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Opera Ballad Popular 18th Musical Dramatic Form Pioneered

Front ballad opera
Back a dramatic form pioneered by John Gay, whose Beggar's Opera was the most popular of the 18th
a combination of farce, pantomime, street literature, delightful lyrics and musical comedy, the ballad opera enjoyed and intense vague and was designed to counteract the modishness of imported Italian opera by offering an entertainment that was British, topical, antiheroic and satirical of contemporary politics.

The ballad opera is a genre of English stage entertainment that originated in the early 18th century, and continued to develop over the following century and later. Like the earlier comédie en vaudeville and the later Singspiel, its distinguishing characteristic is the use of tunes in a popular style (either pre-existing or newly composed) with spoken dialogue. These English plays were 'operas' mainly insofar as they satirized the conventions of the imported opera seria. Music critic Peter Gammond describes the ballad opera as "an important step in the emancipation of both the musical stage and the popular song."[1

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