The Greeks had a word for it. Mousike meant not only music but poetry, as well as dance and elementary education. Since ancient times, though, words and music have drifted apart, splitting into the parallel but distinct worlds of opera and theater. We devotees of music agree with Mozart that opera is a melodic and harmonic form to which some words should be assigned as its handmaiden. Wagner, first and foremost a man of the theater, would have begged to differ.

Richard Strauss examined this dichotomy in three separate operas. “Ariadne auf Naxos” and “Intermezzo” each dealt with the schism emblematically, but his last effort, “Capriccio,” directly addressed the competition between words and music in opera. In this 1942 work, the poet Olivier and the composer Flamand are rival suitors for the heroine, Countess Madeleine, but Strauss ultimately left this anthropomorphic struggle unresolved. Indeed, the work is at least as much about texture as it is about storytelling.

The New York City Opera, which last season scored a major success with the late Strauss effort “Daphne” as its opener, rekindled the magic Wednesday night, when it kicked off its fall season with “Capriccio.” The opera opens in a particularly ear catching manner. The first 10 minutes or so are given over to a string sextet – not an overture per se, but rather an establishment of a most rarified intimacy. The strings of the orchestra performed beautifully under the baton of music director George Manahan, although the full ensemble surrendered to some ragged passages as the evening wore on.

City Opera is a young company, and one mature voice often dominates disproportionately. Such was the case this opening night, though the effect was a positive one. Bass Eric Halfvarson as the theater director La Roche – a Max Reinhardt character who argues that his craft is more important than either the composer’s or the poet’s – had such throbbing resonance to his voice that every one of his youthful colleagues paled by comparison. Mr. Half varson portrayed the director as a paragon of power and pomposity and ranged deeply into his lower octaves with no loss of intonation. He will be singing at the Met this season, both as Ramfis in “Aida” and as Sparafucile in the highly anticipated “Rigoletto” with soprano Anna Netrebko.

Tenor Ryan MacPherson (Flamand) has a sweet but light voice and baritone Mel Ulrich (Olivier) also is in need of some added heft to his declamations, but both performed well, especially in ensemble. In combination with soprano Pamela Armstrong (the countess), the so-called sonnet trio, which begins with “Kein Andres, das mir so im Herzen loht,” was the highlight of the artificially created “first act.” (Strauss actually wrote “Capriccio” without an intermission, but a tradition developed at Glyndebourne to split it into two somewhat equal parts, a principle with which City Opera judiciously complied.)

Ms. Armstrong was wonderful in the final scene, her luminescent voice augmented by dusky, low candlelight. Elsewhere, she seemed off her game, and exhibited several bouts of relative inaudibility. Perhaps she was simply saving herself for the big finale – but the role isn’t exactly Isolde, and a star should be able to go all-out for the entire evening.

More impressive was contralto Claire Powell in the difficult and thankless part of the actress Clairon, who is described in the Clemens Krauss libretto with the phrase “if only she could sing.” Not only did Ms. Powell sing well, but she also had to act in a non-musical scene and employ some minimal sprechstimme (speaking in pitch). She did so with a great deal of professionalism.

Still, you would have to suspend a lot more than simple disbelief to appreciate this piece of Nazi burgomeisterism. I can envision many sympathetic nods at the Munich premiere in 1942 when La Roche suggests eliminating the Jews from opera plots. Strauss’s thesis seems to have been that to support the war effort one should become as comfortable as possible. The composer of the “Simphonia Domestica,” where the “clatter of knife and fork” can be heard, constructed his last opera to extol the pleasures of suburban living. This new production captures that spirit, although director Stephen Lawless allows a bit too much fussing with chairs in virtually every scene.

There is a circus-like atmosphere in “Capriccio,” and this production does a fine job of conveying the three-ring action. The servants are always busy; the dancer, none other than prima ballerina Ashley Bouder of the New York City Ballet, performs her passepied, gigue, and gavotte with considerable aplomb and grace (at least to these neophyte eyes); the Italian singers are outlandishly dressed by Ashley Martin-Davis. All eight singers get together for the “Laughing Ensemble” and “Dispute” without getting in each other’s way. Perhaps I need to explain: the opera depends on the joke that these people are all 20th-century Germans pretending to be 18th-century French people, but acting in a 16th-century Italian style.

In fact, these in-jokes are a major part of the fabric of the piece. Since the crowd at the New York State Theater is virtually the same every year for opening night, the section wherein the characters discuss the impossibilities of effectively staging “Daphne,” especially her transformation into a tree, elicited quite a bit of knowing laughter on Wednesday night.

It was important to involve this audience, and the company succeeded admirably. This only works for one night, when the performance is followed by a gala dinner, but how appropriate was it that the opera ends with the line “Supper is served!”

“Capriccio” will performed again on September 10, 14, 16, 18, 20 & 24 (Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500).