Download a free copy of the first scene of The Manga Flute here. If you would like more information about performing The Manga Flute or you'd like to buy a printing copy of the libretto, please contact the author, David Scott Marley.

The Manga Flute reviews

• “Superb ... bold, outlandish, delectable entertainment ... [Marley’s] libretto is a thing of wonder” — San Francisco Classical Voice
• “Charming ... delightful ... chief among the pleasures is the sleek virtuosity of Marley’s libretto” — San Francisco Chronicle
• “A poetic and fanciful libretto ... surprising in the scope of its originality” — Repeat Performances

Other Manga Flute links

• “Music News” at San Francisco Classical Voice

Juggling in Handcuffs

So why the title?

Writing a libretto—the book for an opera or a musical—is the most technically demanding form of writing I know.

As a rough rule of thumb, if the musical or opera has spoken dialogue between the musical numbers, the libretto (counting both sung and spoken words) typically contains about half as many words as a spoken play of the same length. And if it's fully sung—no spoken dialogue—then the number of words is cut roughly in half again.

So if you're telling your story through song, you need to find a way to get it across in far fewer words than you'd use if it were a spoken play. You develop techniques for speeding up your story. You learn to simplify, to leave out whatever is not essential. You cut every subplot, character, scene, speech, word, and even syllable that you can. You develop ways to make two or three lines do the work of nine or ten, implying to your audience much more than you actually take the time to say.

Only it's trickier than that, because sung words are harder for the audience to catch. So your sentences have to be simpler and clearer than they would have to be in a spoken play. Natural stresses and pauses in the words have to match those in the music. You repeat things more, or say the same thing several times in different words, to make sure your important points are made. You rely more on familiar turns of phrase and tend to shy away from unusual words and usages, so that the context will help the audience make out anything they don't hear perfectly.

Only it's still trickier than that, because the words also have to be easy for the performers to sing on the notes. Long notes and high notes need open vowels and an avoidance of hard final consonants. You can't put thick consonant clusters and other tongue twisters on fast musical phrases.

So not only are you trying to tell a good story in an engaging way, not only are you trying to do everything in your story that a good playwright does—set a feeling of time and place, set a mood, develop believable characters, develop conflicts, keep your story moving forward—but you're trying to do all that in half the words (or fewer) while constrained by all these purely technical limitations on which words you can use where. And as deftly as if those constraints weren't there.

If I ever write a book about the craft of libretto writing, I'm going to call it Juggling in Handcuffs. In the meantime, this website is a place for me to write about my writing, promote my work, keep my online journal, and let friends know what's going on with me.

• Juggling in Handcuffs
• About David Scott Marley
• Opera and operetta adaptations
• Features and interviews
• Other stuff

• Juggling in Handcuffs >