How to engrave an Opera (in Sibelius) – EP. 1

Episode 1 – Preparation

Introduction

Hello there, and welcome to this new blog series dedicated to engraving best practices, this time specifically dedicated to how to engrave an opera. I have recently completed working on the first opera of my career as a music engraver —by Australian composer Lee Bradshaw—and I would like to share with you all that I learned in the process. While I have been a music engraver for more than a decade, the specific needs of an opera have challenged me from all sides, and I am deeply grateful for having had the chance to walk this exciting path.

Another reason that brought me to writing this down is the absolute scarcity of information freely available on the web. To prepare for this, I had to carefully study several existing operas, learn specific rules that apply only to vocal music, and, finally, contact experts in the field to get invaluable practical insight. I would therefore like to thank William Holab for all his help and advice during the process.

This blog series will be split into numerous episodes, due to the immense number of things that we need to cover. We will look at the structure of an opera, what conventions are specific only to opera, then translate all this into practical instructions on how to do this in Sibelius, which was my software of choice. To be honest, I would have loved to try this with Dorico, but the composer used Sibelius and my machine is not ready for such a big project in Dorico. Already in Sibelius, I had a very hard time, and I will share with you everything that happened, hoping that it will help you in the future. Thereafter, we will also look at how to build the final book file for the opera, since the front matter for a theatre piece is radically different from what one can find in symphonic or chamber pieces.

The structure of an opera

An opera is a theatrical work which joins together a cast of soloist singers, one or more choirs (be it adult, children, male/female-only), and an orchestra of variable dimension. They are, in general, massive works, with immense forces involved, but there have also been examples, such as those by Benjamin Britten, of chamber-operas, that is, with a smaller instrumentation.

The structure of the work is based on a libretto, which can be in verse or prose, either original or based on historical events or important literature pieces. It is normally divided into ACTS, in turn divided into SCENES (this is a general definition, variations exist of course). It is not uncommon for an opera to last 2 to 3 hours or, when Richard Wagner’s Ring tetralogy is concerned, 4 hours could be the norm. In the case of the opera I engraved, it was on a smaller scale, lasting about 90 minutes, but it was still the largest work I ever completed.

When planning to engrave an opera, at least in Sibelius, divide each ACT into a separate document, but keep the SCENES inside each act within the same file. If you do not do this, you will have a miserable experience when preparing parts. I suggest resetting bar numbers only at the start of each act, even if it would be possibly more logical to restart at each scene. This is for a simple, practical reason: save time in rehearsals. Not all instruments will play all the time, and saying “bar 666” instead of “Scene 4, bar 44” will be much clearer for everyone. I recall when playing Verdi’s Nabucco, that the harpist was sitting there doing nothing for the two middle acts, so we as engravers have the responsibility of making musicians’ life better.

Later on in the process, you will need to think about the piano reduction of the opera, as this will be used by singers to study and rehearse their part. This has a different page size from the full score, and possibly also a different layout of choral parts. All of this we will look at in due course in this series.

Bottom Line

This was just a brief introduction to outline the purpose and scope of this series. In the next episode, we will start to look at engraving conventions and at how to realise each of them in Sibelius. I will do my best to keep each episode short and easy to consume in a cooling break!

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See you in the next episode!

Michele