I just started up this topic on rec.theatre.music.opera. Here are some of
my own thoughts, and those of others, on the differences between operas
and musicals:
1) It's an opera is the composer says it is. It's a musical if the
composer says it is.
2) Opera is more consistently demanding of its singers than musicals are.
Yes, there are some incredible "opera quality" singers in musical theatre
(e.g., Alfred Drake, Barbara Cook, Audra McDonald, etc.) - but the music
they are singing is not so physically demanding that they can't manage to
do the requisite 8 performances per week.
3) Operas are NOT performed every night, and twice on Saturday, in an
ongoing "run" for as long as audiences are willing to pay to see them.
A "run" of an opera at a particular opera house is likely to be from 5 to
10 intermittent performances - i.e., one performance every third night of
a given opera, spread out over the course of several weeks.
4) The singer's approach to preparing a role is very different in opera:
you do not find musical theatre singers going to vocal coaches,
musical coaches, interpretive coaches, diction coaches (unless they have
to portray characters with foreign accents), etc. Nor do you find them
learning and preparing roles in anticipation of POSSIBLY being cast in
them, working on roles for a year or more before rehearsals actually begin,
extensively studying and EMULATING great interpretations of the same role
by other singers, etc., the way opera singers do. Indeed, the only actors
I know of whose preparation even comes close to what opera singers must do
to prepare a role are Shakespeareans.
5) In opera, the music dominates - it's more important than even the
best-written libretti, it's more important than the staging, the acting,
etc. All other aspects of an opera performance are IN SERVICE OF the
music. In musical theatre, by contrast, the music and the lyrics are
equally important, the singer must be able to sing, but more importantly
he/she must be able to ACT. Many musical theatre performers who don't sing
all that well are still able to captivate audiences by being wonderful
actors, dancers, and generally great PERFORMERS. In opera, it's still all
about VOICE. If you sing like Corelli, audiences are going to forgive you
for A LOT.
6) Opera still requires a greater suspension of disbelief than musical
theatre. Given equally incredible plots, and an equally incredible
*premise* - i.e., that people break out into song to express themselves
when, in real life, they would simply talk - musical theatre has always
tried to at least make itself VISUALLY believable: the young pretty
characters are played by young pretty actresses, for example. In opera, by
contrast, though "lookism" is creeping in slowly, there is still a LOT
more leeway in terms of "realism" in casting: you still find 50-year-old
caucasian sopranos playing a 15-year-old Japanese geisha, and 350-pound
middle aged tenors playing 25-year old athletic sons of Norse gods. This
would NOT happen in musical theatre.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths.
- Proverbs 3:6
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