Operetta A Performing Art Similar To Opera

Operetta is a performing arts genre that is similar to opera but is lighter in terms of music and actual content.The operettas covered in this article are among the most popular and successful ever written, spanning the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, when the genre transformed into what we now call usicals. These operettas gave birth to some of the most well-known tunes in the world, which have now become established in their own right outside of the theatre and may be heard in a variety of settings, including concerts, records, and film music themes.

Ba-ta-clan is a one-act "chinoiserie musicale" composed by Jacques Offenbach and based on a Ludovic Halévy original French lyric. On December 29, 1855, it was originally played at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens in Paris. The operetta is under an hour long and features set numbers and spoken dialogue. Offenbach's first huge hit, Ba-ta-clan, launched his new winter theater, the Salle Choiseul. The humorous piece poked fun at everything from current events to grand opera norms.

Candide is an operetta based on Voltaire's story of the same name, with music by Leonard Bernstein. The operetta was first produced in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; however, it has been widely performed since 1974 with a book by Hugh Wheeler that is more accurate to Voltaire's novel. Richard Wilbur, a poet, was the primary lyricist.

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