SINGSPIEL

(German: song-play), 18th-century opera in the German language, containing spoken dialogue and usually comic in tone. The earliest Singspiels were light plays whose dialogue was interspersed with popular songs. Resembling the contemporary English ballad opera and the French opra-comique (both of which stimulated its development), the Singspiel rose to great popularity in the late 18th century. Its success was partly caused by a reaction by composers and audiences against the artificial conventions of the then dominant Italian opera. The leading composers of Singspiel included Johann Adam Hiller, Jir Antonn Benda, and Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf. In the hands of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart the Singspiel evolved into a serious and more complete art form in such works as Die Entfhrung aus dem Serail (1782; The Abduction from the Seraglio). From there the Singspiel ultimately gave rise both to German Romantic opera of the 19th century and to popular Viennese operetta.