The intersection between literature and music is a major feature in Anglo-American cultural history. The present volume analyzes the transatlantic migration of European opera and its appropriation by some of the most important literary figures of the United States. The presence of opera in literary texts is always “operative” and results in artistic outputs possessing more articulated and tense vectors of meaning. The comparative method applied confirms the musical sensitivity of masters such as Poe, Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, Wharton, Cather, reveals the intriguing contradictions in the poetics of Emerson, Thoreau and James and vindicates the role of some minor figures who, through their involvement in the world of musical theater, contributed to the intercultural context.