W H Auden tillhörde de engelska avantgardisterna, utvandrade till USA 1939.Han skrev texten till Brittens Paul Bunyan (1941) och tillsammans med Chester Kallman libretton till Stravinskys Rucklarens väg (1951).
W H Auden librettist 1907-1973
Opera libretti
- Paul Bunyan (1941, libretto for operetta by Benjamin Britten; not published until 1976).
- The Rake’s Progress (1951, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Igor Stravinsky).
- Elegy for Young Lovers (1956, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze).
- The Bassarids (1961, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Hans Werner Henze based on The Bacchae of Euripides).
- Love’s Labour’s Lost (1973, with Chester Kallman, libretto for an opera by Nicolas Nabokov, based on Shakespeare’s play)