Opera Genre

Zarzuela ( in Spain, in Latinoamerica), is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular song, as well as dance. The name derives from a Royal hunting lodge, the Palacio de la Zarzuela near...

The term Opera buffa was at first used as an informal description of Italian comic opera variously classified by their authors as ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma giocoso' etc... It is especially associated with...

Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D...

Verismo (meaning "realism", from Italian vero, meaning "truth") was an Italian literary movement born approximately between 1875 and 1895. It was mainly inspired by French naturalism, and Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana were its main exponents and writers of a verismo...

Opera seria (usually called dramma per musica or melodramma serio) is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to ca. 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only...

For the racehorse, see Singspiel (horse). Singspiel ("song-play") (plural Singspiele) is a form of German-language music drama, regarded as a genre of opera. It is characterized by spoken dialogue, sometimes performed over music, interspersed with ensembles, popular...

Beijing opera or Peking opera is a form of traditional Chinese theatre which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It arose in the late 18th century and became fully developed and recognized by the mid-19th century. The form was extremely...

Comic opera, or light opera, denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending. Comic opera first developed in 18th-century Italy as opera buffa, an alternative to opera seria. It quickly made its way to France, where it became...

Ballets de cour (Court ballet) is the name given to ballet performed in the 16th and 17th centuries at court. Jean-Baptiste Lully is considered the most important composer of music for ballets de cour and was instrumental to the development of the form. During his...

Género chico (literally, "little genre") is a Spanish genre of short light dramas. It is a subgenre of zarzuela, the Spanish operetta. It differs from zarzuela grande and most other opera forms both by being short and by aiming at a proletarian audience. It could be...

Grand Opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage-effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic...

Opéra comique (plural, opéras comiques) is a French genre of opera that contains spoken dialogue. It emerged out of the popular vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent (and to a lesser extent the Comédie-Italienne). The name first appeared in...

Tragédie en musique (French lyric tragedy), also known as tragédie lyrique, is a genre of French opera introduced by Jean-Baptiste Lully and used by his followers until the second half of the eighteenth century. Operas in this genre are usually based on stories from...

Opera electronica is a modern music style that utilizes and mixes the traditional use of voices and acoustic instruments with electronical means (samplers, synthesizers, Computers and so on). This modern Opera style had appeared in the pioneering 1970s due to great...

The term Ballad Opera is used to refer to a genre of English stage entertainment - originating in the 18th century and continuing to develop in the following century and later. There are many types of ballad opera. This article describes the principal sub-genres. The...

Bel canto (Bel-Canto) (Italian, "beautiful singing"), an Italian musical term, refers to the art and science of vocal technique which originated in Italy during the late seventeenth century and reached its pinnacle in the early part of the nineteenth century during the...

Science-fiction opera is a style of opera whose subject-matter fits in or near the science fiction genre. Although currently only a small number of science-fiction operas have been written, the style’s popularity is growing rapidly. Like science-fiction literature many...

Dramma giocoso (literally: 'jocular drama'; plural: drammi giocosi) is the name of a type of opera libretto common in the mid-18th century. The term is a contraction of "dramma (giocoso) per musica" and is essentially a description of the text rather than the opera as...

Semi-opera is an early form of opera, though the term 'dramatic[k] opera' is more favoured amongst scholars. It developed in England between 1673 and 1710 and is associated with the operas of Henry Purcell, notably King Arthur and The Fairy-Queen. Semi-operas were...

Opéra bouffon is the French term for the Italian genre of opera called opera buffa performed in 18th-century France, either in the original language or in French translation. The term is sometimes confused with the French opéra comique.

Opéra bouffe (plural, opéras bouffes) is a genre of late 19th century French operetta, closely associated with Jacques Offenbach, who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens that gave its name to the form. Opéra bouffes are known for elements of...

Chamber opera is a designation for opera written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and...

Opéra féerie (plural, opéras féeries) is a French genre of opera or opéra-ballet based on fairy tales, often with elements of magic in their stories. Popular in the 18th century, from the time of Jean-Philippe Rameau onwards, the form reached its culmination with works...

Opera semiseria ('semi-serious opera') is an Italian genre of opera, popular in the early and middle 19th century. Related to the opera buffa, opera semiseria contains elements of comedy but also of pathos, sometimes with a pastoral setting. It can usually be...