Abstract

There are many operas that are based on false historical facts, use stage directions that contradict the libretto or make incorrect use of musical forms. This article considers whether the alteration of the empirical truth of an opera compromises or alters its ontological truth in any way, since analysing every layer of an opera is fundamental in order to understand it. As we will see in reference to the three fundamental components of opera – librettos, scores and stage designs – and taking Bizet’s Carmen and Verdi’s Don Carlos as examples, this becomes problematic when the empirical criteria of truth is compromised. However, as we shall suggest throughout the article, the hermeneutic reading can be considered as the means of interpreting what truly constitutes opera as a work of art and how a truth is achieved therein that does not unfold in any other way.