I ruled out C and D because neither passage ever talked about the conditions required for an opera to be successful, so I considered these answers to be out of scope.
B is incorrect, because the author of Passage A very clearly (to me) and repetitively stressed that music was the most important part, so they would not reject it.
E - this is incorrect because there is not enough information in passage A to determine whether or not they would accept or reject it. so essentially it is also out of scope like C and D were.
I chose A because the author of passage B endorses operas being judged by considering all of its features together, and not in isolation. In passage A, however, the author stresses that basically the non-musical features need the music to be better, whereas the music is already strong on its own. Passage A also states that when you combine features, it compromises the purity of the mixed art forms, so this was also a clue for me that the the nonmusical elements are not essential to the aesthetic value of the opera, but instead it likely diminishes it. So passage B would accept this, but Passage A would reject it.
RitaOctober 22, 2021
This part of the passage (copied and pasted below) threw me off because if the author feels we shouldn't judge anything in isolation, why is she/he/they saying specific aesthetics are essential? :/
lines 39-41
" 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."
