Some Reflections on Opera as a Medium

Abstract

Every artistic medium reflects some area of human experience. These areas often overlap but never coincide, for if two media could do the same thing equally well one would be unnecessary.When someone, like myself, after years of working in one medium, essays another for the first time, he should always, I believe, try to discover its proper principles before starting work. Otherwise he is in danger of carrying over assumptions and habits of mind which have become second nature to him into a field where, as a matter of fact, they do not and cannot apply.