Comic opera , sometimes known as light opera , is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
55-650: Erminie is a comic opera in two acts composed by Edward Jakobowski with a libretto by Claxson Bellamy and Harry Paulton, based loosely on Charles Selby 's 1834 English translation of the French melodrama , Robert Macaire . The story concerns an arranged engagement between Ermine and Ernest, but both are in love with someone else. The piece first played in Birmingham , England, and then in London in 1885. A long-running production opened on Broadway in 1886, and
110-585: A Monastery (1940–1941, staged 1946), and Dmitri Shostakovich 's The Nose (1927–1928, staged 1930). Simultaneously, the genres of light music , operetta , musical comedy , and later, rock opera , were developed by such composers as Isaak Dunayevsky , Dmitri Kabalevsky , Dmitri Shostakovich (Opus 105: Moscow, Cheryomushki , operetta in 3 acts, (1958)), Tikhon Khrennikov , and later by Gennady Gladkov , Alexey Rybnikov and Alexander Zhurbin . The 21st century in Russian comic opera began with
165-636: A cheat and a matchmaker , text by Alexander Ablesimov (1779), on a subject resembling Rousseau 's Devin , is attributed to Mikhail Sokolovsky . Ivan Kerzelli , Vasily Pashkevich and Yevstigney Fomin also wrote a series of successful comic operas in the 18th century. In the 19th century, Russian comic opera was further developed by Alexey Verstovsky who composed more 30 opera-vaudevilles and 6 grand operas (most of them with spoken dialogue). Later, Modest Mussorgsky worked on two comic operas, The Fair at Sorochyntsi and Zhenitba ("The Marriage"), which he left unfinished (they were completed only in
220-563: A countermeasure to the continental operettas, commissioned Clay's collaborator, W. S. Gilbert , and the promising young composer, Arthur Sullivan , to write a short one-act opera that would serve as an afterpiece to Offenbach's La Périchole . The result was Trial by Jury ; its success launched the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership. "Mr. R. D'Oyly Carte's Opera Bouffe Company" took Trial on tour, playing it alongside French works by Offenbach and Alexandre Charles Lecocq . Eager to liberate
275-515: A dozen hits, were Babes in Toyland (1903) and Naughty Marietta (1910). Others who wrote in a similar vein included Reginald de Koven , John Philip Sousa , Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml . The modern American musical incorporated elements of the British and American light operas, with works like Show Boat and West Side Story , that explored more serious subjects and featured
330-505: A mixture of sentiment and humour, Offenbach's works were intended solely to amuse. Though generally well crafted and full of humorous satire and grand opera parodies, plots and characters in his works were often interchangeable. Given the frenetic pace at which he worked, Offenbach sometimes used the same material in more than one opera. Another Frenchman who took up this form was Charles Lecocq . The singspiel developed in 18th-century Vienna and spread throughout Austria and Germany. As in
385-632: A place of evil repute to the righteous British householder.... A first effort to bridge the gap was made by the German Reed Entertainers. Nevertheless, an 1867 production of Offenbach's The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (seven months after its French première) ignited the English appetite for light operas with more carefully crafted librettos and scores, and continental European operettas continued to be extremely popular in Britain in
440-419: A separate genre, an early precursor having been the operatic comedy, Il Trespolo tutore , by Alessandro Stradella , in 1679. Opera buffa was a parallel development to opera seria , and arose in reaction to the so-called first reform of Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Metastasio . It was, in part, intended as a genre that the common man could relate to more easily. Whereas opera seria was an entertainment that
