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music drama

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noun
  1. an opera having more or less continuous musical and dramatic activity without arias, recitatives, or ensembles.
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Compare number opera.

Origin of music drama

First recorded in 1875–80
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for music drama

Historical Examples

  • The influence of Wagner and the music-drama is distinctly to be felt.

    Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8)

    Various

  • Within him the sap of the future music-drama was beginning to rise.

    Wagner as I Knew Him

    Ferdinand Christian Wilhelm Praeger

  • Music-drama in a prologue and three acts, words and music by Richard Wagner.

  • This is the first milestone on the road from opera to music-drama.

  • Music-drama in three acts, words and music by Richard Wagner.

British Dictionary definitions for music drama

music drama

noun
  1. an opera in which the musical and dramatic elements are of equal importance and strongly interfused
  2. the genre of such operas
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Word Origin

C19: translation of German Musikdrama, coined by Wagner to describe his later operas
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012