Operetta Essays

Introduction. More than 2000 years ago, the ancient Greek built the first theatre and developed it until the plays of the ancient Greek becomes famous on today’s world. The origin of the Greek classical theatre was first started between 550 BC and 220 BC where the plays were first starting in Athens. Plays during the ancient Greece were produced during a festival. The festival was known as a festival of honoring one of the Greek God called Dionysus, the God of Wine and Fertility. Dionysus was the

As many of the Cambridge Companion series do, The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, edited by William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird, provides a fine platform for bridging the historical facts and academic criticism on the musical. Instead of taking the musical into theatre history, the book focuses intently on the history of the American Musical itself and its status in contemporary American music and culture. The book is chronologically categorized into four parts with nineteen essays. These collected

theatres were licensed only as music halls and couldn’t perform plays without music. The comic opera is argued to be the earliest form of the musical theatre we know today. Offenbach was the best know composer of this style of musicals (known as operetta- music theatre comedy). His combinations of melodies and lyrics formed a model for music theatre to follow. This heavily influenced the work of Gilbert and

emerged during the late nineteenth century. Many of its structural elements were established by the works of “Harrigan & Hart” in America. Theatrical productions that led to the rise of the musical are as follow: • BALLAD OPERA & OPERETTA Ballad operas and operettas both share qualities found in traditional opera. Just like the opera, these genres are both sung in an operatic style. The ballad opera originated in England around the eighteenth century, and developed to become a type of comic opera

Penzance is that it was writing to make fun of grand opera conventions, family commitments, and one’s sense of duty. It also has several comedic themes interwoven in the opera itself. Because of the comedic theme, Pirates of Penzance is known as an operetta. This, by definition, means that it is a short opera that is light and humorous, and has speaking in

was very famous due to the songs. At the same time he was author of famous operettas. But Rip Van Winkle, theatre single, brought him reputation all over the world. He worked in accordance to Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow written by Washington Irving which reworked by Dion. This play consists of three acts [5, 13/08/2015]. Then Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille created the French version of this operetta under the title “Rip”. It was written like French libretto and warmly greeted

After the 1860s, and for the rest of the century, the American stage was once again flooded with foreign operettas. Some of these operas included: the opera-bouffes of Offenbach and Lecocq, the operettas of Suppé and Johann Strauss II, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Although The Black Crook was a successful play for it’s time the first successful American-written operetta was Willard Spencer's The Little Tycoon written in 1886. All the years of  European influence on the American

Brenda Vargas Theatre A100 March 28, 2018 Homework Assignment #2 1. Genre- In theatre Genre can be described as a way to classify types of plays. For example, there are plays that can fall under dramas, musicals, or even comedies. Genre is a way to organize plays depending on views, plots, characters, settings and even dialogue. 2. Heroic Drama- Drama is a category under Genre, however, there are different types of dramas and Heroic Drama is an example of one. This is a play that is carries less

Candide follows the journey of four youth as they explore a world that is very different from their utopian Westphalia. History and Evolution Candide has been imagined and reimagined over time. In 1953, the renowned playwright Lillian Hellman proposed to Leonard Bernstein that they adapt Voltaire 's Candide for the musical theater. Voltaire 's novella of 1758 satirized the fashionable philosophies of his day and, especially, the Catholic church whose Inquisition routinely tortured and killed "heretics"

The 20th century endured dramatic innovations in musical forms and styles. Music during this time became very diverse. Different types of ethnic groups brought their own spin on the musical background. Many traditions from different cultures started to come into play with the musical style during this century. Germany had an affect with its classical tradition that used outdoor concerts, inspired dancing, and lighter music in the early stages of the 20th century. Music became more of an art form

mental disorder and died without having recovered from his mental illness. The other romantic composer was Johann Strauss who was an Austrian composer of dance music and operettas. Johann Strauss was born on October 25, 1825 and died on June 3, 1899. He was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. Some of Johann Strauss' most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer. Strauss Junior studied the violin secretly as a child with the first violinist of

to comedically fit their purpose in the plot. The form of early musical theatre that is closest to the musical today is the French and Viennese Operettas. These featured romantic storylines, new scores, and used characters that were considered upper class, as opposed to other operas that used characters that resembled criminals. This type of operettas resembles shows many shows that are playing in New York now. Variety shows were a form of entertainment from the late 1800’s. Most featured

directors, the book includes an extended discussion of the German "studio system," a model established above all by producer Erich Pommer at the UFA corporation, Germany 's largest and most important film company. A chapter is devoted to the impact of operetta on film as a modern form of mass entertainment. Another one re-examines the complicated nexus between Weimar cinema and Hollywood film noir. Throughout, Elsaesser draws on recent developments in film history that take into account institutional,

The musical received a grant from the Endowment to fund the project. The rap-operetta-musical is not the only theatre piece that came about thanks to grants from the NEA. Other notable works include August: Osage County and Next to Normal; all three of these works won Pulitzer prizes and were influential pieces of work in the theatre

European-influenced musical theater was recognized by audiences and critics alike through Rodgers and Hammerstein’s creation of a musical comedy. "The union of two sympathetic temperaments created the first all-American, non-Broadway musical comedy (or operetta; call it what you will) independent of Viennese comic opera or French opera-bouffe on the one hand, and forty-fourth street cliches and specifications on the other. Oklahoma! turned out to be a people's opera, unpretentious and perfectly modern,

successful partnership in the American musical theatre. OKLAHOMA!, the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, was also the first of a new genre, the musical play, blending Rodgers’ sophisticated style of musical comedy with Hammerstein’s innovations in operetta. OKLAHOMA! was followed by CAROUSEL (1945), ALLEGRO (1947), SOUTH PACIFIC (1949), THE KING AND I (1951), ME AND JULIET (1953), PIPE DREAM (1955), FLOWER DRUM SONG (1958) AND THE

In the seventeenth century, a mixture of sophisticated verse drama, allegorical opera, popular song, and dance, became the fashion of the Spanish court for over the next hundreds of years. This new lyric-dramatic genre of music was created in Spain by playwright/writer/poet Calderon De La Barca during Spanish Golden Age in 1657. Zarzuela, the new music theatrical genre, was capable of alternating spoken and sung scenes. People in Spain living in that era could finally enjoy a local dramatic representation

public found out about the show “showboat” that was originally based on the novel by Edna Ferber was becoming a musical, it was a show that everyone had to see. This was the first musical with a realistic plot and did not have to do with only heavy operettas that dominated Broadway (Gernard). “The characters were far more three-dimensional and realistic, and the integration of music and plot was far more skillfully maneuvered.” (Gernard). One of the controversial topics of the show was unhappy marriages

the colored bulbs seemed to burn out too quickly (“The History of Broadway”). There was another change to the productions that were shown during this time. A new style of shows began called “Princess Theatre” which was just translations of popular operettas into modern times (“The

“Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics” (Victor Pinchuk). Musical theatre may not be the first thing that comes to mind when concerning American culture, however, the theater has greatly shaped America into what it is today. Portraying a story through song and dance allows for an expression of emotion that cannot be replicated. With this method of storytelling, artists have been able to integrate social and political issues in a way that makes the audience not only