Bruce Alan Wilson writes:

>While there are some intermediate forms, as I understand it what makes
>operetta distinct from opera is some combination of the following:
>
>1.  A 'light' plot.

Lehar's "Giuditta" makes Berg's "Lulu" look positively frivolous.
Guerrero's "Martierro" ends like "Peter Grimes" with the fisherman hero
committing suicide by scuppering his boat at sea.

>opera, on the other hand, deals with great Kings & Queens, Gods, Heroes &
>Heroines

Just like "El rey que rabio" (Chapi), "Princess Ida" (based on a Tennyson
poem) "La Belle Helene" and other Offenbach treats - and much of the rest
of the French operetta school to boot!

>2.  A great deal of spoken dialog.  Opera has little or none.

Carmen? Fidelio? The Magic Flute? There's lots of dialogue in the original
versions of all these - though it tends to get cut to the bone because
singers can't do it.  Conversely (no dialogue) we have "Trial by Jury",
"Maruxa" or quite a few 'serious' Broadway musicals.

>3.  Highly melodic music.  The songs should be accessible--preferably
>hummable or whistleable (sp.?) by a person with minimal musical training.

Unlike "Lucia di Lammermoor", "The Marriage of Figaro" or "Turandot"?

>4.  Natural and unaffected vocal technique, as opposed to the highly
>stylized vocal technique often required by opera.

It takes world class, highly trained opera singers to do justice to "Die
Fledermaus" or "Dona Francisquita" - Sullivan also insisted on opera
trained voices (one of the facts that Mike Leigh's entertaining but far
from scrupulously accurate reconstruction in "Topsy-Turvy" embarrassingly
overlooked)

>Singers with minimal formal training--although not minimal talent or
>musicianship--can often sing operetta, while such singers would need
>much additional training to tackle most opera.

Untrue (see above.) We've all been subjected to vocally inadequate
Offenbach, Sullivan and Vives - even in national auditoriums!  This stuff
is hard.  It's true operettas often feature important comedy or spoken
acting roles with lesser vocal needs - but so do Mozart ("Die Entfuhrung")
and Weber in "Die Freischutz" and "Oberon", let alone Stravinsky in
"Oedipus Rex".

>5.  Lack of extremes, both in emotional content and musical qualities.
>(Not extremely loud or soft, not using the extremes of the singers'
>ranges, etc.)

Whispering choruses abound in 19th century zarzuela (as in Rossini) and
Kalman can make nearly as big a noise with his pit orchestra as Wagner!
Have you never been blown away by the 1st Act finale of "The Yeomen of the
Guard"? If you need emotional extremes, try most of the zarzuela repertoire
(e.g.  "Las golondrinas", a bloody verismo tragedy).

Adele's laughing song in "Die Fledermaus" is famously stratospheric, and
many great roles exploit the full range of singers' voices in all the great
sub-opera traditions.  A leading English soprano told me that she used
Sullivan in the same way as she used Mozart - as ideal, stretching but
understanding food for the voice.

>6.  Operetta does not take itself seriously; opera does.

What do you mean by "seriously"? Musically, Offenbach, J.  Strauss,
Sullivan and Sorozabal took their work extremely seriously (whatever
Sullivan's public line might have been).

Dramatically, zarzuela at least can be far more serious (as oppose to
sententious) than opera:  the best texts in the Spanish repertoire are an
easy match for anything short of Lorenzo da Ponte.  The great dramatist
Calderon invented the genre, and quite a few classic zarzuela texts have
near-Shakespearean lightness, variety and depth.

Again, I've yet to find a 19th century Italian opera text with half the
intrinsic literary interest of anything Gilbert did in his sleep:  and as
for political/social intensity, zarzuela is often in a different league
from opera - upwards!

>The next question is "Where does one draw the line between operetta and
>musical comedy?"

Once again, I fear the best thing is not to even try.  Because that line,
as Pablo Massa cynically observes, only exists in the minds of snobbish
opera house bosses of the Old School!

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"