What makes broadway different from opera?

Question

What makes broadway different from opera?

Answer 1

I thought opera was just lots of singing. Broadway is a show that has a plot and drama and characters plus singing.

Answer 2

Briefly:

Grand Opera is a fusion of drama and music where voice is the principal vehicle to the story.

In opera,charcters and plots are revealed through

song rather than speech. The music depicts the mood,character, and action and heightens the emotional effect of the story. Opera demands performers who can sing and act simultaniously,

and in addition to solo singers-the stars- it uses

secondary soloists-choruses-sometime dancers

and non-singing extras all in costumes.

Broadway is only a section (location) in NYC where

most of what we call "Musical Theatre" is produced (hence the term "Broadway Musical").

The theater section presents productions that may

include musicals and dramatic plays.

Most musical are in fact comedies , though some

are serious. Generally, the "broadway musicals" in

contrast to opera, tends to use simpler harmonies,melodies, and structures, it has more

spoken dialogue, and its songs have a narrower pitch range. For Performers in this field acting is their primary skill in contrast to Opera Stars where the singing voice comes first.

I hope this help a little bit to understand the main

difference betwwen the two forms of art.

Answer 3

Opera is...well, you know. Opera-y. Classical. Sometimes written in foreign languages. Most operas contain non-stop music.

Broadway musicals can be many different types of music (jazz, rock, country, etc.) and are a combination of dialogue and music.

I may be wrong. xP

Answer 4

Operas are traditionally written without any spoken lines (that is, everything they say is in song) while Broadway musicals have music AND spoken lines.

There are exceptions on Broadway, like Les Miserables, and they're referred to as "operettas."  They're versions of Opera.

It's the same idea, though; tell a story through music and acting.  One just has more music than anything else.

Answer 5

Probably the only absolutely immutable difference is that opera embraces a "high art" approach to musical drama, while Broadway is aimed at a more general audience, and uses more popular-style music.  Reflecting this distinction, opera singers sing in a classical/art-music style, while Broadway singers sing in a more popular-music style.  There are many differences one could point to, but there are exceptions to almost all of them:

~Both are dramas set to music.

~Opera USUALLY contains mostly singing, generally without unaccompanied spoken dialogue, though there are exceptions on both sides.  "Carmen" and "The Magic Flute" have spoken dialogue.  "Les Miserables" doesn't.  Spoken lines are common in opera, but are usually brief, and they are spoken against the accompanying music.

~Today,  Broadway productions, both singers and orchestra, are amplified, while opera is (generally) not amplified.  But early Broadway musicals were not amplified either, so singers also needed classical training to sing there in those days, in order to project their voices to the entire theater, much as opera singers do.

~The music of operas tends to be more complex than the music of Broadway musicals.  Opera orchestras are also generally much larger than orchestras in Broadway musicals, which are kept small to keep costs down.

~Broadway musicals are actually a descendant of opera.  First came "Operetta" in Europe, which was a lighter style of opera, which used classical-style singing, but had spoken dialogue and lighter, more popular approach to the music.  Operettas were popular in America too, and are still performed--though usually by "light opera" companies or in opera houses.  Eventually, the classical style of singing was replaced by a more popular style of singing, and jazz and other popular music styles were added to produce the Broadway musical.

Hope that helps!