Operetta

Operetta, stage play with songs and dance interspersed with dialogue. In the 18th century, the term meant a short opera, but in the 19th and 20th centuries it came to mean a play with music of light character and popular appeal. The French operetta developed in small theatres such as the Bouffes Parisiens, founded by the composer Jacques Offenbach. The form, originally a one-act piece, later grew into a three-act or four-act play that approached the opéra comique. Offenbach's 90-odd operettas include Orpheus in the Underworld (1858) and La Périchole (1868). For these works, he and his countryman Charles Lecocq, composer of La fille de Madame Angot (1872), used the term opéra bouffe.

The roots of the Viennese operetta lay in the singspiel and the local farce. Franz von Suppé helped to establish this form and excelled in it, producing such works as The Beautiful Galatea (1865), Light Cavalry (1866), and Boccaccio (1879). With Johann Strauss, the younger, Viennese operetta reached international repute. His younger contemporary Karl Millöcker produced The Beggar Student (1882) to acclaim in Great Britain and the United States. The waltz was an essential element in the operetta of the younger Strauss, and with Die Fledermaus (1874) he introduced a significant quality of sentimentality and operatic seriousness, which became an important musical facet of the typical Viennese second-act finale. Other Viennese composers of operettas were Franz Lehár, who wrote The Merry Widow (1905); Robert Stolz, known for his White Horse Inn (1936); Oscar Straus, composer of The Chocolate Soldier (1909); and Emmerich Kalman, composer of Countess Maritza (1924).

The English operetta developed from the short ballad opera to more extended works. British playwright John Gay created one of the finest examples of ballad opera in his work The Beggar's Opera (1728). Gay's political and social satire influenced artists who followed, including playwright Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill. The best-known extended work, Clari, or the Maid of Milan (1823), by Sir Henry Bishop, is remembered for the tune “Home, Sweet Home”. The development reached a climax in the light operas of Sir Arthur Sullivan and Sir William S. Gilbert, among them H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). A late example is Bitter Sweet (1929), with libretto and music by Sir Noel Coward.

The outstanding American operetta composer was the Irish-born Victor Herbert, whose 40 operettas included The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). Among other noted Americans in this field were Reginald De Koven, the Czech-born Rudolf Friml, and the Hungarian-born Sigmund Romberg. American operettas that achieved considerable success include De Koven's Robin Hood (1890), Friml's Rose Marie (1924) and Vagabond King (1925), and Romberg's Student Prince (1924) and Desert Song (1926). After 1930, operetta in the United States gradually merged into the musical or musical comedy.