what differentiates Opera from American Musical Theatre?

>>2216205
that opera requires talent?

>>2216215
are you saying it is vocal technique that differentiates opera from musicals? or are you including instrumentation? i guess musicals aren't as symphonic but i could be wrong.

It's a very blurry line, but the distinctions that most people use are the presence on non-music dialogue (opera has no normal dialogue) and the type of music (most people see opera as classical, while musicals are everything else. Not sure of that is technically correct but that is what most of society thinks).

There are also inbetweens, usually referred to as "Rock Operas," (even if they don't use rock music) that have all their dialogue sung but don't use classical opera methods or use classical opera music.

>>2216231
interesting. i was just reading about the Opera genre of Verismo, which is focused on "common" people and realism rather than normal Opera subjects such as Mythology. I think it is somewhat related to American Musicals in that way, but the music is classical.

Two different styles of the same thing. It's like what asking, what differentiates ballet from tap dancing.

It's the same damn thing, just different technique.

>>2216231
>opera has no normal dialogue
>what is singspiel

>>2216262
I would classify that as its own thing, but still under the banner of Musical Theatre, or whatever you prefer to call it.

If you want to get real technical then we can go into the differences between your average modern musicals, jukebox musicals, rock musicals, classical opera, singspiel, chinese opera, etc., but I kept it simple because it seemed like OP wanted specifics about 2 basic types