Musicals vs Operas

Just to kick-start this brand-spanking new section (thanks Granty!), I thought I'd pose the toughest question there is in this area..... just what the hell is the difference between a musical and an opera?

Given that we are all eargerly awaiting the arrival of "Les Miserables" at the Regal (some more eagerly than others though, I have to say), and that that production features opera-type dudes like David Dockery and Justin Freind right alongside your more musical-theatre-type broads like Amanda Chesterton and Gillian Binks, I was wondering where people drew the line.

Is "Les Mes" an opera? Is "Threepenny Opera" a musical? Or vice versa? Or neither?

Thoughts, people!



D.M.

I'd have to say that the way I differentiate is purely and simply with the vocal quality that is used. 'Candide' by Bernstein is classified as an opera, whereas 'West Side Story' and 'On the Town' by the same composer are definitely musicals, despite the fact that there is not much difference in the keys, tone sets and tessituras used in all three. The main difference is that you have the 'lofty', low larynx, high soft palate, vowel heavy classical sound in the opera, and twangy, high larynx belters and legit singers in the two musicals, with more emphasis on consonants. There is also more talking in the two musicals, but then Messers Lloyd-Webber, Rice, Boubil, & Shoenberg have changed the goalposts dramatically there if you're using that as a guage.

Les Mis is definitely a musical - because of the vocal qualities used. Even the opera types like David, Justin and Simon are going for a much twangier 'flatter' sound than they will be using, say, in Marriage of Figaro. Then there are your stock standard belters like me and Gill who leave no question as to which genre the show is set in. Andrew Lloyd-Webber has an annoying tendency to refer to his musicals as 'operas' but quite frankly, I don't think the emporer is wearing any clothes. As long as he keeps casting belters like Elaine Paige and legit sopranos like Sarah Brightman and Marina Prior, they are sung-through musicals. Full stop.

The Threepenny Opera...weeell. Kurt Weill I'd almost say is a genre all on his own, with his jazz-derived music, smutty lyrics, and songs for women in incredibly low keys. Let's just say, if it's Ute Lemper singing it, it's a musical. If it's Ana Sofie Von Otter (in mezzo mode) it's an opera.

And, as a last word, if you cast Les Mis with opera singers, it would still be a musical, but you'd get no audiences, because I'd burn the theatre down before you went up, Meadows, so don't even think about it. Eponine & Fantine have to be belters, and Valjean has to have the edgier music theatre 'sound' - there's no way a hardened criminal would have a beautiful classical tenor voice. Likewise, however, I wouldn't cast 'La Boheme' with musical theatre singers. I guess that's where another differentiation could be made - is vocal line taking precedence (opera) or is text more important (musicals and, I controversially suggest, Gilbert and Sullivan)?

Amanda Chesterton

PS If any one uses this discussion as another 'opera is better than musical theatre' argument, by God I shall get violent...

Hello all,


Actually, I can understand where Amanda is coming from because in all the musicals and operas which I've seen in my lifetime- i can see clear distinctions between the styles of presentation, vocal tone and quality of performers and performances. I won't get into all that now as I think Amanda has painted quite a clear picture of what I wanted to say in regards to this.

But- to add another thing.. I remember talking to different ppl about their Les Miserables audition experiences for the Music Spectrum production and I won't name names but i remember one or two people ringing up in regards to the auditions and were told in pleasant conversation by those ppl who were doing the auditions- that Les Mis is a "wonderful opera".

I never in my life considered Les Mis as an opera but a company putting on such an extravagantly anticipated musical at the Regal Theatre must indeed know their stuff so I have no reason to challenge or question the statement that Les Miserables is indeed considered an opera. In fact- I asked around to various professional singing teachers in Perth who do indeed know their stuff and the biggest response i got was that:

opera is a story told in music, musical theatre is a story so they can be considered very much the same in that sense.....


Does that make sense?



The Review Master

well -

in my opinion - opera and musicals are exactly the same thing.

a musical is a play with songs and music
and an opera is a play with songs and music, except it's in a different language sometimes (i think) and there are more songs.

ciao,
Amanda t

ps - i'm going to see u in les mis Amanda - on my birthday! it'd betta b good!
:-P

Hey there peoples..

I might be wrong, but I thought the difference between the two was simply the fact that in an opera all they do is sing (including to just talk). (Think Marriage of Figaro).

And for musical theatre it is that you have a show and htere is music to compliment it.... (ie, talking and music... Think Sound of Music).

Just my two cents...

James

My earliest understanding of the difference was akin to what James said. Opera's were through-composed and musicals contained spoken dialogue but that all changed somewhere along the line. Les Miserables, like many other musicals, is through-composed but I didn't consider Les Mis to be an opera (probably for the same reason that Amanda doesn't - the singing style is different).

