ballad opera

American  

noun

1. a theater entertainment of 18th-century England, consisting of popular tunes, folk songs, and dialogue.

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ballad opera British  

noun

1. an opera consisting of popular tunes to which appropriate words have been set, interspersed with spoken dialogue

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Etymology

Origin of ballad opera

First recorded in 1770–80

Example Sentences

It’s Freddie who, in 1975, decides that Queen will defy formula and craft a new musical masterpiece that fuses ballad, opera and rock inspirations into an ear-tickling, genre-melding opus for the ages.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 29, 2018

This small-scale production, by the European Opera Centre and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, presented the only UK performance of Britten's witty re-orchestration of John Gay's 18th-century ballad opera scheduled this year.

From The Guardian • Mar. 3, 2013

In particular, the pit band in each — in Haydn’s puppet opera “Philemon and Baucis,” in the 18th-century British ballad opera “Flora” and in Wolfgang Rihm’s monodrama “Proserpina” — is small and specialized.

From New York Times • Jun. 1, 2010

In a ballad opera, airs, often sung to popular tunes of the day, alternated with spoken dialogue.

From New York Times • May 30, 2010

The Pre-Restoration Jig was little other indeed than a ballad opera in embryo lasting about twenty-five minutes and given as an after-piece.

From The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume III by Summers, Montague