1880–85; < German, equivalent to sing ( en ) to sing + Spiel play
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Written at the end of Mozart’s life as a popular entertainment, its a singspiel, or sung play.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2026
“Fidelio” being a singspiel, the dialogue is spoken rather than sung recitative.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2022
This was especially true in a seminal 2010 recording of “Die Zauberflöte” and a recent one of “Die Entführung aus dem Serail,” which are both in the German singspiel genre, full of vivacious dialogue.
From New York Times ● Aug. 12, 2016
With “The Magic Flute,” Mozart elevated the singspiel — a German-language form blending spoken dialogue, music and comic elements — to extraordinary heights.
From New York Times ● Apr. 13, 2016
Native dramatic tastes, once fostered by minnesingers and strolling players, were kept alive by the "singspiel," or song-play, composed of spoken dialogue and popular song, which furnished the actual beginnings of German national music drama.
From For Every Music Lover A Series of Practical Essays on Music by Moore, Aubertine Woodward
In the Teatro di San Carlo, Mozart’s opera Singspiel in three acts, “The Abduction From the Seraglio,” will depict a timeless love story.
From New York Times ● Sep. 6, 2017
It's a Singspiel, a comic opera with spoken dialogue, but the humor was about 200 years out of date.
From Slate ● Apr. 10, 2012
The memory which has stayed with me most vividly is of the moment that Singspiel entered Ascot's leafy old paddock before the 1997 King George.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 30, 2010
He's owned a string of former champions of the Dubai World Cup including Street Cry, Singspiel and Dubai Millennium.
From BBC ● Mar. 26, 2010
The dimensions of the Metropolitan Opera House forbade the intimacy which operas founded on the German Singspiel demand for appreciation, and spoken dialogue, especially in a foreign tongue, was painfully destructive of artistic illusion.
From Chapters of Opera Being historical and critical observations and records concerning the lyric drama in New York from its earliest days down to the present time by Krehbiel, Henry Edward
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
