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Operetta and the waltz
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Genre
Operetta and the waltz · The operetta was light, comic music theatre with spoken dialogue, dances and songs to sing along to. Jacques Offenbach opened his own little theatre in Paris in 1855 and in 1858 had a success with Orphée aux enfers, a caricature of the gods with a wild cancan. In Vienna the waltz king Johann Strauss II wrote Die Fledermaus in 1874, and in 1905 Franz Lehár made a worldwide success with Die lustige Witwe. In this way the operetta became a forerunner of the musical.
Listening
Listening tip. Listen to how the galop from Orphée aux enfers races along at a furious tempo in two beats: this is the music of the cancan.
Orphée aux enfers: Galop infernal (Marc Minkowski) · Jacques Offenbach, 1858
Die Fledermaus: Ouvertüre (Wiener Philharmoniker, Carlos Kleiber) · Johann Strauss II, 1874
Die lustige Witwe: Vilja-Lied (Renée Fleming) · Franz Lehár, 1905
See also
- Bel canto and Italian opera
- Romanticism
- Tin Pan Alley
- Chanson
- Golden Age: symphonic Hollywood and leitmotif
Categories: Genres