495-1162: A tight integration among book, movement and lyrics. In Canada, Oscar Ferdinand Telgmann and George Frederick Cameron composed in the Gilbert and Sullivan style of light opera. Leo, the Royal Cadet was performed for the first time on 11 July 1889 at Martin's Opera House in Kingston, Ontario . The line between light opera and other recent forms is difficult to draw. Several works are variously called operettas or musicals, such as Candide and Sweeney Todd , depending on whether they are performed in opera houses or in theaters. In addition, some recent American and British musicals make use of an operatic structure, for example, containing recurring motifs, and may even be sung through without dialogue. Those with orchestral scores are usually styled "musicals", while those played on electronic instruments are often styled rock operas . Opera buffa Opera buffa ( Italian: [ˈɔːpera ˈbuffa] , "comic opera"; pl. : opere buffe )
550-497: A tree. They disguise Ravennes as Ernest and Cadeau as a Baron and blunder into the Lion d'Or for the betrothal, saying that they were waylaid by thieves. Seeing the wealthy wedding guests, they scheme to make off with a lot of money. Cadeaux gets drunk, however, and his bad manners nearly spoil the scheme. Ernest eventually escapes his bonds and arrives late and in disordered attire at the Lion d'Or. Seeing Ernest, Ravennes cries "Seize
605-452: Is a genre of opera . It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as commedia in musica , commedia per musica , dramma bernesco , dramma comico , divertimento giocoso . Especially associated with developments in Naples in the first half of the 18th century, whence its popularity spread to Rome and northern Italy , buffa
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#1732786842969660-555: Is by Elena Polenova, based on a folk-drama, Tsar Maksimilyan , and the work premiered on June 20, 2001, at the Mariinski Theatre , St Petersburg. Prize "Gold Mask, 2002" and "Gold Soffit, 2002". The Children of Rosenthal ( Дети Розенталя ), an opera in two acts by Leonid Desyatnikov , with a libretto by Vladimir Sorokin . This work was commissioned by the Bolshoi theatre and premiered on March 23, 2005. The staging of
715-520: Is secretly in love with Cerise Marcel, who is Eugene's sister and Erminie's friend. Eugène and Cerise are orphans who were taken into his household by Erminie's father. Eugene feels that his subservient position makes it impossible for him to ask the Marquis for Erminie's hand in marriage. On his way to the betrothal ceremony, Ernest runs into a pair of crafty "philanthropists" (thieves), Ravennes and Cadeau, who steal his money and wardrobe and tie him to
770-543: Is the one intermezzo still performed with any regularity today, and provides an excellent example of the style. Lo frate 'nnamorato (1732) and Il Flaminio (1735), by Pergolesi as well, are examples of the three-act commedia per musica . Apart from Pergolesi, the first major composers of opera buffa were Alessandro Scarlatti ( Il trionfo dell'onore , 1718), Nicola Logroscino ( Il governatore , 1747) and Baldassare Galuppi ( Il filosofo di campagna , 1754), all of them based in Naples or Venice . The work of these
825-513: The singspiel and the French model. Franz von Suppé is remembered mainly for his overtures. Johann Strauss II , the "waltz king", contributed Die Fledermaus (1874) and The Gypsy Baron (1885). Carl Millöcker a long-time conductor at the Theater an der Wien , also composed some of the most popular Viennese operettas of the late 19th century, including Der Bettelstudent (1882), Gasparone (1884) and Der arme Jonathan (1890). After
880-416: The "first true Italian comic opera" – that is to say, it had everything: it was in standard Italian and not in dialect; it was no longer simply an intermezzo, but rather an independent piece; it had a real story that people liked; it had dramatic variety; and, musically, it had strong melodies and even strong supporting orchestral parts, including a strong "stand-alone" overture (i.e., you could even enjoy
935-568: The 1860s and 1870s, including Les Cloches de Corneville , Madame Favart and others into the 1880s, often adapted by H. B. Farnie and Robert Reece . F. C. Burnand collaborated with several composers, including Arthur Sullivan in Cox and Box , to write several comic operas on English themes in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1875, Richard D'Oyly Carte , one of the impresarios aiming to establish an English school of family-friendly light opera by composers such as Frederic Clay and Edward Solomon as
990-426: The 20th century). Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote a comic opera, Cherevichki (1885). Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed May Night 1878–1879 and The Golden Cockerel 1906–1907. In the 20th century, the best examples of comic opera by Russian composers were Igor Stravinsky 's Mavra (1922) and The Rake's Progress (1951), Sergey Prokofiev 's The Love for Three Oranges (1919) and Betrothal in
