What is the difference between an opera and a musical?
A musical is a play where both spoken dialogue and singing/songs are used to further the story along. Traditionally, most musicals are comical, though there are many that have serious themes. Musicals are a much newer idea than opera, and are generally much more light-hearted and humorous Opera, however, uses nothing but singing to convey the story. The script is flowing and poetic, just as lyrics to a song. When listening to opera, there will be full company songs, but any dialogue that would normally be spoken by one character at a time is sung. Today there are many operas written in English and many great operas have been translated to English to widen the prospective audiences. However, the beginnings of opera date back to the ancient Greeks, and the beginnings of modern opera happened in Europe before English was prominent, so most great operas are traditionally in foreign languages. Operas are usually very dramatic and, while offering bits of comic relief, have rather serious sto
