"Comic opera" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... natural qualifications and much industry, has for many years been the most useful actor on our boards. His grave old gentlemen are far above mediocrity, and although nearly sixty years of age, he appears to much advantage occasionally in comic opera; being the only man in the company, with the exception of Mr. Twaits, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... composer (say, of the name of Jimson) might very well suffer, like Hogarth's musician before him, from the disturbances of London. He might very well be pressed for time to finish an opera—say the comic opera Orange Pekoe—Orange Pekoe, music by Jimson—'this young maestro, one of the most promising of our recent English school'—vigorous entrance of the drums, etc.—the whole character of Jimson and his music arose in bulk before the mind of Gideon. What ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... his two attempts at the serious drama, he had tried to turn to account his musical faculty by writing both the book and the score of a comic opera, which had, however, been rejected by the Comedie-Italienne (the predecessor of the present Opera Comique). After a while Beaumarchais cut out his music and worked over his plot into a five-act comedy in prose, 'The Barber of Seville.' It was produced by the Theatre Francais in 1775, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Ladies Triumph, a Comic Opera; presented at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, by ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... and learned the manager had written a libretto of a comic opera which he called "The Devil on two Sticks," and was looking for some one to compose the music. In one place there was to be a tempest at sea, and Haydn was asked how he would represent that. As he had never seen the sea, he was at a loss how to express it. The manager said he himself ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... he laughed silently now as he saw Kingsley approaching; the situation was so beautifully invented. It did not seem quite like a thing in real life. In any other country than Egypt it would have been comic opera—Foulik Pasha and his men so egregiously important; Kingsley so overwhelmed by the duty that lay before him; the woman in a whimsically embarrassing position with the odds, the laugh, against her, yet little likely to take the obvious view of things and so make possible a commonplace ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... having won "le prix de solfege" at the Marseille Conservatoire, and her talent having come to the ears of Mr. Plunkett, the director of the Palais Royal, he engaged her for the Palais Royal in Paris, where she created the part of La Chaste Suzanne, by Paul Ferrier. Giving up comic opera for comedy, Jane Hading went to the Gymnase, where she created the part of Claire de Beaulieu in "Le Maitre de Forges." London had the opportunity of seeing her in that and "Prince Zilah," by ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... money, while M. Zola (adaptable Bacchanal!) surrenders his brain to the intoxication of his latest theme. He will drench himself with ecclesiology, or veterinary surgery, or railway technicalities—everything by turns and everything long; but, like the gentleman in the comic opera, he "never mixes." Of late he almost ceased to add even a ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... employers raised it to as much as fifty louis. For the first of the Discourses the publisher gave him nothing, and for the second he had to extract his fee penny by penny, and after long waiting. His comic opera, the Village Soothsayer, was a greater success; it brought him the round sum of two hundred louis from the court, and some five and twenty more from the bookseller, and so, he says, "the interlude, which cost me five or six weeks of work, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... surprised eyes, which he kept intently fixed upon the detective's face, as though seeking inspiration for speech from that source. The other man, Backlos, was a tall, hawk-featured man with a sweeping black moustache, who needed only gaudy habiliments to make him the ideal pirate king of the comic opera stage. It was ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... of Buchan says that Smith had no ear for music, but there are few things he seems to have nevertheless enjoyed better than the opera, both serious and comic. He thought the "sprightly airs" of the comic opera, though a more "temperate joy" than "the scenes of the common comedy," were still a "most delicious" one.'[177] "They do not make us laugh so loud, but they make us smile more frequently." And he held the strongest opinion that music was always on virtue's side, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... dear Hal!" He had set himself to complete his collection of Watts's Literary Souvenirs—"I have the whole eleven volumes now——" And he had been a guest at two charming house-parties in the country, and at one of them had been given the full responsibility of rehearsing a comic opera in the late eighteenth-century style. "Amateurs, of course. But I was so bent on realizing the flavour of the period, that I'm indeed afraid that I did not draw a clear enough line between the deliciously robust and ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... was certainly very Bohemian. My prince incognito, was he perhaps the Prince of Pilsen? While this happy mingling was going forward I sat somewhat aloof, disconcerted that my cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces were thus crumbling into comic opera. But now my comrade approached me, aglow with social excitement, and, with a franker look in his eyes than he had before shown, addressed me: "Mein lieber Herr Professor, we have had a good ramble together and talked about many things. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... throughout that long day. It is a constant puzzle, why in this life so many things that are at first merely disagreeable are allowed to make so great a noise and to continue for so long a time that they become almost unbearable. It is a question that often confronts one at a comic opera, always in the near neighbourhood of a gramophone, but never with such persistent irritation as when undergoing a bombardment from high explosive shell. Nothing is more trying to the nerves, for and from it there is no escape. This war has been ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... into Frankie, which he disliked. Then other names were suggested, and, after listening to this one and that one, Field finally said: "You can christen her whatever you please, but I shall call her Trotty." "Pinney" was named from the comic opera "Pinafore," which was in vogue at the time he was born; and "Daisy" got his name from the song, popular when he was born: "Oh ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... very prosperous and clean comic opera gypsies, Mrs. Nesbit," said Hippy Wingate, who had come up just in time to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... any friends any longer, Mariano," said the countess bitterly. "The Prime-Minister is a fool who forgets his old friendships now that he is head of the government. I who have seen him sighing around me like a comic opera tenor, making love to me (yes, I tell the truth to you) and ready to commit suicide because I scorned his vulgarity and foolishness! This afternoon, the same old story; lots of holding my hand, lots ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the habit of excepting, it sounds as though they were hiccoughing. "Overruled"; "I except"; "Allowed"; "I except"; "Denied"; "I except"; "Granted"; "I except." It becomes a custom as constant as the refrain in a comic opera. ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... as many pleasant ways as they would permit. The theatre continued to be her delight, as well as her school of life, and a box-party followed nearly every dinner. She was like a child in the catholicity of her appetite, for she devoured Shakespearian bread, Ibsen roasts, and comic opera cream-puffs with almost equal gusto—and mentally thrived upon the mixture. To the outsider she seemed one of the most fortunate ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Bookkeeper for a Gravel-Roofing Concern, I have always believed I could Write," replied Adolph Botts. "About four years ago I began to prepare the Book for a Comic Opera. A Friend of mine who works in a Hat Store was to Compose the Music. I think he has more ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... I want to write a serio-comic opera, a new sort of thing, and it struck me you were just cut out for that kind of singing. You have the face and the—you know—the refinement; sort of thing not easy to find. It's a poor chance, I'm afraid, ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... be," Roddy pointed out, "that every comic opera had one act on a tropical island. Then some fellow discovered Holland, and now all comic operas run to blonde girls in patched breeches and wooden shoes, and the back drops are 'Rotterdam, Amsterdam, any damn place at all.' But this town combines both the ancient ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... pernicious. The managers strive to come just as near the line as possible without flagrantly breaking the law. There never have been costumes worn on a stage of this city, either in a theatre, hall, or 'dive,' so improper as those that clothe some of the chorus in recent comic opera productions." He says in regard to the female performers: "It is not a question whether they can sing, but just how little they will consent to wear." Mr. Bandmann, who has been twenty-nine years on the stage, and before almost all nationalities, says: "I unhesitatingly ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... twelve years afterward—that is, till 1786—that English Opera resumed its sway. "Love in a Village" was revived, and it was followed by "Inkle and Yarico," an arrangement of Shakespeare's "Tempest," with Purcell's music, "No Song, No Supper," "Macbeth," with Locke's music, McNally's comic opera "Robin Hood," and other works of the same character; in fact, it may safely be said that few, if any, English operas, either with original music or music adapted from the ballad tunes of England, were heard in London without being speedily brought ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Smith-Barry was fighting. They said in effect, "You have given us 3s. in the pound, to which we had no claim; now we want 2s. more, to enable us to smash the landlord combination, of which you are the leader." This occurred in the proceedings of a business deputation, and not in a comic opera. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... a bashful young man hold a strange baby? I expect I furnished—I and the baby—a comic opera, music and all, for the entertainment of the three girls, as they nibbled their cold chicken and pound-cake. For the mother had not been gone over fifteen seconds when that confounded young one began to cry. I ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... seen Billie's eyes kindle hundreds of times. "This is your very own villa and this is your staff of domestics," he added, indicating the regiment of servants who again bowed low like the chorus in a comic opera. "You are to regard yourself as queen of this little realm," he went on, pointing to the charming grounds and garden surrounding the house, "and you are to be in absolute command. Nellie and Nannie ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... savour a little too much of comic opera. You have mistaken your country and—us. There are three of us, and if you force us to fight—well, we shall fight. The advantage of numbers is with you, I admit. For the rest, if you succeed to-night you will be ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... week Lester went on the road with his comic opera company; the Grahame Wests sailed to England, Letty Chamberlain and the other "Gee Gees," as Travers called the Gayety Girls, departed for Chicago, and Travers and Van ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... graver character than usually associated with comic opera is naturally afforded by Mr. HAYDYN COFFIN. Miss PHYLLIS BROUGHTON is introduced not only to sing but to dance, and performs the latter accomplishment with a grace not to be surpassed, and only to be equalled by Miss KATE VAUGHAN. Mr. ASHLEY, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... reverted, a relic of a bygone age, and he was supremely contemptuous of the miserable fin de siecle church showmen who to draw fashionable audiences did not fear to offer the attraction of cavatinas and waltzes rendered on the cathedral organ by manufacturers of profane music, by ballet mongers and comic opera-wrights. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... neighbourhood. She came bravely enough to the showy entrance way, with the polished and begilded lobby, set with framed pictures out of the current attraction, leading up to the quiet box-office, but she could get no further. A noted comic opera comedian was holding forth that week, and the air of distinction and prosperity overawed her. She could not imagine that there would be anything in such a lofty sphere for her. She almost trembled at the audacity which might have carried her ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... of fighting the little countries, in the picturesque southeastern section, whose soldiers have been depicted as "comic opera" soldiers, had rent Turkey; Greece had captured the famous Macedonian city of Salonica, once known as Thessalonica, where was located the church in which was addressed St. Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians; while the Servians had captured Monastir, one of the most important centers ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... productions with great pomp and luxury. Whatever is best in England finds an early rendering in the great cities, and for serious work the general standard is as high as in Paris or in London. The Princess Theatre in Melbourne has given renditions of comic opera which are not unfairly to be compared, for dressing, mise-en-scene and artistic finish to those of the Savoy. The general taste is for jollity, bright colour, cheerful music. Comedy runs broader than it does at home and some of the most excellent artists have learned a touch of buffoonery. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... a flock of girls, victims of the Chimera, walking with a nimble, a prancing step, with music scores under their arms, on the way to the maestro's; slender, light-haired English misses, who want to become prima donnas of comic opera; fair-skinned, buxom Russian parishnas who greet their acquaintances with the sweeping bow of a dramatic soprano; Spanish senoritas of bold faces and free manners, preparing for stage careers as Bizet's cigarette-girl—frivolous, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... She evidently didn't understand, and when I asked her to show us her rooms, she handed us over to a negro as degingande as herself. While we looked at them I heard her sit down to the piano in the drawing-room; she began to sing an air from a comic opera. I began to fear we had gone quite astray; I didn't know in what house we could be, and was only reassured by seeing a Bible in every room. When we came down our musical hostess expressed no hope that the rooms had pleased us, and seemed quite indifferent to our taking ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... know about the performance of Berlioz's comic Opera "Beatrice and Benedict" in Baden, and I venture to say that this Opera, which demands but little outside aids, and borrows its subject from a well-known Shakespeare play, will meet with a favorable reception. Berlin, or any ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... think, be no question that a large number of European people have formed their estimate of Japanese women either from a visit to a comic opera such as "The Geisha," or from a perusal of a book like Pierre Loti's fascinating work, "Madame Chrysantheme." This is in effect the story of a liaison between a man and a Japanese girl of the lower classes, with, of course, a large amount of local colouring, and rendered ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... not. It is a discussion taking place at a theatre. It is no more drama than a music-hall entertainment, or a comic opera, or a cinematograph, or a hospital operation, all of which things take place in theatres. But surely it is more entertaining to come to a discussion charmingly mounted by Ricketts—discussion too, in which every one knows what he is going to say—than to flaccid plays in which the ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... replied, as she swept in with an air that would have done credit to the star in a comic opera. "I'd hate to crack or even crease the enamel on my face. I've been steamed and frozen, beaten ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... Let this "Comic Opera," for so is it described in the bills, be cut down as ruthlessly, but not as blindly, as William cut down Crosstree; let something catching be substituted for most of the music of the First Act,—specially omitting the "Why, certainly!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... knew he had gone too far when his mother spoke like that. He ceased abruptly and dashed into the house, as if to cut himself off from temptation to transgress further. The next moment they heard him whistling a comic opera air ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... line 20. The Lady of the Manor. Here Lamb's memory, I fancy, betrayed him. This play (a comic opera by William Kenrick) was not performed at Drury Lane or Covent Garden in the period mentioned. Lamb's pen probably meant to write "The Lord of the Manor," General Burgoyne's opera, with music by William ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... a certain manager who had lost a great deal of money in comic opera. Frohman said to him that he heard that there was much money in the comic-opera end ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... We have no merchant marine to develop these hardy sailors who once made our flag the glory of the sea. We have a little navy, commanded chiefly by political pets who couldn't sail a catboat into New York harbor without getting aground or falling overboard. We have an army, about the size of a comic opera company, officered largely by society swells who cannot even play good poker, are powerful only on dress parade. We have a few militia companies, scattered from Sunrise to Lake Chance, composed chiefly of boys and commanded by home-made colonels, who couldn't hit a flock o' barns with a howitzer ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... strange one—as strange as if taken from a comic opera. The fishing-sloop rocking on the long swell, the dog cowed and uncertain, one deaf man doubtingly flashing the lantern in the face of Bart Hodge, and the other swaying unsteadily on his feet, as if he contemplated making a blind rush at Merriwell. In less than a minute Inza reappeared ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... startling events happen, to do something, without any very distinct idea of what is to be done. But even that suspicion wronged Malcolmson. Either he or some one else had devised an effective counterplot; effective considered as a second act in a comic opera. Perhaps I ought not to say comic opera. There is a certain reasonableness in the schemes of every comic opera. Our affairs in the early part of 1914 were moving through an atmosphere like that of "Alice in Wonderland." The Government was a sort of Duchess, affecting to ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... the opening song in a very charming comic opera I once committed. But it was too good for the present frivolous age, and so I have to perform ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... surprising if it was in consequence of disgust and disappointment that Sullivan turned his thoughts to lighter things. By doing so he has filled his purse, he has delighted a large public that cannot appreciate serious music, and he has raised comic opera to a level far above the thin and trivial emanations of foreign ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... about her. What is going to become of the home? I admit there is a more ideal existence where the working woman would find no place; it is in a world that exists only on the comic opera stage. There every picturesque village contains an equal number of ladies and gentlemen nearly all the same height and weight, to all appearance of the same age. Each Jack has his Jill, and does not want ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... he was awful severe. [To VERA] He only allows me comic opera once a week. My wife calls him the Bismarck of ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... his