1045-625: The English stage from risqué French influences, and emboldened by the success of Trial by Jury , Carte formed a syndicate in 1877 to perform "light opera of a legitimate kind". Gilbert and Sullivan were commissioned to write a new comic opera, The Sorcerer , starting the series that came to be known as the Savoy operas (named for the Savoy Theatre , which Carte later built for these works) that included H.M.S. Pinafore , The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado , which became popular around
1100-411: The French opéra comique , the singspiel was an opera with spoken dialogue, and usually a comic subject, such as Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) and The Magic Flute (1791). Later singspiels , such as Beethoven's Fidelio (1805) and Weber's Der Freischütz (1821), retained the form, but explored more serious subjects. 19th century Viennese operetta was built on both
1155-533: The Lyric Theatre of San Jose in Mountain View, California . Erminie is the daughter of the Marquis de Pontvert. She has been promised, in an arranged marriage, to Ernest, Vicomte de Brissac. He is a young nobleman and the son of an old war comrade of Erminie's father. Erminie and Ernest have never met each other. Erminie, however, is secretly in love with her father's secretary, Eugène, and Ernest
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#17327868429691210-624: The Teatro de la Zarzuela de Madrid, but with little success and light attendance. In spite of this, in 1873 a new theater, the Teatro Apolo , was opened for zarzuela grande , which shared the failures of the Teatro de la Zarzuela, until it was forced to change its program to género chico . The first opera presented in Russia , in 1731, was a comic opera (or "commedia per musica"), Calandro , by an Italian composer, Giovanni Alberto Ristori . It
1265-524: The ability to "patter", must also extend to the baritone for the purposes of comic duets. The type of comedy could vary, and the range was great: from Rossini's The Barber of Seville in 1816 which was purely comedic, to Mozart 's The Marriage of Figaro in 1786 which added drama and pathos. Another example of Romantic opera buffa would be Donizetti's The Elixir of Love of 1832. While opera seria deals with gods and ancient heroes and only occasionally contained comic scenes, opera buffa involves
1320-667: The first and last appearances of the genre, although the term is still occasionally applied to newer work (for example Ernst Krenek 's Zeitoper Schwergewicht ). High points in this history are the 80 or so libretti by Carlindo Grolo, Loran Glodici, Sogol Cardoni and various other approximate anagrams of Carlo Goldoni , the three Mozart / Da Ponte collaborations, and the comedies of Gioachino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti . Similar foreign genres such as French opéra comique , English ballad opera , Spanish zarzuela or German Singspiel differed as well in having spoken dialogue in place of recitativo secco , although one of
1375-810: The following century, French operetta , with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner. The influence of the Italian and French forms spread to other parts of Europe. Many countries developed their own genres of comic opera, incorporating the Italian and French models along with their own musical traditions. Examples include German singspiel , Viennese operetta , Spanish zarzuela , Russian comic opera, English ballad and Savoy opera , North American operetta and musical comedy . In late 17th-century Italy, light-hearted musical plays began to be offered as an alternative to weightier opera seria (17th-century Italian opera based on classical mythology ). Il Trespolo tutore (1679) by Alessandro Stradella
1430-703: The genre was like in the 17th century. In the 18th century, the Italian operatic style influenced zarzuela . But beginning with the reign of Bourbon King Charles III , anti-Italian sentiment increased. Zarzuela returned to its roots in popular Spanish tradition in works such as the sainetes (or Entr'actes) of Don Ramón de la Cruz. This author's first work in this genre was Las segadoras de Vallecas ("The Reapers of Vallecas", 1768), with music by Rodríguez de Hita . Single act zarzuelas were classified as género chico (the "little genre" or "little form") and zarzuelas of three or more acts were género grande (the "big genre" or "big form"). Zarzuela grande battled on at
