Opera and singing

The twenty-fifth entry is l’opéra-comique, and it is the one term on this list that an English reader gets wrong precisely by translating it word for word. « Comic opera » names a mood; l’opéra-comique names a construction. The word marks a work in which sung numbers alternate with spoken dialogue, and nothing else: it says how the evening is put together, not how it feels. The repertoire settles the matter. Carmen was written as an opéra-comique and ends with a woman stabbed to death in front of the audience, and it is not the only one of its kind to end at a graveside. The name came from a Paris house, l’Opéra-Comique, which played the works carrying spoken dialogue while the Opéra itself sang everything through; the building gave its name to the form. What the word contrasts with, then, is l’opéra plain and simple, never tragedy. Two habits follow from that. Do not write « comic opera » for it, which promises a laughter the evening may never supply; and expect the singers to talk, because in these works the dialogue is not a bridge between numbers but half of the piece.