''Melodramma'' (plural: ''melodrammi'') is a 17th-century Italian term for a text to be set as an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...

, or the opera itself. In the 19th century, it was used in a much narrower sense by English writers to discuss developments in the early Italian libretto, e.g., ''

Rigoletto ''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play ''Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had cont ...

'' and ''

Un ballo in maschera ''Un ballo in maschera'' ''(A Masked Ball)'' is an 1859 opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The text, by Antonio Somma, was based on Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's 1833 five act opera, '' Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué''. Th ...

''. Characteristic are the influence of French bourgeois drama, female instead of male protagonists, and the practice of opening the action with a chorus. It should not be confused with Melodrama (spelt with a single rather than a double m) in the sense either of Victorian stage melodrama (drama of exaggerated intensity) or of spoken declamation accompanied by background music (in Italian, ''melologo'').Budden, Julian: ''Melodramma'' in 'The

New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

', ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1992)

References

{{Opera terms Opera terminology Italian words and phrases