A History of the Musical Intro clip featuring Julie Andrews/Carol Burnett

musical (noun): a stage, television or film production utilizing popular-style songs - dialogue optional - to either tell a story (book musicals) or showcase the talents of the writers and/or performers (revues)

Book musicals have gone by many names: Comic operas -- a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature with some of the text spoken, usually with a happy ending also Opera bouffe or Opera buffa (Italian) Operettas -- Light-hearted musical entertainment containing dance, spoken dialogue, practical jokes, and mistaken identities. Operettas were especially popular in the late 19th century.

Book musicals (cont.) Burlesque -- a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration. In 20th century America, the form became associated with a variety show in which striptease is the chief attraction Burletta -- (Italian, meaning little joke), also sometimes burla or burlettina, is a musical term generally denoting a brief comic Italian (or, later, English) opera.

Book musicals (cont.) Extravaganza Musical comedy a literary or musical work (often musical theatre) characterized by freedom of style and structure and usually containing elements of burlesque, pantomime, music hall and parody sometimes also has elements of cabaret, circus, revue, variety, vaudeville and mime Musical comedy chief form of popular musical theatre in the English- speaking world developed from comic opera and burlesque in London in the late 19th century and reached its most durable form in the 1920s and 30s, particularly in the USA.

Revues Vaudeville Music Halls theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada early 1880s until the early 1930s made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill Music Halls British theatrical entertainment popular between 1850 and 1960. variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and specialty acts.

Revues (cont.) Minstrel Shows American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface.

Middle Ages Europe 12th and 13th centuries traveling minstrels and roving troupes of performers that offered popular songs and slapstick comedy 12th and 13th centuries religious dramas, such as The Play of Herod and The Play of Daniel Intended as liturgical teaching tools set to church chants, these plays developed into an autonomous form of musical theatre.

Renaissance Commedia dell'arte, an Italian tradition where raucous clown characters improvised their way through familiar stories. Clowns included Harlequin, Pulcinella and Scaramouche (personas that became basic elements in Western stage comedy for centuries to come).

1700s Two forms of musical theater were common in Britain, France and Germany Ballad operas like John Gay's The Beggars Opera (1728) that borrowed popular songs of the day and rewrote the lyrics Comic operas, with original scores and mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe's The Bohemian Girl (1845).  

American Musical Flora Burlesque The first musical production in the Colonies February 8, 1735 A ballad opera imported from England. Burlesque Became popular after the Colonies had become a nation (1776) Included parodies of famous plays, performers or dancers--in song, dance, pantomime and dialogue.

The Black Crook Prototype of modern “book musical” – was an extravaganza Produced in New York in 1866 (toured, total of 474 performances) The most successful theatrical production in America up to that time Written by Americans Included elements identifying American musical comedy: chorus girls, ornate production numbers, elaborate costuming, songs provocative with sexual innuendos, large dance numbers etc.

1865-1900 American stage was flooded with foreign operettas (i.e. Gilbert & Sullivan) American composers and librettists imitated this style The first successful American-written operetta--Willard Spencer's The Little Tycoon in 1886

The Pirates of Penzance (1879) Gilbert and Sullivan Partnership of librettist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). Collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896 The Mikado (1885) H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) Chipmunks