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• comic opera
  comic opera

  noun

  a diverting opera with spoken dialogue and a happy ending.
• comic-opera
  comic-opera

  adjective

  comically vainglorious; having farcically self-important aspects.

comic opera

¹ American  

noun

1. a diverting opera with spoken dialogue and a happy ending.

2. the tradition or genre of such operas.

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comic-opera ² American  

[kom-ik-op-er-uh, -op-ruh] / ˈkɒm ɪkˈɒp ər ə, -ˈɒp rə /

adjective

1. comically vainglorious; having farcically self-important aspects.

   a comic-opera army, proud in its ceremonial splendor but inept on the battlefield.

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comic opera British  

noun

1. a play largely set to music, employing comic effects or situations See also opéra bouffe opera buffa

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Etymology

Origin of comic opera

First recorded in 1905–10

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

comic opera comic-opera

One conservative critic who heard young Bruch’s comic opera “Scherz, List, und Rache” noted with gratitude that unlike Wagner, Bruch preferred “naturalness and simplicity” to “overpowering material.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

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

He wrote his last complete comic opera for Yaw’s voice, as the lead in “The Rose of Persia.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2024

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

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

A downtown bohemian of humble origins, she was street-savvy, earthy and large, and turned her uptown watering hole into a comic-opera aristocracy of journalists, editors, playwrights, actors, politicians and their moneyed acolytes.

From New York Times ● Dec. 6, 2013

"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

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