Contemporary ties: wedding 20th-century musical theatre to opera using the same source material

An analysis of how opera and musical theatre composers and librettists depict a storyline and character provides great insight into the social, genre, and cultural-specific information necessary to make productions relevant to their audiences. Frequently, the same primary source is set by opera and musical theatre composers alike. This essay fills the gap regarding how opera and musical theatre interpret the same primary source and each show’s relationship to its counterpart, while providing a brief overview of the cultural, musical, and dramatic elements as set by the librettists and composers.

Through the analysis of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and Giacomo Puccini’s La bohéme and Jonathan Larson’s Rent, this document explores how these operas and musicals interpret their sources. The core elements, such as plot, character, and ideals are present within the operas and analogous musical theatre shows, even though character relationships, actual events, and songs may change. Adapting for classical and musical theatre realms often leads to differences in the interpretation due to the expectations of the genre, in addition to, the cultural expectations of the composers’ and librettists’ contemporary audiences.