However, my dictionary says that Opera is "musical drama", Comic Opera "has spoken dialogue and humorous treatment", Grand Opera is "sung-throughout with serious treatment" and Light Opera is "not on a serious theme".

Going by those little gems Les Miserables is in fact Grand Opera.

Cheers,
Gill

James Harley wrote:
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*And for musical theatre it is that you have a show and there is music to compliment it.... (ie, talking and music... Think Sound of Music).

Hee hee... I'd rather not- I tend to break out in hives...

James' two cents is pretty much on the money (GET OUT, you punning fiend!!) however another principal distinction between the two is the use of motif. Often the "music" bit of opera is written deliberately to underline the actions, thoughts and motivations of the characters. This does occur in musicals too ("Phantom", f'rinstance, is riddled with motifs- and I'd argue this is because Sir Toad got lazy when writing it, but that's another matter) however the "music" for most of the classic musicals are fundamentally a collection of songs that don't necessarily carry the action forward, but punctuate it.

Opera is heavily reliant on the music to carry the action forward- otherwise you're left with a collection of overweight mediterranians dressed in ludicrous costumes bellowing cacophonous gibberish for shiraz-swiilling ingrates who have turned up not to hear the score, but to see who else turned up. The score is opera's saving grace.

Eliot

There's an article in the SMH that touches lightly on this issue while discussing Australian Opera's upcoming production of Sweeney Todd.



Quotable quotes:

"I've no doubt that Sweeney Todd is an opera in the sense that it's sung through, but it was born in the musical-theatre world where you do eight performances a week."

"Sweeney Todd is taking on the status of a great musical masterpiece of the 20th century and it's why it is being done by opera companies."

"If it weren't for the subsidised performing arts companies and amateur troupes, most, if not all, of Sondheim's work would have fallen through the cracks."

Cheers
Grant

PS. I'd give my right arm to see this show! Anyone fancy a revival here when the dust settles over east?

I'm going down to see this. I'll let you know what it's like.

Bastard.

:-P

Nya nya!

My only fear is that the company will be presenting some avant garde interpretation of the show. I loved the original London version that was televised on ABC many years ago, and I would really like this production to recapture the same grimy, dark atmosphere.

My other concern is - just how good at acting are opera performers? They're fine at moving an arm and eyebrow now and then (gross generalisation I guess!) but I find it hard to imagine an interpretation as gutsy as that of a bunch of seasoned character actors, which is really what this script requires. It IS essentially a well-crafted play that happens to be boosted by great music. Can an opera company recognise the importance of that definition?

In a previous life when I had another brain cell - poasibly somewhere in around the 70's - I only ever got into surface viewing and wondermentÂ’s - although nothings changed, except the oportunity?

An Opera to me was a musical show where even the dialogue is set to music, you only ever saw 'wooden warm props' who were obviously trained to could sing , the others were all musicals. These alternative type musical shows eventualy became operettas, with the passage of time. So all musical shows eventualy, when they became old enough, would become 'A Classic' and/or an 'Opera'.

‘Tommy’, to me, could be classified as an opera, if my memory serves me correctly, there is very little if any dialogue that is not set to music - in fact I think only the word "Tommy" is said without music?

Then ,in an-aside life, I had a thought? - possibly when the word opera was first coined or assigned to musical ‘story’ shows, it was possibly done by the ‘have’s’ and ‘toffee nosed’ of the time. So as to distinguish it between the peasants musical performances and thier more structured music, produced by thier own music appreciation society - a bit like how now Shakespeare is viewed by some of or esteemed society today. Like - a present day farce as opposed to say the ‘merry wives of Windsor’ which was writ for the masses, who could just afford the price of entrance to stand on dirt floors, for the whole performance or those who could afford sit -.
Isn’t it rather funny, when I was a wee kid, the ‘Gods’ were always the cheapest?

That’s my two short 'thick' bits of wood ‘n nails worth!!!

Joe

Joe wrote:
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*‘Tommy’, to me, could be classified as an opera, if my memory serves me correctly, there is very little if any dialogue that is not set to music - in fact I think only the word "Tommy" is said without music?

Depends on the version you do. The original album as written by Pete Townshend is more of a concept album, similar to "Chess" in its construction, however the version tarted up for Broadway is definitely more of a musical format- dialogue, dances, etc.

Interestingly, these two albums are similar in construction- yet Chess is considered to be a musical (and has sod all dialogue) and Tommy is the "original rock opera".

Eliot

The problem with the "opera is sung only, musicals have dialogue" argument is that -- as pointed out already -- many "musicals" (Les Mis, Phantom, Miss Saigon) are entirely sung-through, and also that many "operas" (Carmen, The Magic Flute, Fidelio) have extended sections of spoken dialogue.