1485-486: The latter incorporating dances, with chorus numbers and humorous scenes that are usually duets. These works are relatively short, and ticket prices were often low, to appeal to the general public. There are two main forms of zarzuela : Baroque zarzuela ( c. 1630 –1750), the earliest style, and Romantic zarzuela ( c. 1850 –1950), which can be further divided into the two subgenres of género grande and género chico . Pedro Calderón de la Barca
1540-509: The mid-19th century, despite Giuseppe Verdi 's Falstaff staged in 1893. French composers eagerly seized upon the Italian model and made it their own, calling it opéra comique . Early proponents included the Italian Egidio Duni , François-André Philidor , Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny , André Grétry , François-Adrien Boïeldieu , Daniel François Auber and Adolphe Adam . Although originally reserved for less serious works,
1595-548: The most influential examples, Pergolesi 's La serva padrona (which is an intermezzo , not opera buffa), sparked the querelle des bouffons in Paris as an adaptation without sung recitatives . Opéra bouffon is the French term for the Italian genre of opera buffa (comic opera) performed in 18th-century France, either in the original language or in French translation. It was also applied to original French opéras comiques having Italianate or near-farcical plots. The term
1650-579: The most popular form of staged entertainment in Italy from about 1750 to 1800. In 1749, thirteen years after Pergolesi's death, his La serva padrona swept Italy and France, evoking the praise of such French Enlightenment figures as Rousseau . In 1760, Niccolò Piccinni wrote the music to La Cecchina to a text by the great Venetian playwright, Carlo Goldoni . That text was based on Samuel Richardson 's popular English novel, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740). Many years later, Verdi called La Cecchina
1705-456: The noisy premieres of two works whose genre could be described as "opera-farce": Tsar Demyan ( Царь Демьян ) – A frightful opera performance . A collective project of five authors wrote the work: Leonid Desyatnikov and Vyacheslav Gaivoronsky from St. Petersburg , Iraida Yusupova and Vladimir Nikolayev from Moscow , and the creative collective "Kompozitor", which is a pseudonym for the well-known music critic Pyotr Pospelov. The libretto
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1760-539: The opera enjoyed unusual international success that endured into the twentieth century. Erminie opened at the Grand Theatre, Birmingham , England, on 26 October 1885. It transferred to the Comedy Theatre in London, then under the management of Violet Melnotte , opening on 9 November 1885 and playing for a total original run of 154 performances. It starred Florence St. John who, being pregnant, ceded
1815-431: The opera was accompanied by juicy scandal; however it was an enormous success. England traces its light opera tradition to the ballad opera , typically a comic play that incorporated songs set to popular tunes. John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was the earliest and most popular of these. Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Duenna (1775), with a score by Thomas Linley , was expressly described as "a comic opera". By
1870-491: The operas of Scarlatti, Pergolesi ( La serva padrona , 1733), Galuppi ( Il filosofo di campagna , 1754), Piccinni ( La Cecchina , 1760), Paisiello ( Nina , 1789), Cimarosa ( Il matrimonio segreto , 1792), and then the great comic operas of Mozart and, later, Rossini and Donizetti . At first, comic operas were generally presented as intermezzi between acts of more serious works. Neapolitan and then Italian comic opera grew into an independent form and became
1925-479: The overture as an independent orchestral piece). Verdi was also enthusiastic because the music was by a southern Italian and the text by a northerner, which appealed to Verdi's pan-Italian vision. The genre was developed further in the first half of the 19th century by Gioachino Rossini in his works such as The Barber of Seville (1816) and La Cenerentola (1817) and by Gaetano Donizetti in L'elisir d'amore (1832) and Don Pasquale (1843), but declined in
1980-565: The plan fails, and the robbers are arrested. Nevertheless, their scheming inadvertently rescues Erminie from the arranged marriage, as both pairs – Eugene and Erminie, and Ernest and Cerise – are happily united. A minor planet , 705 Erminia , is named after the work. Comic opera Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa , emerged as an alternative to opera seria . It quickly made its way to France, where it became opéra comique , and eventually, in
