Re: rock opera

[Alan McKendree <amck@thenetdr.com>]

>Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 12:46:49 -0500
>From: "Scott Schrade" <schrade@akrobiz.com>
>
>  > > a musical is a story where there is singing but there is also 
>dialogue and
>>  > an opera is a story which has NO dialogue and has just singing.   not
>  > > sure if you people were aware of that.
>
>Actually, the guy's correct on the strict definition of "opera" - 
>but we're talk-
>ing about "*rock* operas."  I believe the rules are a little lax when it comes
>to those.  Pete was the first to say, even back in 1969, that TOMMY wasn't
>a true opera.

Once in a while someone will say, as if they know what they're 
talking about, "Actually, Tommy isn't an opera, it's a song cycle." 
m-w.com says a song cycle is "a group of related songs designed to 
form a musical entity " but I don't see how that's different from an 
opera.  And I also don't see anything necessarily *cyclic* about some 
group of songs that "form a musical entity."  So if anyone has any 
information about how a song cycle is different from an opera or the 
origins of the term "song cycle", lay it on me.

Cheers,
-- 
Alan
"That's unbelievable, if that's true."
    --Howard Stern, 5/25/00