MELODRAMA

noun formerly, a kind of drama having a musical accompaniment to intensify the effect of certain scenes. now, a drama abounding in romantic sentiment and agonizing situations, with a musical accompaniment only in parts which are especially thrilling or pathetic. in opera, a passage in which the orchestra plays a somewhat descriptive accompaniment, while the actor speaks; as, the melodrama in the gravedigging scene of beethoven's "fidelio".