D.M.

Hmmm....You're not referring to me by any chance?

cheers
Cary

Grant Malcolm wrote:

PS. I'd give my right arm to see this show! Anyone fancy a revival here when the dust settles over east?

& Lisa replied - oh, yeah! would love to be involved & if not onstage, in the audience.. who's up for it?

Well I have heard that.............Sorry i have said too much!!!!

Joe

To me, operas seem to be highly technical (vocally) and subsequently difficult to understand (notwithstanding that they are often in other languages, it seems to be more about vowel sounds than words). That fact alone seems to make them elitist.

Musicals, on the other hand, seem easier to understand, more "pop", or "commercial" perhaps. That's not to say that you don't need technique or that they are less difficult (Sondheim is an obvious example), but your average enthusiast is more likely to sing along to a musical than an opera.

A lot of Gilbert and Sullivan seems to me to fall somewhere in the middle...perhaps that's why they are called operettas?


Craig

<8>-/=======/-------------

I saw "The Marriage of Figaro" last night and it was excellent, all four hours of it! Now these people could definately sing AND act. Really large opera singers who can't act are a thing of the past now that there are multi-talented, super-spunks like Kathryn McCusker and Emma Matthews (nee Lysons) around!

Anyway, I have realised what the real difference is between Opera and Musical Theatre. In musicals one would sing "Seventy Six trombones led the big parade" whereas in Opera one would sing "Seventy Six, O' Seventy Six trombones, big trombones, led the big, they led the big, O' yes, O' yes they led the big parade, those big trombones, they led that parade................

lol :)

Cheers,
Gill.

According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music, musical comedies, musical plays and musicals are defined thus: 'the chief form of popular musical theatre in the English-speaking world during the twentieth century. Musical comedy, which developed from comic opera and burlesque in London during the 1890s, consists of a loose plot combing comic and romantic interest and a musical score of catchy songs, ensembles and dances... The term 'musical play' indicates a work with a more substancial plot and musical score, as in Leonard Bernstein's 'West Side Story'. The term 'musical' has become current since WWII to cover the two forms... There is no precise or internationally consistent destinction between musical comedy and operetta, but the latter term usually indicates an older-style work with a romantic, Ruritanian (I do not have a dictionary at hand) story and a score using 19th Century European musical styles'. Groves V.12, p. 815. Defining opera seems a more difficult task. However Groves does suggest that 'opera is a union of music, drama and spectacle... though normally with music playing a dominant role'. Groves V.13, pp.545-46.

Joe wrote:
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> Well I have heard that.............Sorry i have said too much!!!!

That's not very fair, Joe.

"Thou impertinent milk-livered whey-face!"

While we wait for Joe to untie his tongue, a review in the SMH for AO's production.

What happens if we take the script of a straight play, write an incidental score to play under it from beginning to end to accentuate the relevant actions and emotions (aka: movie scores), give it a theme tune for the opening and curtain-call, and maybe chuck in a stand-alone monologue with its own background tune...?

If we produce the whole thing as a unified piece, is that a musical?

"ruritanian"

I don't have my dictionary at hand either, but I believe the word relates to colourful, adventurous stories with romantic plots.

Glynn - you raise an interesting point. My own feeling is that such a score would only exist as incidental music to the play, and would not convert the hypothetical play into a musical. An example close to what you suggest exists in the form of incidental music composed by Felix Mendelssohn for Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. I do not imagine that seeing a production of this play with Mendelssohn's music would cause me to think it a musical.

No. I don't think it would be a musical, although my jury's still out as to whether it could be passed off as opera.

The words in musicals consist mainly of songs, which implies that LYRICS are written. Lyrics are different to the text of a play, in that they are written with the intention of being sung. They therefore use techniques like rhyme, and repeated phrases to emphasize the musicality of the words.

Of course, there are many songs with little or no rhyming, and the "sung through" musicals have many lines that are like dialogue put to music, but they were still written to be sung, rather than simply putting music to natural dialogue. (In fact, that would apply to opera as well - a concious choice in the writing for the material to be sung.)


There are probably exceptions to the rule, but I think this thread is still trying to figure out what the rule IS.


crgwllms

<8>-/====/--------

There is a fine line between musicals and opera. Some modern works seem to blurr this boundary all together so that we cannot even name the particular style of work without argument. Also, a particular treatment can be given to a piece which may even go against the 'style' of music or original intent of the composers/writers. This can prove disasterous, but the main idea is that anything is possible and as long as the performance is effective and emotive to the viewer, it is a success and we should try to appreciate it for what it is... rather than trying to label it one way or another. Thankyou.