ballad opera? - (10 points)?

Question

i am taking a theater class at school and i have what is called a "ballad opera assignment", in which i have to rewrite the lyrics to a modern popular song. i missed the lecture on ballad operas (which is what this assignment is based on), so could someone explain ballad operas to me and possibly how to approach this assignment, that would be great.

Answer 1

I hope this helps.

Think of a Ballad Opera as a musical only instead of writing new music for it you use existing popular songs and rewrite the words to fit your musical.

What makes it an "opera" is that it's almost completely sung where a musical will have mostly dialog with songs thrown in.

If you know Weird Al songs, listen to "The Saga Begins" it's his parody of Star Wars using the song American Pie is kinda sorta what you would want to do if you were shooting for a comedy. If you're political, try listening to something from the Capitol Steps. If you want something older try Alan Sherman. All of these took a popular song and changed the words to tell a different story.

Most songs that tell stories (a good definition of a ballad) are good for this type of rewriting of lyrics. Rap is a natural for this, it's very conversational to begin with.

another component you will need is to incorporate the feel of conversation into the song, either the character talking to the audience or characters talking among themselves.

My approach would be to think of a story you would like to tell, define your characters and what they're like. Then start looking for the songs.

Also, picking a song(s) that everyone knows is key to this form of entertainment. The parody and play on words makes it very enjoyable even if the story sucks.

Answer 2

The ballad opera was developed in the Restoration and early 18th C in England, the most famous of which was The Beggar's Opera by John Gay later to be adapted into The Three Penny Opera by Brecht and Piscator. It is more like the modern musical in that it has dialogue scenes with songs interspersed--your assignment is a mystery to me--perhaps it asks you to take the music from a popular song and write lyrics that describe a character, situation or plot develpment of a story.