Lyrics & Libretto Resources

• Aria Database :  What is that guy singing? You can find out in this searchable guide to arias by name, opera, language and voice-type. Includes word-by-word translations and some MIDI files.



• Boosey & Hawkes Music Shop :  The online catalog of the famous music publishers with a comprehensive range of vocal music, complete opera scores, and libretti.



• Classical Vocal Repertoire :  The web site of Classical Vocal Reprints, a specialty print music dealer and publisher of vocal music. It was founded in 1987 to bring back classical vocal music that had long been out of print and lost to the repertoire. Besides an online reprint catalog of over 3,000 titles, they also have an archive of 80,000 titles, 500 opera scores, and 800 out-of-print anthologies. The site has an e-mail search facility for works not in the online catalog.



• La Canzone Napoletana :  This Italian site has the lyrics for over 400 Neapolitan songs. Many of them also have music samples (synthesized instrumental versions). The lyricist and composer are given for each song, with the lyricist's name listed first. Note that because these songs were written in Neapolitan dialect, not standard Italian, they cannot be successfully put through a machine translator.



• Lyrics, Librettos & Memorabilia :  Sharon Herzog's Briefcase contains lyrics to Spanish, Catalan and Italian songs, librettos including the English translation of Sly plus Carreras memorabilia.



• Public-Domain Opera Libretti and Other Vocal Texts :  An extremely useful resource on libretti. Once you get past all those "about to rap your knuckles with a ruler" warnings, you'll appreciate the library environment.



• The Lied and Song Texts Page :  Armed with a strong knowledge of computer science and music, Canadian Emily Ezust has built a remarkable searchable archive of art song lyrics. You can browse by composer or poet and search by first line, title or key words.



• Verdi Libretti :  The libretti (in Italian) of all of Verdi's operas, including the real rarities such as Aroldo, Jerusalem, Un Giorno di Regno, etc. There is also information about the librettists for each of the operas.



• Zarzuela! :  Lyrics in Spanish with English translations for many of the most famous zarzuela arias. While you're there, check out the rest of this fascinating site on the Spanish version of operetta.