featured desktop publishing program the like of which you would normally have to buy for a large amount of money. Fortunately the program, Ovation Pro, is available as a completely free (but time-limited) trial version from David Pilling Software.

The CD image is available on Dave Pillings' site - and on the CD there is also a free reader only version of th software, which is not time limited.

If you do decide to buy the program, it is amazingly inexpensive for such a full featured program. It is also extremely easy to use, at least at a beginner's level. So printing these files out in the intended layout is actually easier than doing it from a pdf file. Please let me know if you find the resource useful - I may do more libretti.

However the libretti are also being made available as pdfs - one for printing as a booklet and one for reading on screen.

Some of these libretti are incomplete. E.g. translations not completed.  

These opera libretti were done for my own use so are to various standards. For instance, I could find no English translation of Wagner's Die Fliegende Hollander so the English is a Google translation. If I can find one, I will probably work it in.

One libretto was done because the original came as a virtually unprintable pdf file on the 'enhanced' CD. The file was protected so not easy to alter. That annoyed me - I like and am used to a proper booklet, not a pile of out-of-order pieces of paper. So I lifted the entire text out of the file supplied and rearranged it in a much more usable form.

Many of the others are capable of improvement - a task with which I can use assistance, so if you are interested in assisting, please contact me.

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