Music, poetry, and the artistic value of opera

Adding lyrics doesn't automatically make music better. That is A's opening claim in plain language. Think of a piece of instrumental music that already works without words. Why assume it needs lyrics? A isn't yet saying words can never help; the opening says music does not always gain from them.

The next distinction is between stirring up a feeling and expressing it. Words or images can make us feel something deeply, yet still struggle to express that feeling. A thinks music can take up the emotion and express it more fully, producing an even deeper response. That explains how words can benefit from being set to music. The benefit doesn't automatically run equally in both directions.

Then A raises a cost: combining poetry and music mixes two distinct arts. The result may be striking, but each loses its purity. We might enjoy a song with lyrics and still understand the author's different claim about emotional expression: poetry and music are each stronger on their own. We don't have to share that judgment to follow the argument.

There is a qualification worth keeping. A allows “various good ends” from combining the arts, provided the words take a secondary role to the more expressive music. The claim isn't an absolute ban on combining them. It is a claim about what should lead when they are combined.

The Beethoven example makes that preference concrete: what would words add to the Fifth Symphony? A then applies the same emphasis to opera. Its artistic value depends largely on its emotional range, which music dominates. The words, plot, and scenery are not what primarily give it that value.

Main point of A: Poetry and music are each emotionally stronger alone, and when they are combined in opera, music should dominate because it largely supplies the work's artistic value.

B starts by separating two types of opera. In singer's opera, exemplified by most Italian operas, music is primary. In the other type, exemplified by Wagner, the effect depends on greater balance among several elements. Even there, B calls music the most important element. Valuing the other components does not require treating music as unimportant.

The phrase “undeserved contempt” gives us an opinion: B thinks singer's opera has been unfairly looked down on. B also describes an earlier type in which music took a secondary role. Its appeal was limited, and opera needed fuller musical participation to become established. So B, too, sees music as important.

The real contrast with A appears in B's second paragraph. Whatever the type of opera, judge the music and words through what they contribute to the whole. A musical section need not work as an independent concert piece to work in an opera. The question is what it adds to the particular situation onstage. Likewise, the words needn't be an impressive standalone poem; they should present a sound dramatic idea and create opportunities for effective music and staging.

B permits separating the elements to analyze their formal features. But that is different from judging their artistic effectiveness in an opera. The hydrogen-and-oxygen comparison makes the distinction vivid: we can discuss the components separately, yet the opera's particular character comes from their union. The visual action enriches that union too.

Main point of B: An opera's music and words should be judged by how they work together with the action to create the whole, rather than by their value in isolation.

Both authors consider music important. Their disagreement is about the contribution of the other elements: A locates opera's value largely in its music, while B treats the combined work as the thing we need to evaluate.