A dramatic work, partly in dialogue and partly in song, of a kind popular in Germany in the latter part of the 18th century. It was often comic, had modern characters, and patterned its music on folk song with strictly subordinated accompaniment.
German for 'song-play' a form of opera which evolved in Germany and Austria in the 18th century as an equivalent of the French opéra-comique, and which consisted of self-contained musical numbers connected by spoken dialogue. Important exponents of the genre were Mozart with Die Zauberflöte and Beethoven's Fidelio.
beginning in 1700, "Singspiel" was the German equivalent of the Italian "drama per musica" (drama with music) which included serious and comic opera. Around 1750 the term came to mean comic opera with spoken dialog.
A musical drama, using spoken dialogue and musical numbers.
(ZING-shpeel) (German) — German opera with spoken dialogue and a comic or sentimental plot.
Comic German drama with spoken dialogue; the immediate predecessor of Romantic German opera.
(ZING-shpeel) Early German musical drama, which employed spoken dialogue along with musical numbers; Mozart's THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO and THE MAGIC FLUTE are both examples of this genre, so are Weber's DER FREISCHUTZ and Beethoven's FIDELIO. The singspiel is very similar to English ballad opera or French opéra comique.
("sung play"): German folk or comic opera in which arias, ensembles, and choruses are interspersed with spoken dialogue.
German for "sing play." early German musical drama, which employed spoken dialogue along with musical numbers.
(G.: "Sing-play"). A literal translation of the Italian dramma per musica. Used in the 17th and early 18th centuries to refer both to works sung in their entirety and to those having some spoken dialogue. In the second half of the 18th century its meaning was restricted to the latter type [Grout (1965), 113.