Musical Genres

 BALLAD OPERA

Featured stories in verse that can be sung to popular tunes. Their subject matter was often topical and satirical.

- John Gay: The beggar's Opera (1728)

OPERETTA

A form of Light Opera or Comic opera featuring musical numbers, mostly in a fairly light style to illustrate an amusing, topical or fanciful plot.

- Gilbert and Sullivan - HMS pinafore (1878)

- Gilbert and Sullivan - Pirates of Penzance (1879)

AMERICAN VARIETY SHOWS

Songs interspersed between dances, comic turns, magic acts and so forth, with little in the way of plot to link them.

- The minstrel show

- Vaudeville, Burlesque, Revue

MUSICAL COMEDY

The earliest type of  musical: a light-hearted story forms the showcase for a variety of songs and dances that can seem to interrupt the plot rather than carrying it forwards.

- Vincent Youmans - No, No, Nanette (1925)

- Porter - anything goes (1934)

MUSICAL FILMS

- Irving Berlin - Top Hat (1935)

- George Gershwin - An American in Paris (1951)

CONCEPT MUSICAL

Based more on an idea that a story, with songs that tend to comment on the action rather than carrying it forwards. 

- Stephen Sondheim - Company (1970)

- John Kander/ Fred Ebb/ Bob Fosse - Chicago (1975)

BOOK MUSICAL

The work is devised so that the musical numbers seem to arise naturally out of the action. They serve to develop the characters and carry the story forwards. 

- Richard Rodgers/ Oscar Hammerstein/ Agnes De Mille - Oklahoma! (1943)

- Richard Robbins - Sound of Music (1959)

THE MUSICAL PLAY

- Brecht and Weill - The Threepenny Opera (1928)

- Russell - Blood Brothers (1983)

MUSICALS IN BRITAIN 

- Noel Coward - Bitter Sweet (1929)

- Lionel Bart - Oliver (1960)

THE ROCK MUSICAL/ ROCK OPERA

- Ragni and Rado - Hair (1968)

- Ashman and Menken - Little shop of Horrors (1982)

DISNEY MUSICALS

- Mary Poppins (1964)

- Beauty and the Beast (1991)

COMPILATION/ JUKEBOX MUSICALS 

Previously released songs linked by a slender plot

- Singing in the Rain (1952)

- Mamma Mia (1999)

MUSICALS BASED ON FILMS AND TV SHOWS

- Annie (1977)

- 42nd Street (1980)