Literature and Music

When it comes to the birth and evolution of the two respective mediums, literature and classical music are practically twins. Considered the first modern novel, Don Quixote of La Mancha by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes was released in 1605 and 1615. In between the two installments, Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi premiered L'Orfeo, the earliest opera still regularly performed, in 1607. And as creativity and storytelling continued to develop, so did the dialogue between literature and music. In fact, L’Orfeo was inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Don Quixote has been adapted into works as varied as a Tchaikovsky ballet and a set of cello variations by Strauss.

Literature is an endless fountain of inspiration for composers, who give voice to powerful narratives and unforgettable characters and offer passionate performers the chance to embody some of our most beloved heroes.

Why and how does literature inspire music? 

A truly great work of fiction already possesses all the qualities that make for a powerful musical performance — compelling characters, a moving story, and poignant universal themes — so it only makes sense to transpose a story from one medium to another. In some cases, composers adapt a long beloved tale; in others, they choose a contemporary work that has readers buzzing. In either case, a musical adaptation can breathe new life into a work of literature and even bring the story to wider audiences.

One could argue that Eugene Onegin belongs to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as much as it belongs to Alexander Pushkin. Musical adaptations present the unique yet fulfilling challenge of creating a work from scratch while also remaining faithful to the author’s original vision. Writing an original aria or a pas de deux for characters or a story that already exists is an exercise in both innovation and collaboration.

In opera, that collaborative spirit is always present between the composer and the librettist. While the composer is responsible for the melodies, the librettist writes the lyrics and the script for an opera, and in a literary adaptation, words become especially important. In the example of Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist for three of Mozart’s most beloved operas, journalist David Cairns claims that it is Da Ponte’s restructuring of the story’s action that gives Mozart as a composer better opportunities for musical innovation.

Which writers and stories have inspired musical adaptations? 

Whether their inspiration led to ballets, operas, or instrumental works, it’s clear that many composers have brought treasures from their bookshelf to their writing desk, often multiple times.

While composers have adapted musical works from several different authors, one writer who has inspired a great number of notable musical adaptations is, unsurprisingly, William Shakespeare. Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi adapted both Macbeth and Othello into operas, and he and librettist Arrigo Boito blended The Merry Wives of Windsor with scenes from Henry IV to create Falstaff. French composer Charles Gounod turned Romeo and Juliet into an opera, and in the 20th century, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev adapted the tragic lovers into a ballet.

A century after Monteverdi, Christophe Willibald Gluck tried his hand at Greek tragedy and wrote Orfeo ed Euridice. George Frideric Handel also turned to antiquity as inspiration for his operas adapting both the story of Semele, mother of the god Dionysus, and the story of the lovers Acis and Galatea.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart took popular stories from his era and put them to music. The legend of Don Juan became the frightening Don Giovanni, while Beaumarchais’s La Folle Journée became the more playful The Marriage of Figaro.

Shakespeare was also not the only writer who set off Verdi's imagination. With La Traviata, he transformed The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils, and Violetta (whose original name in the novel is Marguerite) is now one of the most iconic heroines in the operatic repertoire.

Two decades after the premiere of La Traviata, the great Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky adapted the aforementioned Eugene Onegin, written by his fellow countryman Alexander Pushkin. Like Verdi, he also took inspiration from several literary sources, and he adapted Sleeping Beauty by Perrault.

The dreamy ballet production remains a fan favorite to this day, but if there is one ballet that has cemented Tchaikovsky’s place in musical history and popular culture, it is The Nutcracker. To bring Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy to life, Tchaikovsky once again used literature as a guide and based the ballet on the story written by E.T.A. Hoffman.

Like Shakespeare, Hoffman lit up the imagination of numerous composers. Les Contes d’Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach turns the German storyteller into the protagonist of his opera fantastique in his reimagined versions of “The Sandman,” “Rath Krespel,” and “A New Year’s Eve Adventure,” while fellow French composer Léo Delibes adapted “The Sandman” into the ballet Coppelia.

Finally, what might be the world’s most recognizable opera also comes from a work of literature. Enamored with Spanish culture, the French author Prosper Mérimée published the novella Carmen in 1845, but it was Georges Bizet thirty years later who immortalized the free-willed heroine with his operatic adaptation of the work. While the opera may not have been a success during Bizet’s lifetime, thanks to him, Carmen has traveled from inside the pages of a French writer’s notebook to all the major stages of the world.

Listen to moving, masterful, musical adaptations on medici.tv 

In this carefully curated playlist, you’ll find ballets, operas, and even concerts adapted from beloved and thought provoking literary works. Immerse yourself in the classic works like La Traviata, Eugene Onegin, Carmen, and Don Giovanni, and discover contemporary musical adaptations of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. We hope this playlist inspires you to visit your nearest concert hall, and that on the way there, you also stop by your local library.