2035-510: The predominant use of comic scenes, characters, and plot lines in a contemporary setting. The traditional model for opera seria had three acts, dealt with serious subjects in mythical settings, as stated above, and used high voices (both sopranos and castrati ) for principal characters, often even for monarchs. In contrast, the model that generally held for opera buffa was having two acts (as, for example, The Barber of Seville ), presenting comic scenes and situations as earlier stated and using
2090-415: The risqué state of musical theatre and introduced short comic operas designed to be more family-friendly and to elevate the intellectual level of musical entertainments. Jessie Bond wrote, The stage was at a low ebb, Elizabethan glories and Georgian artificialities had alike faded into the past, stilted tragedy and vulgar farce were all the would-be playgoer had to choose from, and the theatre had become
2145-670: The role to a young Marie Tempest in December; Melnotte took the role of Cerise. On 18 February 1886, the piece moved to the Gaiety Theatre, London , and by the end of 1885 another cast had begun touring the piece in the British provinces. It soon toured throughout the world, reaching Australia by 1889. The Broadway , New York production was extraordinarily successful, opening at the Casino Theatre on 10 May 1886 and running for 571 performances. It starred Pauline Hall as
2200-430: The second half of the 19th century, the London musical stage was dominated by pantomime and musical burlesque , as well as bawdy, badly translated continental operettas, often including "ballets" featuring much prurient interest, and visiting the theatre became distasteful to the respectable public, especially women and children. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas German Reed , beginning in 1855, and a number of other Britons, deplored
2255-435: The serious genre and the set numbers were linked by recitativo secco, the exception being Donizetti 's Don Pasquale in 1843. With Rossini, a standard distribution of four characters is reached: a prima donna soubrette (soprano or mezzo); a light, amorous tenor; a basso cantante or baritone capable of lyrical, mostly ironical expression; and a basso buffo whose vocal skills, largely confined to clear articulation and
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2310-829: The sole representatives of the genre surviving today. Only recently, some of these other English light operas have begun to be explored by scholars and to receive performances and recordings. In the United States, Victor Herbert was one of the first to pick up the family-friendly style of light opera that Gilbert and Sullivan had made popular, although his music was also influenced by the European operetta composers. His earliest pieces, starting with Prince Ananias in 1894, were styled "comic operas", but his later works were described as "musical extravaganza", "musical comedy", "musical play", "musical farce", and even "opera comique". His two most successful pieces, out of more than half
2365-439: The term opéra comique came to refer to any opera that included spoken dialogue, including works such as Cherubini's Médée and Bizet's Carmen that are not "comic" in any sense of the word. Florimond Hervé is credited as the inventor of French opéra bouffe , or opérette . Working on the same model, Jacques Offenbach quickly surpassed him, writing over ninety operettas . Whereas earlier French comic operas had
2420-467: The title character and Francis Wilson as Cadeaux. DeWolf Hopper and Sylvia Gerrish later joined the cast. Erminie enjoyed many UK, US and foreign productions and was revived on Broadway in 1893, 1899, 1903 and in 1921 with Wilson and Hopper again assuming their 1886 roles. Amateur productions were also mounted between 1895 and 1921. Erminie was performed as a staged concert production in July 2008 by
2475-520: The turn of the 20th century, Franz Lehár wrote The Merry Widow (1905); Oscar Straus supplied Ein Walzertraum ("A Waltz Dream", 1907) and The Chocolate Soldier (1908); and Emmerich Kálmán composed Die Csárdásfürstin (1915). Zarzuela , introduced in Spain in the 17th century, is rooted in popular Spanish traditional musical theatre. It alternates between spoken and sung scenes,
