SOURCE: Review of Four Saints in Three Acts, by Gertrude Stein. Theatre Arts Monthly (April 1934): 246-48.

In the following excerpt, the critic comments on the linguistic dimension of Four Saints in Three Acts.

The pleasantest event of the month, and the most harmonious, was undoubtedly Four Saints in Three Acts, called “an opera to be sung”, with words by Gertrude Stein and music by Virgil Thomson. If, after saying that, you add that the words were only partially successful, even judging them by their own intention, and that the music was at best happily reminiscent and well-adapted to the form of the performance, and if you go on to say that Four Saints is not, as the authors call it, an opera to be sung, but a sung dance, you may lay yourself open to the charge of straining as violently for effect as this violently artificial production...