a diverting opera with spoken dialogue and a happy ending.
the tradition or genre of such operas.
First recorded in 1905–10
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Hemingway once wrote, “And Barcelona. You should see Barcelona. It is all still comic opera… Barcelona makes you laugh.”
From Salon ● Dec. 6, 2025
In "La Fille du Regiment," Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti's comic opera, the Canadian-American actress plays the Duchess of Krakenthorp, who reluctantly marries off her son.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2025
Before he signed off the stage, he sang his version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” a signature tune from their comic opera “The Pirates of Penzance.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 12, 2023
The answer is simple: It’s time for this country to create a comic opera company of its own.
From New York Times ● Dec. 23, 2022
Like Schubert, they appealed to their audience not through comic opera, Rossini-style, but by providing bitter-sweet, mostly tender reflections on love, art and life that were instandy enjoyable.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
That office was a comic-opera patronage swamp, and Mr. Cooney set a land-speed recording for draining it.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2017
In the blinding light of day, the mass of rock flattens into two dimensions, like a cardboard cutout on a comic-opera set.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 6, 2016
One day, several comic-opera officials from the Italian border police boarded our Centovalli Railway train high in the mountains to check passports.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 12, 2015
"I had to pinch myself several times during her visit to be sure I wasn't dreaming the comic-opera story she unfolded," he wrote.
From Seattle Times ● May 30, 2010
Like many red hunts of the day, the Tenney hearing had a Gilbert and Sullivan comic-opera flavor.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
