Opera composers have always looked to literary materials to base their music on. Their efforts have led to operas derived from the masterworks of literature, mythology, fables, fairy tales, short stories and novels.
Which characteristics of a story would catch a composer's eye and entice him to create a piece of music? Is it the plot, the background or a character's development that is the catalyst toward a musical conception? Or, is it an opera company's commission?
Gary Schmidgall in his book Literature as Opera addresses this subject. Milton Cross has compiled operatic stories in his The New Milton Cross' Complete Stories of the Great Operas.
Here is a listing of some operas that began life as another literary vehicle:
Bizet, Georges Carmen by Prosper Merimee
Britten, Benjamin Billy Budd by Herman Melville
Britten, Benjamin Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Floyd, Carlisle Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Humperdinck, Engelbert Hansel and Gretel by Brothers Grimm
Janacek, Leos House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Prokofiev, Sergey War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Rossini, Gioacchino La Cenerentola by Brothers Grimm