The traditionally so–called ‘transitional’ period of italian melodramma, roughly corresponding to the decades of 1870s and 1880s, saw also wide transformations in its relationship with the librettos, their creation and their form. Changes happened also in the status of the libretto and of the librettist among the new publishing industry, in their stength ratio with the music and the musician and in their related production modalities, as in the specific examples of librettists Angelo Zanardini and Carlo D’Ormeville. Great importance was to be found in new poetry configurations in the domain of meter, of ‘liricity’ and of solo, duo and collective singing forms and in ‘metasinging’ prescription.