Need Good Book For My Opera
Now that composer Dr. Oskar Morawetz has won the coveted Montreal Symphony Orchestra's competition for a piano concerto, he is looking forward to the day when he will compose an opera.
"This form has always been in the back of my mind," he said, "But
unfortunately I find that a good libretto is of great importance and it is a difficult thing to find."
Gifted poets, he said, are not necessarily good librettists and most of the operas in the standard repertoire would not be successful if they were being premiered now because of the weakness of the lines.
Dr. Morawetz, one of Canada's best known composers, heard about the $1,000 competition last February and began working toward the May first deadline.
Dr. Morawetz, who was born in Czechoslovakia and now teaches composition at the Faculty of Music, began taking an interest in music when he was very young.
"My mother asked me if I would like to play the piano," he recalled. "I thought it would
be like learning a new card trick and when I could not play after the first half hour I was disappointed."
After mastering the piano he decided to conduct, but the war hampered his plans and only when he arrived in Canada in 1940 did he find the peace that was necessary to direct him toward composition.
