Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 200, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1910 — The Unreality of Opera. [ARTICLE]

The Unreality of Opera.

There are people who still complain of the unreality of opera, who cannot subject themselves to Its illusion. And indeed the illusion of opera breaks down if everything in it is not kept at the same distance from reality. In that world of musical expression we must never be suddenly lowered by any incongruous detail into the ordinary world of prose. Realism, the attempt to work upon the emotions by complete illusion of reality, is disastrous in opera. If the scene is a railway station we remember at once that people do not sing when they are catching trains.