subjects at the same rate as good. When they murmured and threatened rebellion, he threatened in turn that he would rule them with a rod of iron, as if their actual conditions were not bad enough. Some of his oppressions were of a fantasticality bordering on comic opera: travellers had to give up their provisions at the frontier and eat the official bread of Monaco; ships entering the port were confiscated if they had brought more loaves than sufficed them for their voyage thither; no man might cut his own wood without leave of ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... we spent a gloom-laden quarter of an hour in another cafe—one which owes its fame and most of its American customs to the happy circumstance that in a certain famous comic opera produced a few years ago a certain popular leading man sang a song extolling its fascinations. The man who wrote the song must have had a full-flowered and glamorous imagination, for he could see beauty ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... established the manufactory of porcelain at Sevres, and also added much to the beauty of Paris. He commenced the erection of the Madeleine. Theaters and comic opera-houses were speedily built, and water was distributed over the city by the use ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... university promised its support and a subsidy. Thus arose the civil war of the Fronde, one of the most extraordinary contests in history, whose name is derived from the puerile street fights with slings, of the printers' devils and schoolboys of Paris. The incidents of the war read like scenes in a comic opera. A hundred thousand armed citizens were besieged by eight thousand soldiers. The evolution of a burlesque form of cavalry, called the corps of the Portes Cocheres, formed by a conscription of one horseman for every house with a carriage gate, became the derision of the royal army. They issued ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... was duly performed, and dismissed in the papers as promising, if over-ambitious; the only tangible result was a suggestion from the popular composer, who was a member of his club, that Lancelot should collaborate with him in a comic opera, for the production of which he had facilities. The composer confessed he had a fluent gift of tune, but had no liking for the drudgery of orchestration, and as Lancelot was well up in these tedious technicalities, the two might strike a partnership ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... give you this story in his own words, or any idea of his extraordinary, joyous naturalness, and his air of preposterous good faith—as if he had done the only thing conceivable in the case. It was as convincing as a scene in comic opera. ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... is in the wind, Winifred? Professor Black, who leads the choir in the Linden Street church, is going to get up a comic opera with a cast from the various choirs, and I am invited. We are to go to Northville and give it in the little one-horse theater there. Won't it be gay? We shall astonish the natives of that small town! Have you ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... referred to here is 'Unfortunate Miss Bailey,' by George Colman, and sung by Mr. Mathews in the comic opera of Love Laughs at Locksmiths. It tells the story of a maid who hung herself, while her persecutor took to ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... hopeless political rubbish heap, consisting of a couple of kingdoms, a few grand-duchies, a large number of duchies and hundreds of margravates, principalities, baronies, electorates, free cities and free villages, ruled by the strangest assortment of potentates that was ever seen off the comic opera stage. Frederick the Great had changed this when he created a strong Prussia, but this state had not survived him by ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... man shall be considered innocent until he has been clearly proved guilty. Smarting under a sense of shame which was entirely unmerited, every boy sought eagerly for some object on which to vent his indignation; it became necessary, to use the words of the comic opera, that "a victim should be found," and suspicion fell on Kennedy and Jacobs. The result of Diggory's trap seemed to show that the various thefts had been committed at night. It was agreed that the two occupants of the "Main-top" had special ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... middle of November we shall perform here a comic opera, "The Barber of Baghdad," founded on a tale from the "Arabian Nights," words and music by Cornelius. The music is full of wit and humour, and moves with remarkable self-possession in the aristrocratic region of art. I expect a very ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... The face and head-dress, suggestive of the free, roving life of the plains, rose above a gown which was only suited to comic opera. Clearly, Pocahontas had made a mistake when she arranged ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... father, soon perceived the value of his son's talents; and, determined to turn them to account, encouraged his natural inclination to song-writing. At the age of sixteen Theodore wrote a kind of comic opera, to which his father supplied the music. This was called 'The Soldier's Return.' It was followed by others, and young Hook, not yet out of his teens, managed to keep a Drury Lane audience alive, as well as himself and family. It must be remembered, however, that Liston and Matthews could make ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... change seemed almost audible; and simultaneously she heard her husband's careless step in the long glazed passage, half conservatory, half corridor, which led from her domain to his. He came in, softly humming an air from a comic opera, and then paused, peering into the darkness for an instant before he distinguished his wife's shape in dusky relief against the pale ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... perfect bower of painted and gilded and moulded conceits. The second ground of this immediate impression of scenic extravagance, almost as if the curtain rose for him to the first act of some small and expensively mounted comic opera, was that she hadn't, after all, awaited him in fond singleness, but had again just a trifle inconsiderately exposed him to the drawback of having to reckon, for whatever design he might amiably entertain, ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... himself, was always expressed with equal generosity. In a company of critics, who discovered that there were faults in Mozart's operas, Haydn, when appealed to, replied—"All I know is, that Mozart is the greatest composer now existing." When applied to in 1787, to write a comic opera, Haydn thought a new subject, or libretto, would be necessary, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Munich, after composing a comic opera in the Italian style, "La Finta Giardiniera," which had a