In theater and music history, a burletta (Italian, meaning "little joke", sometimes burla or burlettina) is a brief comic opera. In eighteenth-century Italy, a burletta was the comic intermezzo between the acts of an opera seria. The extended work Pergolesi's La serva padrona was also designated a "burletta" at its London premiere in 1758.[1]
In England, the term began to be used, in contrast to burlesque, for works that satirized opera but did not employ musical parody. Burlettas in English began to appear in the 1760s, the earliest identified as such being Midas by Kane O'Hara, first performed privately in 1760 near Belfast, and produced at Covent Garden in 1764. The form became debased when the term burletta began to be used for English comic or ballad operas, as a way of evading the monopoly on "legitimate drama"[2] in London belonging to Covent Garden and Drury Lane. After the passage of the Theatres Act 1843, which repealed crucial regulations of the Licensing Act 1737, use of the term declined.
^A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800: Tibbett to M. West, Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, Edward A. Langhans, SIU Press, 1973, p51
^Meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music ("Definition from the Everything 2 website". Everything2.com. 6 January 2002. Retrieved 20 March 2010.)
history, a burletta (Italian, meaning "little joke", sometimes burla or burlettina) is a brief comic opera. In eighteenth-century Italy, a burletta was the...
(1770). "Midas An English Burletta. As it is Performed at the Theatre-Royal, in Covent-Garden". Midas an English Burletta. As It is Performed at the...
developed in England by the 19th century, such as music hall, melodrama and burletta, which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed...
(Bill Sikes) In 1838 Charles Zachary Barnett's adaptation, the three-act burletta Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress opened at the Marylebone Theatre...
Olympic Revels, or Prometheus and Pandora, a mythological, allegorical burletta in one act, London 1834 Jean-Michel Nectoux, Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life...
continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keene's "musical burletta" The Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York records with a run...
1809 the theatre was licensed for musical entertainments, pantomime, and burletta. She wrote more than fifty stage pieces in an array of genres: melodramas...
suggesting a battle Bergamasca from Bergamo A peasant dance from Bergamo Burletta a little joke A light comic or farcical opera Cabaletta from copola (couplet)...
in the Tavola Ritonda, where she is kidnapped by the knight Burletta of the Desert (Burletta della Diserta) who wants to rape her but she is rescued by...
were not performed until later in the century. In the minor theatres, burletta and melodrama were the most popular. Kotzebue's plays were translated into...
The Recruiting Serjeant is a burletta by composer Charles Dibdin and playwright Isaac Bickerstaff. It premièred on 20 July 1770 at Ranelagh Gardens, London...
(1805-1810), written by Kane O’Hara Esq., adapted from Fielding Squire Badger: A burletta in two acts, Thomas Arne composer and librettist (1772), after Henry Fielding's...
Dibdin Burletta per musica Italian alternative name for burletta Il vero originale (Mayr 1808) Burlettina Italian alternative name for burletta Characterposse...
Juan the following year. Other productions in 1813 included the comic burletta Poor Vulcan, in February 1813, followed by Aladdin, in which he played...
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