by W. H. Auden
Sensible people may ' feel like singing ' but they do not break into sone. Yet in the world which opera can create it is accepted that there are occasions when song alone is adequate. What are the emotions and concepts which can best be conveyed through a union of the dynamic art of music, the virtuoso art of singing, a melodramatic plot, and wilfully passionate characters who insist upon their fate?
Mr. Auden examines the relation between musical and verbal statements and illustrates from his own experience of writing for opera, more especially in writing the libretto with Chester Kallman for The Bassarids.
Thtf third of Mr. Auden's T. S Eliot Memorial Lectures delivered In the University of Kent a year ago.
Second broadcast