Operetta
Nineteenth-century light opera, a stage of waltzes, jokes and romantic intrigue
Related
Operetta is the light music theatre that rose in the mid-nineteenth century: spoken dialogue, songs, chorus and dance sit side by side, the orchestra is smaller than opera's, and plots favour romantic confusion and political satire.
Offenbach put satire and the cancan into Orpheus in the Underworld; Strauss made the Viennese waltz a dramatic engine in Die Fledermaus; Lehár's Merry Widow carried the form into the twentieth century, while Gilbert and Sullivan built a distinct English branch of satirical theatre.
It is not a "short opera" or a "simplified opera": it has its own song-and-dance structure and entertainment logic. Its border with musical theatre lies in period, vocal style and amplification, not merely in the presence of dialogue.
Sources
- 轻歌剧的巴黎与维也纳源流、圆舞曲与歌舞结构，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Operetta"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.