From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: rec.music.classical FAQ
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 18:03:39 GMT

In article <mr.717238991@rwthi3> mr@rwthi3.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Matthias Rademacher) writes:
>> Q9. What is the difference between an opera and a musical?

>My answer: The requirements to the work. Musicals are changed
>for every produdiction without respecting the composers 
>wishes.

Also true of most operas, especially older ones.  "Werktreue" in opera
is a very new phenomenon.

> A musical depends on the financial success, an opera
>not to the same degree. (That is not completely correct if
>You include baroque opera, that is more like todays musical.)

Uh, right.  Better: opera is subsidized, musicals generally are not.

>My thesis: In general there is no difference between opera and
>musical. The difference arises from what people are doing
>with the music. Best example: Leonard Bernsteins "Candide", which
>was treated  as Opera and as Musical.

Right -- in different settings. But most musicals do have some features
that operas do not, e.g., that the principals dance.  Ever see a 
Heldentenor dance?

(In English Semi-Opera, the principals didn't sing, either...)

>> Generally, a musical has dialogue with interspersed songs.  Opera is
>> generally sung through, the dialogue portions being replaced with
>> Trecitatives (music which is intoned in a way that resembles speech).

>What ist with Kurt Weills and Bert Brechts "Die Dreigroschenoper"?

Which they called "Ein Songspiel." 

>> There are notable exceptions to this rule, namely Carmen (Bizet) and
>> The Magic Flute (Mozart), both of which have spoken dialogue. The
>> German name for operas with spoken dialogue is singspiel (pronounced
>> ZING-shpeel).  

>You should mention "Die Entfuerung aus dem Serail" and "Der 
>Freischuetz".

Fidelio, Fierrabras, Oberon, etc.

>> German productions pre-Wagner were always singspiel

>Very interesting! What is with "Undine" by E.T.A.Hoffmann? What is with
>"Ariadne" be Jiri Antonin (or Georg Anton) Benda? What is with the
>Hamburg baroque Opera (Reinhard Keiser, early Georg Friedrich Haendel)?

Very uninteresting -- those are exceptions to a general rule.  You might
also have mentioned Schubert's Alfonso u. Estrella, Weber's Euryanthe,
and a few others.  In general, German Opera was Singspile before the 
breakthrough of Fliegender Hollaender.

>What with the Oepras by Heinrich Schuetz (which are unfortunately lost)?

Plural?  Other than _Daphne_, I can't think of any.  Besides, this is
a lost tradition, as is Hamburg opera (which wasn't all German, either;
Keiser and Haendel and Mattheson's operas all had Italian arias mixed
in with the German ones).

>Perhaps You should say NEARLY ALL ROMANTIC GERMAN operas.

No, it's a good general statement; the German operatic tradition as
we know it had no successful through-composed examples before 1843.

>> Another important difference is that in musicals, the principal
>> singers also dance.  In opera that never happens.

>What's with Salome? I just heard an Interview with Catherine
>Malfitano, who thinks it's the most difficult role she ever
>sang because she has to sing after the "Tanz mit den sieben
>Schleiern". She made a physical training programme for more
>than a half Year to manage this role!

Great -- so the rule held for 3 centuries, until 1906.  Again, the
exceptions are pretty trivial.

>In good productions nearly all singers are dancing in any sense
>(ok, not in the Metropolitan Opera). 

No.

>Has anybody a good idea to make a better difference between opera
>and Oratorio?

Originally, no difference in style; later, staging and subject matter
and time.place of performance became the keys.

Roger