great success, young Mozart, who had been very shabbily treated by Archbishop Hieronymus—of whose spiteful conduct we shall hear more hereafter—the successor of Sigismund, determined to resign ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... Biffi; a French melodrama, "L'Enfant Prodigue," by Morange about 1810; a German piece of similar character by Joseph Drechsler in Vienna in 1820. Pierre Gaveaux, who composed "Leonore, ou l'Amour Conjugal," which provided Beethoven with his "Fidelio," brought out a comic opera on the subject of the Prodigal Son in 1811, and Berton, who had also dipped into Old Testament story in an oratorio, entitled "Absalon," illustrated the parable in a ballet. The most recent settings of the theme are also ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... was about to fire his musket, he felt not the slightest hatred for the Garibaldians, individually or collectively. They were extremely picturesque in the landscape, with their flaming shirts and theatrical hats. They looked very much as though they had come out of a scene in a comic opera, and it seemed a pity to destroy anything that relieved the dismal grayness of the November day. As he stood there he felt much more like the artist he was, than like a soldier, and he felt a ludicrously strong desire to step aside and seat himself upon a stone wall ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... blow, as those great characters in the hands of Garrick! but I forgot I am writing to the man himself. The devil take (as he will) these transports of enthusiasm! Apropos, the whole city of Paris is bewitched with the comic opera, and if it was not for the affair of the Jesuits, which takes up one half of our talk, the comic opera would have it all. It is a tragical nuisance in all companies as it is, and was it not for some sudden starts and dashes of Shandeism, which now and then either break the thread, or entangle it ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... before the Assembly as a breach of privilege. The House refused to hear witnesses on Kielly's behalf, treated the charge as proved, and demanded that he should apologize at the bar of the House. Kielly refused, adding that Kent was a liar and a coward. Then followed an interlude of comic opera. Kielly was committed, whereupon Mr Justice Lilly granted a writ of habeas corpus. This was not to be borne by the imperious Assembly, and the Speaker promptly issued his warrant for the re-arrest of Kielly, the arrest of the High Sheriff, and of Judge Lilly. ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... careful," Aiken said as he reseated himself. "Of course, the whole thing is a comic opera, but if they suspect you are working against them, they're just as likely as not to make it a tragedy, with you in the star part. Now I'll explain how I got into this, and I can assure you it wasn't through any love of liberty with ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... himself what a peculiar state of affairs had come upon the stage—here, with an ambush lying in wait before him, this man could step blithely along, swinging his aluminum bucket and softly warbling one of the most recent hits from a comic opera—Jack had himself heard the song on the boards of a great metropolitan theatre in New York—had even caught himself whistling the catchy air more than a ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... Treasury has no guarantee that this money is well spent; on the contrary, it knows from the Reports of the Commissioners themselves that a great deal of it is very badly spent. The business is a comic opera, but it has a tragic significance for Ireland. Primary education is so bad that a great number of the pupils are absolutely unfit to receive the expensive and excellent technical instruction organized by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... wishes of his friend, and after a few days he brought him the text for the small opera Irato. With the same alacrity did Mehul sit down to the task of composing, and when the work was done, Marsollier went to the committee of the comic opera to tell them he had just received from Italy a score whose music was so extraordinary that he was fully convinced of its success, and had therefore been to the trouble, notwithstanding the weakness and foolishness of the libretto, to translate the text into French. The committee tried the score, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... an island near Venice, and thence called Buranello; d. 1785; a distinguished composer, whose operas, about fifty in number, and mostly comic, were at one time the most popular in Italy; Galuppi is regarded as the father of the Italian comic opera. ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... on: 'Perhaps he'll turn out to be a Lionel Monckton or a Paul Rubens. Perhaps he'll write comic opera revues or ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... or the like. We came out here, pitched on the Star and Garter (they call it Somebody's pavilion), found the place a bed of lilacs and nightingales (first time I ever heard one), and also of a bird called the piasseur, cheerfulest of sylvan creatures, an ideal comic opera in itself. "Come along, what fun, here's Pan in the next glade at picnic, and this-yer's Arcadia, and it's awful fun, and I've had a glass, I will not deny, but not to see it on me," that is his meaning as near as I can gather. Well, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a student of law at Leipzig he studied music under Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1741 he went to Berlin, where he studied musical composition. He was soon generally recognized as one of the most skilful organists of his time; and in 1751, as the result of a comic opera, Il Filosofo convinto in amore, performed at Potsdam, he was made court composer to Frederick the Great. He died in Berlin on the 1st of December 1774. In 1759, on the death of Karl Heinrich Graun, he was appointed conductor of the royal orchestra. Besides several operas of merit, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Offenbach's works, there is no need to dwell on his indebtedness to MM. Meilhac and Halevy, or to point out how important a thing the quality of the opera-book is to the composer of the score. These earlier librettos were admirably made: they are models of what a comic opera-book should be. I cannot well imagine a better bit of work of its kind than the Belle Helene or the Grande Duchesse. Tried by the triple test of plot, characters and dialogue, they are nowhere wanting. Since MM. Meilhac and Halevy have ceased writing for M. Offenbach ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... Maidenhead Thicket and Henley, we met a drove of oxen. The comic opera of the "Padlock" was then in high celebrity, and our facetious little friend a second time disconcerted me by saying, in the words of Don Diego, "I don't like oxen, I wish they had been a flock of sheep!" I now began to discover the variety of unpleasant sensations which, even