2530-517: The villain," claiming that Ernest is the thief who attacked them earlier in the day. Ernest is arrested and tossed in jail. At the Chateau Pontvert that evening, Ravennes, still disguised as Ernest, pretends sympathy for Erminie's love for Eugene. He promises to help her to elope. At the same time, she unwittingly helps him to rob the house and the wedding guests. Eventually, however, in a farcical comedy of errors and mistaken identities,
2585-535: The world. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company continued to perform Gilbert and Sullivan almost continuously until it closed in 1982. The Gilbert and Sullivan style was widely imitated by their contemporaries (for example, in Dorothy ), and the creators themselves wrote works in this style with other collaborators in the 1890s. None of these, however, had lasting popularity, leaving the Savoy Operas as practically
2640-424: Was also later used by Jacques Offenbach for five of his operettas ( Orphée aux enfers , Le pont des soupirs , Geneviève de Brabant , Le roman comique [ fr ] and Le voyage de MM. Dunanan père et fils ), and is sometimes confused with the French opéra comique and opéra bouffe . Comic characters had been a part of opera until the early 18th century, when opera buffa began to emerge as
2695-466: Was an early precursor of opera buffa . The opera has a farcical plot, and the characters of the ridiculous guardian Trespolo and the maid Despina are prototypes of characters widely used later in the opera buffa genre. The form began to flourish in Naples with Alessandro Scarlatti 's Il trionfo dell'onore (1718). At first written in Neapolitan dialect, these works became "Italianized" with
2750-441: Was at first characterized by everyday settings, local dialects, and simple vocal writing (the basso buffo is the associated voice type), the main requirement being clear diction and facility with patter . The New Grove Dictionary of Opera considers La Cilla (music by Michelangelo Faggioli , text by Francesco Antonio Tullio [ it ] , 1706) and Luigi and Federico Ricci 's Crispino e la comare (1850) to be
2805-436: Was both made for and depicted kings and nobility, opera buffa was made for and depicted common people with more common problems. High-flown language was generally avoided in favor of dialogue that the lower class would relate to, often in the local dialect, and the stock characters were often derived from those of the Italian commedia dell'arte . The 1701 scherzo drammatico (dramatic jest), Il mondo abbattuto by Nicola Sabini
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#17327868429692860-406: Was followed by the comic operas of other Italians, like Galuppi , Paisiello and Cimarosa , and also Belgian / French composer Grétry . The first Russian comic opera was Anyuta (1772). The text was written by Mikhail Popov , with music by an unknown composer, consisting of a selection of popular songs specified in the libretto. Another successful comic opera, The miller who was a wizard,
2915-473: Was particularly influential in Naples, creating a popular model due to its use of both Tuscan and Neapolitan dialects. In the early 18th century, comic operas often appeared as short, one-act interludes known as intermezzi that were performed in between acts of opera seria. There also existed, however, self-contained operatic comedies. La serva padrona (1733) by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736),
2970-685: Was the first playwright to adopt the term zarzuela for his work entitled El golfo de las sirenas ("The Gulf of the Sirens", 1657). Lope de Vega soon wrote a work titled La selva sin amor, drama con orquesta ("The Loveless Jungle, A Drama with Orchestra"). The instruments orchestra was hidden from the audience, the actors sang in harmony, and the musical composition itself was intended to evoke an emotional response. Some of these early pieces were lost, but Los celos hacen estrellas ("Jealousies Turn Into Stars") by Juan Hidalgo and Juan Vélez, which premiered in 1672, survives and gives us some sense of what
3025-454: Was then resumed and expanded by Niccolò Piccinni ( La Cecchina , 1760), Giovanni Paisiello ( Nina , 1789) and Domenico Cimarosa ( Il matrimonio segreto , 1792). The genre declined in the mid-19th century, despite Giuseppe Verdi 's Falstaff staged in 1893. The importance of opera buffa diminished during the Romantic period . Here, the forms were freer and less extended than in
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