Difference?

[queencharlotte]

What, please, is the difference between a musical and an opera? Recently I have seen and enjoyed Eugene Onegin, The Barber of Seville and Les Miserables, and I`ll be blowed if I can see the difference either in quality of music or singing.

[Joanne130]

Think the difference is that an opera is made up just of singing with no words spoken by th performers, a musical or operetta is made up of songs with spoken words in between..i think...agree with you musicals are fantastic

[erin-x]

Evita is a musical but has no dialogue... There must be something else.

Good question Charlotte!

[boxtops]

An opera is classical music, a musical's popular music. IMO.

[Sharingan]

Operas can be modern though like "The Minotaur".

[jno]

it might be fair to say musicals have group singing more often and operas concentrate on the solo voice.

Also, operas are much more likely to be in a foreign language.

And as Joanne says, musicals are more like plays with songs scattered throughout them, whereas operas are all sung. Evita is something of an exception (Lloyd Webber does like to sound operatic).

[erin-x]

The simplest and most concise distinction I can come up with is that in an opera the drama is largely generated by the music, while in a musical it is largely defined by the text, with the music taking an illustrative and expressive supporting role.

From here... http://www.guardian.c...andopera.artsfeatures

[queencharlotte]

Thank you everyone for your responses, especially the erudite article via Erin. I suspect there is no real dividing line with the slightly cynical suspicion that if it is likely to appeal to the majority, it`s a musical but if only to a minority, an opera! Whatever, both very, very enjoyable.