undesignedly, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... World in the Moon, a Dramatic, Comic Opera; performed at the Theatre in Dorset-Garden, by his Majesty's ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... tell you, man," said Frye, "it's going to be the greatest success of the year. I am the only man who has ever put grand-opera effects into comic opera with success. Just listen to the chords of this opening chorus." And so he inspired the singer with some of his own spirit. They went to work with a will. Silas might have been reluctant as he felt the strain upon him grow, but that he had ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... in April of the previous year (1847) that Roger went to a concert, where he records how he heard a comic opera called The Alcove, by Offenbach and Deforges: "A little inexperience, but some charming things. Offenbach is a fellow who will go far if the doors of the Opera Comique are not closed against him: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... "it's a comic opera, and a very good one. I've seen it, and I'm sure you girls will enjoy it. I'll order seats for that. Be sure to be home for luncheon promptly at one, so you can get ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... with green squares, and statues, and modern houses (one of them so modern as to be employing a vacuum cleaner, which throbbed and panted in the garden as I passed); and the old mediaeval Nymwegen, gathered about one of the most charming market places in all Holland—a scene for comic opera. The Dutch way of chequering the shutters in blue and yellow (as at Middelburg) or in red and black, or red and white, is here practised to perfection. The very beautiful weigh-house has red and black shutters; the gateway which leads to the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... (Falstaff), in VERDI's new comic Opera is amplified and enlarged," writes a special Correspondent to The Standard, "from the Falstaff of the other plays (besides the Merry Wives) in which he takes a part." "Takes a part!" Good Heavens! Falstaff "amplified and enlarged" will be something more than a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... yet Poppy had a soft spot in her heart for this aristocratic bruiser and bravo. His constancy to Dot Parris was really touching. With a dog-like faithfulness and docility, this otherwise most turbulent of his sex had followed the object of his affections from music-hall to comic opera, from comic opera to the high places of legitimate drama. And Dot meanwhile remained serenely invulnerable, tricking and mocking her high-born heavy-weight lover, telling him cheerfully she really had no use for him, though his intentions were strictly ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... the girls in their pajamas. Grace had secured an extra green jersey sweater. Madaline was garbed in the lavender cape Cleo had discarded when she climbed through the window, while Mary stood like a statue, in her clinging white, with Cleo beside her, looking as if she had stepped out of a comic opera in her blue bird pajamas. But the audience ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... to Thackeray, one of its greatest masters of letters—who happily did not get the chance he sought in parliamentary life to fall—both English history and American history are full of illustrations to this effect. Except in the comic opera of French politics the poet, the artist, invested with power, seems to lose his efficiency in the ratio of his genius; the literary gift, instead of aiding, actually antagonizing the aptitude ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... departure for a week: I had to spend this disagreeable time in a miserable ship's tavern. Thrown on my own resources I tried, amongst other things, to read Till Eulenspiegel, and this popular book first gave me the idea of a real German comic opera. Long afterwards, when I was composing the words for my Junger Siegfried, I remember having many vivid recollections of this melancholy sojourn in Travemunde and my reading of Till Eulenspiegel. After a voyage of four days we at last reached ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... to the fire. The British soldiers lined up when they saw them coming, and gave them three rousing cheers, while one of the Tommies solemnly swept the road before them with a broom. As my chauffeur "Rad" said, "It was just like a scene from a blinking comic opera." ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... dull. The Philharmonic Concerts were excellent for scientific musicians, and I sometimes went to them; but for my part I infinitely preferred hearing Pasta, Malibran, and Grisi, who have left the most vivid impression on my mind, although so different from each other. Somerville enjoyed a comic opera exceedingly, and so did I; and at that time Lablache was in the height of his fame. When Somerville and I made the tour in Italy already mentioned, we visited Catalani (then Madame Valabreque) in a villa ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... grand opera, not for comic opera even," replied Mrs. Brindley. "But you will sing, and sing well, in one or ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... side of the divide, a hat appeared over the bend of the other side. She could not mistake the high peak of that comic opera sombrero. Ashton was almost back to the ranch. Her first thought was that he had gone part way, and given up the trip. The big sombrero bobbed up and down in an odd manner. She guessed the cause even before Ashton's head and body appeared, rising and falling rhythmically. She stared as ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... thin & they were in their old box for the first time this season, & that is so high up, no one found them out, but she saw Frank Primrose [11] at a distance. The Opera is new done up and beautiful. Catalani [12] is very good in the Comic Opera, & there is a new dancer who is a scholar of Parisides, and dances delightfully. Kelly's room [13] is no longer open, therefore, the only ways out are the great and chair doors. However, one good has arisen—the large room has ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Josephine Sabel's father and mother saw her on the stage she was in the chorus of a comic opera company and was wearing tights. Mother ran out of the theater and Father tried to climb up over the footlights to get at Josephine and ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... or grand French opera, the opera buffa or Italian comic opera, the theatre Feydeau or French comic opera, and the theatre Francais, chiefly engage my attention. Yesterday evening I went to the last-mentioned theatre purposely to see Mademoiselle CONTAT, who played in both pieces. The ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... lover. The King was highly amused with these plays, and was present at every performance. Caillot, a celebrated actor, who had long quitted the stage, and Dazincourt, both of acknowledged