A sung-through (also through-sung) stage musical, musical film, opera, or other work of performance art is one in which songs entirely or almost entirely replace any spoken dialogue. Conversations, speeches, and musings are communicated musically, for example through a combination of recitative, aria, and arioso. Early versions of this include the Italian genre of opera buffa, a light-hearted form of opera that gained prominence in the 1750s.[1][2]
A through-sung opera or other form of narrative work with continuous music may also be described as through-composed.
- ^ Richard Taruskin, (2009 ). Music in the Nineteenth Century: The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press
- ^ Lotte Eilskov Jensen, Joseph Theodoor Leerssen, Marita Mathijsen (eds). 2010. Free Access to the Past: Romanticism, Cultural Heritage and the Nation. Brill. p. 236.