Musical Comedy

MUSICAL COMEDY, a popular form of theatrical enter tainment, developed almost exclusively by the English-speaking peoples.

Clearly it bears little relation to the classical opera buffa of Italy. For that had no spoken dialogue, its place being taken by recitativo secco, a formal and rhetorical delivery of the words, supported by the lightest accompaniment. Mozart's Figaro and Rossini's ll Barbiere are good examples of opera buffa. Nor has musical comedy any real connection with the German Singspiel although in this case spoken dialogue is used instead of recitativo secco. In France the Singspiel developed into opera comique. But the French comic opera was not necessarily comic, • being so called merely to differentiate it from grand opera. But one may look to the vaudeville, which dates its popularity from the time of the French Revolution, as being a more direct ancestor of modern musical comedy. But the vaudeville was written in verse, and musical comedy employs lyrics only for musical setting, the play itself being carried on by spoken dialogue.

A much closer analogy is to be found in the French

opera bouffe, which it may be noted is not to be identified with the Italian opera buffa. In the former, spoken dialogue alternates with light music, and in the play itself there are generally topical or satirical allusions. From the opera bouffe and vaudeville sprang the operetta; at first, as its name implies, a short opera of one act which was employed to lengthen the evening's entertainment. Gilbert and Sullivan practically founded their operas on the operetta and opera bouffe, but, except at first, they cast them into two acts of sufficient length to fill the bill. On its formal side, the English ballad opera may be considered one of the models for musical comedy. The English ballad operas came into being as a protest against the Italian operas of the i8th century. The English works were even composed in the Italian manner, recita tive taking the place of dialogue. But they did not have much success until Gay wrote The Beggar's Opera.

The genre of musical comedy, then, is in direct descent from the opera bouffe and the vaudeville of the French, combined with our own ballad operas, and, as it is known in London and New York, is an expression of a love of boisterous and farcical humour rather than of the high comedy of the operetta. Its humour is broader, more farcical and more eccentric than anything to be found in light French or Viennese opera, and the student will find curious evidence of this in the change which French or Viennese light operas undergo when adapted to the British or American stage as musical comedies. Andre Messager's V eronique, for instance, was first performed in London by a French company (1903) as a light opera. When it was produced, shortly after

wards, in an English version, the comedy part of the florist was developed by Mr. George Graves into that of an eccentric low comedian. The same procedure has been followed in the case of the many Viennese operas by Oscar Straus, Leo Fall, Franz Lehar and others which in more recent years have enjoyed such popularity in England and America. The farce of musical comedy was added, this element being a relic of the old-fashioned Gaiety burlesque. Those burlesques were in themselves more in the nature of what afterwards came to be known as revue in London and New York than of the musical comedy of to-day, with its definite plot and sentimental scenes. But it was from the Gaiety bur lesque that the Gaiety musical comedy developed, with its music written by Lionel Monckton, Howard Talbot, Ivan Caryll and others.

During recent years the popularity of musical comedy of the older kind has been rivalled by that of the more go-as-you-please type of entertainment known as revue. In Paris, where it had its origin, the revue had a special character of social satire and topical interest. As adapted to the requirements of English speaking audiences the revue has been a much more miscellaneous affair, a mere melange of songs, sketches, low comedy, ballets and pageants strung together haphazard, although frequently including a strong infusion of the satirical and topical elements and thus recalling its French ancestry. So far as the London stage was concerned George Grossmith, who had taken such a large part in the Gaiety musical comedies, was the first to adapt the revue from France.

Revues became more and more spectacular, and gradually the best of these entertainments included ballets and pageants of great beauty. In a sense, that type of revue was a throw-back to the masque. With the popularity of revue, "syncopated" or "jazz" music found its way to the stage from the variety halls. From revue it gradually crept into musical comedy, and the long con tinuance of the World War, which automatically put an end to the domination of the Viennese school of musical comedy or light opera, gave this newer musical fashion full scope.

In the United States there is a College Musical Comedy League, founded in 1927 and consisting of various university bodies, one of which, the Hasty Pudding Club, of Harvard university, dates back as far as 1795; others being the Mask and Wig Club of the University of Pennsylvania (1889), the Triangle Club of Prince ton university (1893), the Haresfoot Club of the University of Wisconsin (1898), the Blackfriars of the University of Chicago (1904), and the Mimes of the University of Michigan Union (1906).