Opéra-comique

Alternating spoken dialogue and airs (Italian: arias), opéra-comique was at first, around 1750, a light, comic genre; but its subject matter expanded and during the Revolutionary era it became heroic (with composers such as Méhul, Cherubini and Lesueur), before returning to a light aesthetic during the First Empire (with Boieldieu and Isouard, in particular). But the Romantic inspiration that swept Europe in the 1820s soon endowed it with the attributes of melodrama: Zampa by Hérold, first performed in 1831, is a perfect example of the French ‘demi-caractère’, with a combination of naïve romance and vocal heroism. Later, works such as Carmen, Mignon, Lakmé and Manon were not reputed for their humour, but for their greater, more demanding vocal qualities. By the nineteenth century, the term often meant little more than works with spoken dialogue that were performed at the theatre known as the Opéra Comique (as opposed to those with recitative presented at the Paris Opéra). Faced with the paradoxical defection of comedy from the opéra-comique, another form of light entertainment had to be invented; thus, in the 1850s, Offenbach inaugurated a new genre: the operetta.

Oeuvres créées à l'Opéra-Comique