good character, were selected to give lessons, the first in comic opera, of which the easier sorts were preferred, and the second in comedy. The office of hearer of rehearsals, prompter, and stage manager was given to my father-in-law. The Duc de Fronsac, first gentleman of the chamber, was much hurt at this. He thought himself ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... cold comfort, but he had not expected more, and he strolled away in sheer vacuity of heart and thought to the principal theatre of the city, where just then a bright comic opera was running. The lights, the gay music, the brilliantly-dressed crowd upon the stage, made no impression on his mind, and his saturnine and gloomy face was in such contrast to the loud hilarity of the audience that he felt himself a blot upon the house, and at the first fall of the curtain withdrew ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... cannot be developed with due clearness. Hence in the Italian opera buffa, the action is altogether neglected; and along with its grotesque caricatures, it is distinguished for uniform situations, which admit not of dramatic progress. But the comic opera of the French, although from the space occupied by the music it is unsusceptible of any very perfect dramatic development, is still calculated to produce a considerable stage effect, and speaks pleasingly to the imagination. The poets have not here been prevented ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... appearances remain in his foul score [i.e. rough copy] of a mind disturbed, if not diseased. There are more passages, and even whole pages, cancelled in this score, than in any one of all his former operas." Serse, it must be explained, is a comic opera, and the only comic opera that Handel ever wrote. What induced him to attempt this style it is difficult to conceive. It is of course true that the failure of Handel's earlier operas was largely due to the success of The Beggar's Opera (1728), and of other ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... thought of something—of any description whatever—asks them in turn, "What is my thought like?" Not having the faintest idea what the thought is they reply at random. One may say, "Like a dog"; another, "Like a saucepan"; a third, "Like a wet day"; a fourth, "Like a comic opera." After collecting all the answers the player announces what the thought was, and then goes along the row again calling upon the players to explain why it is like the thing named by them. The merit of the game lies in these explanations. Thus, perhaps ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... forward, and, after thanking the audience heartily for the magnificent attendance and generous support, announced that on Saturday evening he would have great pleasure in presenting, providing negotiations in contemplation were perfected, for their consideration, the melodious and tuneful grand comic opera, "Pinafore," in the presentation of which the company would be reinforced by several valuable additions, who were expected to arrive early on Saturday from the ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... regular tourist's excursion to see Jannina after its capture. Nora concealed from her friend the fact that the editor of the Daylight particularly wished her to see a battle so that she might write an article on actual warfare from a woman's point of view. With her name as a queen of comic opera, such an article from her pen would be ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... musical accompaniment of comedy lend it a strong flavor of the opera bouffe and even of the musical comedy of to-day. In Part II we shall draw numerous other parallels between this style of composition and the plays of Plautus. West, in A.J.P. VIII. 33, notes one of the few comparisons to "comic opera" that we have seen. Fay, in the Introduction to his ed. of the Most. (Sec. 11), likens Plautine drama to "an opera of the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... of the violins shook his head, however. He had been there twenty years, and he had never before heard of such singing in comic opera. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... whose make-up was a very delicate matter, were dressing at the school. They had gone as Gypsies—not comic opera Gypsies, but real Gypsies, dirty and ragged and patched. (They had daily dusted the room with their costumes for a week before the fete.) Patty wore one brown stocking and one black, with a conspicuous hole in the right calf. Conny's toes protruded from one shoe, ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... I was no good. That is true, but still I was not exactly a comic opera villain. I had led an easy-going reckless life, taking what invited me of pleasure, deploring and sometimes bitterly regretting consequences. In one thing alone, except my painting, was I serious, and that was something which lay hidden if not ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... experience in Jeypore seemed even more like a scene from a comic opera,—only the curtain is never lowered in this most spectacular city in India, if not in the ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... in Heligoland in 1857, and studied for the East Indian civil service, but came to Boston and opened a studio, studied art, and then suddenly abandoned it for the stage. Curiously enough, he began with small parts in comic opera, and a few years later, made one of the funniest Kokos who ever appeared in "The Mikado." But he soon changed to straight drama, and the first great success of his career was as Baron Chevrial in "A Parisian Romance," ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... long-sustained, ear-splitting blasts like the bellowing of calves in a slaughter-house. In the midst of the throng of cruel guards marched some tall, well-built girls, with painted cheeks, and in costumes copied from the Turkish maidens of comic opera. They carried water jugs to show they were the Biblical women from Samaria. From their mothers they had borrowed earrings and breast-pins. Their plump legs were ostentatiously exposed in open-work stockings under ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Another celebrated name of these minstrels was Adam de la Halle, of Arras in Picardy—1240-1286. Upon many accounts the music of this author is of considerable interest to us. He was a good natural melodist, as the examples in Coussemaker's "Adam de la Halle" show. He is also the author of the earliest comic opera of which we have any account, the play of "Robin and Marion." We shall speak of this later, in connection with the development of opera ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... up a letter that had been lying in her lap and ran over its contents again. It was a letter from the manager of a comic opera offering her a place with a large traveling company of the season. The salary was a very large figure, and the prospect held out by the manager was flattering. He had heard Rachel sing that Sunday