melodrama

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melodrama. Dramatic comp., or part of play or opera, in which words are recited to a mus. commentary. Popularized late in 18th cent. Where one or two actors are involved, ‘monodrama’ or ‘duodrama’ is term used. J. A. Benda's Ariadne auf Naxos (1774) and Medea (1775) are early examples. Mozart used melodramatic monologues in Zaide (1780). Fibich wrote a trilogy Hippodamia (1888–91). Famous operatic examples occur in the dungeon scene of Fidelio, the Wolf's Glen in Der Freischütz, Gertrude's aria in Marschner's Hans Heiling, the Empress in Act III of Die Frau ohne Schatten, and in Peter Grimes. Other examples are R. Strauss's Enoch Arden (1898), Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher (1935), Bliss's Morning Heroes (1930), and Vaughan Williams's An Oxford Elegy (1949). The word has also come to mean an over-dramatic play, hence the adjective ‘melodramatic’, but in a musical connotation the orig. meaning is conveyed.

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