![]() Dance sequences? One: Monostatos’ dance with the slaves in Act I.There are plenty of extended dialogue sequences. Of course, there’s plenty of classical vocal style too. His “arias” are strophic ditties written in the style of folk-songs. ![]() The role of Papageno was written for a theatrical comedian/impresario, not an operatic singer. Let’s look at Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute).ĭoes it have more operatic qualifications or musical theatre qualifications? Is Phantom an anomaly? The only piece with kind-of-confusing categorization? Not hardly. So with 3 opera boxes checked off and 3 musical boxes checked off, it might seem kind of opera-ish to some. But it also has some classical vocal styles, and it doesn’t have extended dance sequences, or the lead couple/comic couple structure. Phantom meets a lot of the criteria of a musical: popular vocal styles, popular music instrumentation (synthesizers and trap-set) and spoken dialogue. As we’ll see, there are no hard and fast rules about the qualifications for operas and musicals, but let’s take a look at what “public opinion” generally holds for them side by side: The real answer has much more to do with the complexity of categorizing musical and dramatic forms. So why do we keep on having this conversation that makes us slap our foreheads so hard? The easy answer is “because Phantom fans just don’t know what they’re talking about.” (That’s what my snobbier friends say.) But that’s a serious over-simplification (and un-necessarily disrespectful). To the great disappointment of many, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera is a musical, not an opera.
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