Passage A

Music does not always gain by association with words. Like images, words can excite the deepest emotions but are inadequate to express the emotions they excite. Music is more adequate, and hence will often seize an emotion that may have been excited by images or words, deepen its expression, and, by so doing, excite still deeper emotion. That is how words can gain by being set to music.

But to set words to music—as in opera or song—is in fact to mix two arts together. A striking effect may be produced, but at the expense of the purity of each art. Poetry is a great art; so is music. But as a medium for emotion, each is greater alone than in company, although various good ends arise from linking the two, providing that the words are subordinated to the more expressive medium of music. What good could any words do for Beethoven's Fifth Symphony? So too an opera is largely independent of words, and depends for its aesthetic value not upon the poetry of the libretto (the words of the opera), or even the plot or scenery, but upon its emotional range—a region dominated by the musical element.

Passage B

Throughout the history of opera, two fundamental types may be distinguished: that in which the music is primary, and that in which there is, essentially, parity between music and other factors. The former, sometimes called "singer's opera"—a term which has earned undeserved contempt—is exemplified by most Italian operas, while the latter, exemplified by the operas of German composer Richard Wagner, depend for their effect on a balance among many factors of which music is only one, albeit the most important. Theoretically, it would seem that there should be a third kind of opera, in which the music is subordinated to the other features. While the earliest operas were of this kind, their appeal was limited, and a fuller participation of music was required to establish opera on a secure basis.

In any event, in any aesthetic judgment of opera, regardless of the opera's type, neither the music nor the poetry of the libretto should be judged in isolation. The music is good not if it would make a good concert piece but if it serves the particular situation in the opera in which it occurs, contributing something not supplied by other elements. Similarly, the poetry is good not because it reads well by itself but primarily if, while embodying a sound dramatic idea, it furnishes opportunity for effective musical and scenic treatment. True, the elements of music and poetry may be considered separately, but only for purposes of analyzing their formal features. In actuality these elements are as united as hydrogen and oxygen are united in water. It is this union—further enriched and clarified by the visual action—that results in opera's inimitable character.