morning when the stranger had interrupted the service. He had been much ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... there were two very good theatres, at one of which I saw Mr. Barrie's Little Mary given better than in New York (that was easy), and at the other a comic opera, with a bit of comedy or tragedy in a stage-box, not announced in the bills. The audience was otherwise decorous enough to be composed of Welsh Baptist elders and their visiting friends, but in this box there were two young men in ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... premature establishment of civil administration. Scores of nobodies before the rebellion became somebodies during the four or five years of social turmoil. Some of them influenced the final issue, others were mere show-figures, really not more important than the beau sabreur in comic opera. Yet one and all claimed compensation for laying aside their weapons, and in changing the play from anarchy to civil life these actors had to be included in the new cast to ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... if he were taking part in a comic opera, and enjoyed the scene immensely. But now his attention was distracted by the stewards bringing in steaming platters of macaroni and stewed mutton, from which they first served the Duchessa, and then the Duke, and afterward the guests. The servants waited hungry-eyed until these formalities ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... of the Theatre Feydeau in 1798, was very beautiful in "Les Peruviens," a comic opera by Mongenod, produced with very indifferent success. [The ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... thousand dollars for Hank's gilding last year. Not that I grudged him the money, but it wasn't doing him any good. He was making a monkey of himself with it, Henry was. A good bit of that hundred and eighty went into a comic opera company that was one of the worst I ever did see. Henry had no judgment. He was too easy. Well, along this summer he was on the point of making a break that would—well, I says to him, says I, 'Hank, I'm no penny-squeezer; I like good stretchy legs myself,' I says; 'I like ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... was the tame ending which actually came about—namely, the High Commissioner's intervention coupled with President Kruger's moderation and wisdom in allowing England to punish her own irregular soldiers. The more one heard of the whole affair, the more it seemed to resemble a scene out of a comic opera. The only people at Johannesburg who had derived any advantage from the confusion were several hitherto unknown military commanders, who had proudly acquired the title of Colonel, and had promptly named a body of horse after themselves. During the days before the final fiasco ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... old-time concert-hall when she was a sweet young thing in her teens. One of her naughty stunts was kickin' her slipper into an upper box, and gettin' it tossed back with a mash note in it, or maybe a twenty-dollar bill. Then she'd graduated into comic opera. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... came to Philadelphia to give a reading in Camden in conjunction with George W. Cable. It chanced that his friend, Francis Wilson, was opening that same evening in Philadelphia in a new comic opera which Field had not seen. He immediately refused to give his reading, and insisted upon going to the theatre. The combined efforts of his manager, Wilson, Mr. Cable, and his friends finally persuaded him to keep his ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... a comic opera, held something tragic for Honora, and opened the flood-gates to dizzy sensations which she did not understand. How little Peter, who drummed on the table to the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... win him success and recognition. With Eldridge Gaylor it had been different. He thought of no man's pleasant looks or ways, though even upon the corrugated iron of his nature, a woman's beauty had had influence, and he had married Carmen off the comic opera stage, in the City of Mexico, where he had gone to see a great bullfight ten years ago. When he had brought her home to his famous ranch, willing for a while to be her slave and give her everything she wanted, she had found ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... write to his father: "The people are daft over my opera." Here, at the very outset, Mozart's humor, the golden one of all the gifts with which Mother Nature had endowed him, was called into play. With this work German comic opera took its beginning. As has been remarked "although it has been imitated, it has never been surpassed in its musically comic effects." The delightfully Falstaffian figure of Osmin, most ingeniously characterized in the music, will create merriment for all time, and the opera acquires a new, personal ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... strange," observed Gabriella, with philosophic detachment. "Now I couldn't feel the slightest interest in a man in comic opera. Did she ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... though a small one, perhaps, could be given of the tone and temper in which Rossini was likely to encounter both adverse criticism and the adulation of amateur idolatry, than his reply to the Duchess of Canizzaro, one of his most fanatical worshipers, who asked him which he considered his best comic opera; when, with a burst of joyous laughter, he named "Il Matrimonio Secreto," Cimarosa's enchanting chef-d'oeuvre, from which, doubtless, Rossini, after the fashion of great geniuses, had accepted more than one most felicitous suggestion, especially that of the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Dan, "there is a comic opera playing here. This afternoon, Swipes, Shorts and Spuddy took some of the chorus girls to the house, when the other fellows were away. They might have known the officers would have found it out. Sure enough, they did! The little rascals were all drunk on champagne, and the girls ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... other result than making the challenged his friends for life. All this time he had been more or less "about town." In 1811 he married Elizabeth Dyke ("Bessy"), an actress of virtue and beauty, and wrote the very inferior comic opera of "The Blue Stocking." Lord Moira gave the pair a home first in his own house, then at Kegworth near Donington, whence they moved to Ashbourne. Moore was busy now. The politics of "The Two-penny Postbag" are of course sometimes dead enough to us; but sometimes also they are not, and then ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... friend, Sam Shepard, the theatrical manager, Miss Lorna," began Baxter. "He's the man who can get you on the stage. You know I was telling you about him. This is Miss Barton, you've heard about, Sam. Sit down and tell her about your new comic opera that you're casting now." ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball |
