All three of these incredibly diverse box-office-breaking musicals were inspired by operas written nearly a century before their Broadway incarnations were penned.
Musical theater, possibly the fastest growing form of live entertainment, has a lot to owe to its fizzling operatic predecessor. With many popular modern musicals being coined “pop operas” or “rock operas” because of their lack of spoken dialogue, the two art forms seem to be drawing nearer to one another. So while opera has previously been discredited as outdated to the modern musical theater lover, it would be wise for students of musical theater to attend an opera and learn its lessons.
Any musical theater performer or patron should attend an opera to appreciate the sheer vocal skill it takes to sing operatically. You can’t help but be impressed with an industry where every voice must be as trained and developed as musical theater superstars like Audra MacDonald and Kristin Chenoweth.
Opera stars can often teach musical theater students about acting as well. While opera performers are commonly accepted as predominantly singers, there are some defining challenges that come with “acting an opera.” For one, performing in a language not understood by the majority of your audience – a common circumstance for operas, which are often performed in Italian, French, or German – requires similar techniques to Shakespearean acting. The performer must have an understanding of the text and make it flow through their body, inflections and expressions so the audience can understand it.
Even when the language barrier isn’t an issue, opera stars have to tell their story without the aid of spoken dialogue. While the operatic stereotype is a larger than life production of sets, costumes and voices, in actuality opera singers are often stripped bare with far less to hide behind than musical theater actors.
While it cannot be denied the opera is substantially separate from musical theater, its techniques and styles deserve to be respected by all advocates of musical theater. The opera is where musicals came from and possibly where they’re headed.
